For most of us, what we wear is limited only by our pocketbook and our ability to tastefully arrange its elements. Our choices are often only eclipsed by the reasons we choose to wear what we do: to look pretty, to appear in control, to be taken seriously at work. But for the women of the Texas Polygamists-as they are popularly referred to in the media-what you wear is an indication of your virtue, strength of faith and ultimately your subservience to your husband. "You can modify people's behaviour just by putting them in a certain kind of dress." Oddly enough, my entire career has rested on that very premise. But these words were uttered by Carolyn Jessop, a former spiritual wife of Merrill Jessop, the bishop of the Texas FLDS enclave and the context is quite different. "Its a uniform. You have nothing about you that's individual. You're just part of a whole." She is quoted in the Salt Lake Tribune talking about how the clothing that the FLDS women wear is a matter of mandate. Strictly enforced and coloured- coded by family, even the way a woman wears her her hair is minutely controlled.
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