As long as there were no marriage licenses taken out for the marriages then it was, from a legal point of view, not bigamy, not polygamy, but only mass fornication. I haven't heard of anything being done by the law, in Texas, about fornication in some years.

The only other issue is "statutory rape" because of the ages of some of the girls. The "age of consent" is something arbitrary which varies, in the U.S., from eighteen all the way down to twelve. In some countries it is even lower or non-existent.

Is it really worth causing THE CHILDREN AND THE MOTHERS all of this grief just because of the controlling behaviour of a few men? Perhaps throwing them in jail and confiscating their assets would be one just solution, but how much would these assets be worth in contrast to the support obligations which they have incurred? How could they be productive enough, in jail, to support their extended families?

IMHO the damage done by interfering in this situation in this way far exceeds the good. Instead, thse men could be fined and warned that they will be imprisoned if they take any additional "wives" or advocate doing so. Another solution could be to legalize limited polygamy, as is done in some other countries. This would automatically solve the problem for some of these families as well as a lot of others!