Warren Jeffs' Church Espousing Polygamy Under the Radar

Warren Jeffs has made news again today with state officials rescuing a busload of children and young women from a secretive religious retreat near Eldorado, Texas, following a tip off from a girl within its compound, according to the AP. Authorities are now questioning the children to glean information about the religious outfit.

The retreat belongs to the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS) which was headed by Jeffs until he renounced the position following charges of sexual misconduct with minors, rape, sodomy, child-marriage, incestuous marriages, fleecing funds, etc. For his alleged crimes, he was on FBI's most wanted list and the Top Ten Most Wanted Fugitives. He was hunted down and arrested in 2006 and since then, he has confessed to many of his crimes, according to Wikipedia.

When he headed FLDS, Warren Jeffs carried on the tradition of FLDS by espousing doctrines of polygamy, home schooling, strict dress codes, etc. As an organization, FLDS is secretive and closed to the outside world but is believed to have a huge influence in Colorado, Arizona, Utah and Texas. Warren Jeffs himself is believed to have more than 10 wives and has performed marriages of men in his community with multiple women. His father who headed the church before him had more than 20 wives.

Many marriages are believed to be arranged, incestuous, forced and underage, according to Wikipedia. With his arrest in 2006, news about suppression and ill-treatment of women came to the fore. Once again, his church has hit the headlines with today's action in Texas.

At a summer project in Utah, my team hired a contractor who belonged to this Church. He said that his faith espoused having multiple wives as a pathway to heaven. He himself had two wives - the women were cousins. They had each mothered two of his children. When I met with his family at a socially gathering, I was amazed to see how well his wives and all four children got along. They made a warm and affectionate family. They lived in a duplex and each wife had one half of it. The idea of sharing a husband seemed completely normal to them.

Apparently the contractor himself was raised in a family of 6 children who were mothered by four of his father's wives. Many men in his community were polygamists, many women married in their teens and many marriages were arranged by the older men or officials from their Church. While many men of his community feared social consequences and kept their family lives a secret, this contractor was never shy to publicize his faith and marital status.

Like other families of his community, he also educated his children at home. His family had unquestioning faith in their Church and claimed that this was typical of their community members. The Church played a pivotal role in their lives - they studied and married as ordained by their Church officials. Women did not go to work as mandated by their Church. The Church even laid rules about their attire, forbade women from using makeup and did not grant them a say in most matters pertaining to their lives.

Despite my earnest efforts to highlight the liberty children and women have in the modern society, he and his family did not see teen marriages or forced wedlock as a violation of women's rights. They did not see negating normal education privileges or formal schooling as a violation of their children's rights. They insisted that they were happy with their lives and had no short-comings except for the disgrace the mainstream society was subjecting their community to.

They did admit that a small percentage of families in their community had domestic problems - some women were abused and suppressed and some teens were unhappy in their marriages. But they were adamant that this proportion was not any higher than that in the mainstream society.

No matter how they portray being a happy family in a rosy community, one cannot overlook the fact that these men and women have been indoctrinated into believing that such a lifestyle is the only correct way. They have never had a global exposure. They have never been given an opportunity to taste the freedom of choosing a lifestyle for themselves, so much so that they do not even know what they are missing.

And the secretive nature of such a society makes it a haven for crimes and abuses of children and women as we are seeing in today's news from Texas.