The information has families like the Wylers talking about some of polygamy’s best-kept secrets. Who would have guessed, for instance, that Wendell Nielsen, a high-ranking sect official with family here, had 21 wives in Texas, too? Or that he has 35 children on top of those here?

As law enforcement officials from Utah and Arizona prepare for what they expect to be a capacity crowd town-hall-style meeting on polygamy on Thursday  planned north of here in St. George, Utah, before the Texas raid but now proceeding with an added urgency  polygamist gossip is only one of the many consequences of the raid that they are encountering.

Rumors of an imminent Texas-style police crackdown  the authorities say none is contemplated  are among the new constants of life here, the historic heartland of the F.L.D.S. Some polygamists, who had considered moving to Texas, are putting down roots again here, even cooperating with the authorities. Others are speaking out publicly, trying to distinguish their forms of plural marriage (no under-age brides) from what the authorities say was practiced by the sect in Texas.

“Polygamy is not the problem,” said Marlyne Hammon, who belongs to a group called The Work of Jesus Christ, which practices polygamy in a town just a few miles from here. Ms. Hammon, of Centennial Park, Ariz., said child brides had no place in her group’s faith or practice. “This is about human error, not polygamy,” she said.

Fierce winds of change  from national political attitudes about polygamy to new economic stress and even down to the personal decisions about where to live in a post-Eldorado world  are buffeting the polygamist faithful.