Dawn Porter - The Polygamist's Wife

I love Dawn Porter! In tonight’s episode, she finds herself in the house (and the bed) of a Polygamist. Don’t worry, she didn’t quite go that far with her investigative journalism, but in tonight’s show, Dawn spends some time with a polygamist family in a town in America.

In the midst of a scandal about child abuse within a polygamist community, Dawn finds herself among a group of people who are suddenly suspicious about how they might be perceived by the outside world. Nevertheless, they take the decision to allow Dawn into their lives.

Having seen a few of Dawn’s documentaries, I felt this one wasn’t quite as balanced and impartial as others. For a start, she seemed to go out of her way to find a woman who’d admit to being jealous of sharing her husband. All the other wives Dawn spoke to claimed to have no problem sharing their husband, but Dawn – following her conventional upbringing – had a hunch that there must be some jealousy: “If that was me I’d be thinking ‘She’s in there humping my husband.’

Despite this, she spends time with a couple of families, and seems to bond with them well, despite her misgivings about the polygamous marriages. She seems to appreciate the sense of attachment within the large families.

However, there's little doubt that Dawn finds the whole thing distateful, and more than a little bit weird. And far from having an impartial ending, the documentary ends with some footage of the polygamy/child abuse scandal in Texas.