Behind the Yearning for Zion Gates
PAGE 16
All but one of the 439 children taken from the ranch in the federal raid have returned, but a cloud of suspicion looms over the community due to reports of underage marriages.
Since the raid, FLDS leaders have announced they will not marry followers below the age of consent—which is 16, with parental consent, in Texas. Richard says he thinks no one should marry before 18, but he knows some who have married younger.
Still, Richard says she's never seen any cases of abuse on the ranch. When asked for a definition of abuse, Richard says he can't give an exact one. "Well, it's kind of a very interpretive topic," he says. "We're so careful with children, and our training is to be clean and pure. And to even sit here and discuss that in front of the children, it's really uncomfortable. Because we don't talk about those kinds of things. It's a very individual thing."
One mother of Richard's children says she wanted to be married at 16, but her father wouldn't let her marry until she was almost 19. She says the heavenly father helped choose Richard as her husband and that she married him at her own will.
"The message that I'm getting is there's individual choice and every family is different," Oprah says.
Lisa Ling reports on polygamy in America
Inside the ranch while the children were away
Lisa returns after the raid
Since the raid, FLDS leaders have announced they will not marry followers below the age of consent—which is 16, with parental consent, in Texas. Richard says he thinks no one should marry before 18, but he knows some who have married younger.
Still, Richard says she's never seen any cases of abuse on the ranch. When asked for a definition of abuse, Richard says he can't give an exact one. "Well, it's kind of a very interpretive topic," he says. "We're so careful with children, and our training is to be clean and pure. And to even sit here and discuss that in front of the children, it's really uncomfortable. Because we don't talk about those kinds of things. It's a very individual thing."
One mother of Richard's children says she wanted to be married at 16, but her father wouldn't let her marry until she was almost 19. She says the heavenly father helped choose Richard as her husband and that she married him at her own will.
"The message that I'm getting is there's individual choice and every family is different," Oprah says.
Lisa Ling reports on polygamy in America
Inside the ranch while the children were away
Lisa returns after the raid
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