My thing was not really so much them thinking masturbation was a sin or birth control, but they followed the law of taking the brothers wife religiously up until after the wild west days.

There is a series on HBO called Dead Wood, were the sheriff in the town struggled with this law since he was really in love with another women. I guess I should do some more research to find out when it actually stopped and why.

Far as having several wives go's, though there were some in the bible who did, not everyone practiced it.
"To me" if it were really something God "wanted",then Adam would have had 2 or more and Noah would have,since I could see more the necessity for that then, than now needing to populate the world and all,not that I have a problem with it though. I'd have to research it to see but maybe this family did not practice having more than one wife, I don't think it was that common or more denominations would agree, that is what the bible condones,though I do know it is practiced in the bible, at least one I can think of off the top of my head.

One of our favorite series on HBO is Big Love, this portrays the prophet on the show as the bad guy though, but its still a great show, the main guy has three wifes and they live outside the compound in three seperate houses side by side that share a back yard,but the prophet always fights to control everyones wealth and this guy stands alone,even though one of his wives is the prophets daughter.

Well my kids are up, gotta go see what Santa brought.