2-12: "Oh, Pioneers" 2007.08.26 - Big Love - TWoP Forums (last) p35:

-Bill, on the other hand, is essentially a hustler. He's always working an angle, playing chicken with two people at once hoping to jump out of the way at the last minute so his adversaries will destroy each other. Take away the three homes, business wardrobe, and Lincoln fetish, and you've got that throwaway kid determined to make the people who exiled him sorry. Hustlers are interesting.
-Bill and Roman: Why'd you run me off? Didn't want you around. I was just a boy. But look at you now.
-Last year we didn't know who outed Barb, this year's cliffhanger is how will Roman beat the Feds.
-My money is still on Roman to come out on top in the power war with Alby. But it would be nice if he had a few more allies, not just Bill and Joey. You know, somebody from Juniper Creek, not just the Church of Stupid. Plus.

p33-34
-I know that polygamy has been practiced here and there for thousands of years, but has The Principle - the idea that a man can only get into the highest heaven if he has at least three wives and a woman only if she's married to a man qualified to bring her there - actually been practiced that long?
-Shelshka the short answer to your question is "no". As far as I understand "The Principal", it's unique to Mormon beliefs as opposed to the practice of polygamy.
-Those who practice the Principle believe that Joseph Smith had a divine revelation explaining that Exaltation (the highest level) had always been available to some but that the modern world of the 19th century had turned away from "righteousness" and that in order to repopulate the world with "righteous souls" those seeking Exaltation should now have at least 3 wives.

-Something I wondered about - Ana seems a bit too old to be a "new and shiny" wife for Bill. Not old in my world, just Bill's. I looked up Branka Katic on imdb.com; she's 37. That's also a bit past peak fertility. I think she was an odd choice for the role.
-IMO Katic was an ideal choice for the role because Ana was never meant to be Margene: Part Deux. Ana is a woman who is starting over, a woman old enough to have had a whole other life half a world away. Furthermore, I don't think Bill's attraction to Ana was purely physical, although she obviously melts his butter. I got the feeling he was also drawn to her sly wit, intelligence, and nurturing disposition. If Margene is his naughty girl, Nicki his good girl, and Barb the girl he can actually talk to, then Ana might be the hat trick. cool. what does that mean? As for the fertility issue, it's not over 'til it's over.
Also, perhaps Bill's attraction to a somewhat age-appropriate woman is just another way to differentiate him from the kind of polygamists who exploit underage girls.

-I like to point out that Scarlett was sixteen years old when she first caught Rhett’s eye. When people realize that, it often creeps them out a bit, but it doesn’t make them suddenly redefine Rhett Butler as a pedophile.
-Scarlett was 16 when Rhett saw her (with "breasts well-developed for her 16 years"), 16 when she married wimpy Charles Hamilton, 17 when she had her first kid (not in the movie), 20ish when she married wimpy Frank Kennedy, and something like 22 when Rhett finally got her. She was 28 when he walked out.

-Ana could bring some things to this family ...as another wife or even just as Margene's friend....that a younger and more conventional character couldn't. Her foreignness, independence, education, fluency in languages, and worldliness are lacking with everybody else in the BL universe. I'm interested to see how she'll fit or not in this strange world.
Ana is proof that Europe exists.