Records offer glimpse into polygamist families

updated 9:11 p.m. ET May 8, 2008

SAN ANTONIO - Hand-scrawled bishop's records taken from a polygamist sect are helping untangle the spider-web network of family relationships at the Yearning For Zion ranch, where some husbands had more than a dozen wives.

The bishop's records offer a peek into an intricate culture in which men related to the sect's prophet, Warren Jeffs, enjoyed favored-husband status in the distribution of wives and all young women were married by 24.

An Associated Press analysis of the records, which authorities seized in a raid last month, show that by the time a girl reached 16, she was more likely to be married than to live as a child in her father's household. The same was not true for boys.

Ben Bistline, a former member of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints who was raised in the sect, said Jeffs or other church leaders decided who got married and when. Jeffs is imprisoned on an accomplice-to-rape charge in Utah.

"It's just at the whim of the leader," said Bistline, who said successful businessmen who donate heavily to the sect or who are close to the prophet are generally favored. "There's a lot of nepotism involved."

Records released by court officials
The bishop's records, released by court officials last week, include 37 families totaling 507 individuals. At the time the lists were written from March through August of 2007, most of the people were living at the YFZ Ranch, though others were in homes along the Utah-Arizona line.

Two-thirds of listed households were polygamous, with the brothers of Jeffs and a senior elder claiming the most wives, up to 21 in one case.

Men still in their 20s made up most of the dozen monogamous marriages.

The husbands and wives were married in the FLDS, and none is believed to hold Texas marriage licenses.

Of the 19 youths listed as being 16 or 17, none of the boys are husbands, while nine of the girls are listed as wives. Only one 17-year-old girl remained unmarried.

Under Texas law, children under the age of 17 generally cannot consent to sex with an adult.

The young men in monogamous marriages will likely seek additional wives as they age, Bistline said.

"A man has to have at least three wives to get to the highest degree of heaven," he said.

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