The real lives of Latter-day Saint wives

Millions of Latter-day Saint women across 31,490 congregations all over the world live their lives based on teachings of faith in God and Jesus Christ, love and dedication to family. But that is not the story viewers will see if they turn on the new Hulu docuseries “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives.”

It follows a small group of women who purport to maintain their identity as Latter-day Saints while also engaging in extramarital conduct. But when asked about what they thought about the show, Latter-day Saint women said it was not true to their faith and who they are.

“Honestly, I think it’s hurtful,” said Shima Baradaran Baughman, distinguished fellow in religion at BYU’s Wheatley Institute, adding it will “create a sense of doubt among younger women who see beautiful women gain fame through their choices that contradict moral values that are important to people of faith.”

“We’re glorifying something we know is bad for women,” said Baughman. “When women leave faith, it leads to greater depression. It leads to greater loneliness. It leads to all of those horrible outcomes.

The show, premiering Friday, is not an isolated example, she said. Speaking about other portrayals of religious women like “Unorthodox” (which received criticism from Jewish communities ), she said the gist of what is shown on screen “is that these women don’t need organized religion and they are feeling restrained by faith, and that the roles and obligations suggested by their faiths harming them, and stopping them from fulfilling their dreams.”

Mimi Bascom, a Latter-day Saint influencer and podcast host, said when some in the United States think about Latter-day Saint women, they think about Utah women with blond hair and Stanley cups.

“When in reality, we all look so different,” said Bascom, adding she wished she saw portrayals of Latter-day Saint women living in places across the world and with a diversity of life experiences. “Some are staying home with their kids. Some are going into work every day. We live in all different places, we are just like normal women are.”

The truth about Latter-day Saints and religious women

Data can shine a light on the lives Latter-day Saint women really live. Latter-day Saints have a higher marriage rate , lower divorce rate and have more kids than the national average.

In a study looking at Latter-day Saints specifically and drawing on data from the RELATE questionnaire of more than 20,000 couples, highly religious Latter-day Saint couples report greater relationship stability and lower levels of divorce.

Factors like having a stable marriage and kids correlate with higher levels of reported happiness. So does religiosity, according to Pew Research Center . A study that focused on data from 16,474 global respondents and an analysis of 9,566 married men and women, found actively religious couples report higher levels of relationship quality and sexual satisfaction than their secular or less religious counterparts.

“When we look at the broad measures, it’s a really advantageous place for the happiness, flourishing and well-being of women,” said Jenet Erickson, a fellow at the Wheatley Institute, about religious marriages. She said it is especially true in a “neo-traditional structure,” which is “where the husband takes the primary breadwinning role and she takes the primary caregiving role. He’s more involved with children than men were in the past, and she is more involved in professional work than women were in the past.”

As for the rate of infidelity among married church members, family studies BYU professor Dean Busby said , it “is so low, you can barely see it.”

The premise of the show is “just a fundamental misunderstanding of highly religious people. People pursue alternative lifestyles and such, usually after disaffiliation from their religion. ... (It tends not) to be religion that drives them there.”

“(The show) is a classic example among others of misrepresenting religion and people of faith for entertainment purposes, and in reality, that is not what people actually want,” Angela Redding, executive director of the Radiant Foundation of Deseret Management Corp.

Redding said a survey of nearly 10,000 respondents was conducted as part of the Faith and Media Initiative in partnership with Harris X. 63% of respondents said media perpetuated religious stereotypes and 80% said media should make portrayals of religion more accurate.

“What the consumers actually want the entertainment industry to do is number one: foster understanding, dispel stereotypes and write authentic stories about more kinds of people,” said Redding.

Portraying religious people accurately will create unity instead of division, said Redding. She said showing religious women accurately can be an opportunity to elevate women, and getting portrayals of faith communities right can reflect the studies that show how much humanitarian work flows from religious organizations.

Nearly eight million Latter-day Saint women participate in one of the largest and oldest women’s organizations in the world. Known as the Relief Society , the women who comprise this organization live out their faith in Jesus Christ through service and compassion.

Married, never married, widowed and single Latter-day Saint women join together in this organization to build community and sisterhood.

When the Relief Society was organized, the organization’s first president Emma Smith said, “We are going to do something extraordinary ... we expect extraordinary occasions and pressing calls.” Since that 1842 meeting, the Relief Society has concentrated on charitable efforts — to provide relief — worldwide.

“I have seen women elevate one another in the midst of poverty. I have seen women care for, feed and nurture children who are not their own. I have seen women stand to protect others from the ravages of war,” said Relief Society President Camille Johnson in front of the European Union Parliament earlier this year.

The church itself weighed in on such depictions and others like it in a statement released last month.

“The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, like other prominent global faith communities, often finds itself the focus of the attention of the entertainment industry. Some portrayals are fair and accurate, but others resort to stereotypes or gross misrepresentations that are in poor taste and have real-life consequences for people of faith.

“While this is not new, a number of recent productions depict lifestyles and practices blatantly inconsistent with the teachings of the Church. Others irresponsibly mischaracterize the safety and conduct of our volunteer missionaries. We understand the fascination some in the media have with the Church, but regret that portrayals often rely on sensationalism and inaccuracies that do not fairly and fully reflect the lives of our Church members or the sacred beliefs that they hold dear.

“Millions of Church members around the world are deeply dedicated to family, fidelity, service and the gospel of Jesus Christ. We invite all to consult reliable sources of information and listen to the voices and authentic experiences of individuals and families who find great joy and satisfaction in living these principles.

“The true story of our faith is best seen in the countless lives of those who strive daily to follow our Savior Jesus Christ.”

When Bascom thinks of the stories she would like told about Latter-day Saint women, she thinks of her mom.

“She was 19 and missionaries came to her door, and she had this beautiful faith journey where she investigated several different religions and ended up being baptized in the church,” said Bascom, adding her mom soon served a mission of her own.

The word Bascom kept using to describe her mother’s story was “empowering.” She said it runs contrary to the narratives she sees in media about Latter-day Saint women not being independent.

What Liz Busby, co-host of the podcast Pop Culture on the Apricot Tree, said Hollywood gets wrong about Latter-day Saint women is the portrayals of the ward (congregation) and how women members are connected to it.

“When we tell stories of individual people without the ward, we completely miss the story of what it means to be a Latter-day Saint,” said Busby.

“We live in this epidemic of isolation and the fact that there’s this group that has managed to maintain a neighborhood community should be amazing,” she said. “It should be something we want to learn from.”

Busby said in her experience, people in the ward disagree with each other over hot button political issues, but with the connection they fostered from being in the same ward, they eventually apologize and reconcile with each other.

If Busby had to write a screenplay about Latter-day Saint women, she had two concepts. One would be about the Latter-day Saint women who are at the core of the women’s suffrage movement. The other would be about a group of women — single, married, divorced, have children, don’t have children, homeschoolers, executives — and how they feel like they do not belong, but they discover they do.

Emily Miller, a Latter-day Saint writer who lives in Idaho, said she would want to see stories told like that of her aunt Leslie Hancock. Hancock was a stay-at-home mom who entered the workforce so her husband could devote his time to helping people without homes, and women and children in crisis in Seattle.

She would also like to watch stories be told about women who struggle with infertility or childlessness, especially given the Church of Jesus Christ’s focus on family.

“Or what about the story of Jennie Taylor, a mother of seven who lost her husband while he was serving in the military in Afghanistan, and who has done her darnedest to share a message of hope and faith ever since,” asked Miller.

“It would be easy to say I’d like media to show that we’re just normal, but the truth is, we are kinda quirky,” said Miller. “I wish those who are creating media about us would take a look at the things that actually make us unique as a community, rather than zeroing in on situations that are so far outside the norm, even in our own community.”