Behind the Yearning for Zion Gates

When it comes to dating, the girls say it is allowed, but it isn't something they are interested in. "I think when you get married it's the start of a relationship, to start going forward in a new era," one girl says. "Before then, if you do everything that you are supposed to do after you get married, you'll stand up and say 'I did,' instead of 'I do.'"

Marriage, the girls say, means to move forward. They say to be married implies that you will come together as husband and wife with the intention to bear children. One girl says when she gets married she will respect her husband, but she won't necessarily be in love with him right away. "I'll respect his standards and what he lives for," she says. "As far as loving him, I'd probably want to know him a little first."

The girls say they decide who they will marry with the help of their parents. "We work with them. ... We don't know everybody," one girl says. If their parents want them to marry someone they don't want to marry, the girls say their parents can't make them. They insist they haven't heard of an instance in which any girl was forced to marry someone she didn't want to.

If they could tell the outside world anything, they say they want people to know they're happy. "We don't get forced into anything," one girl says.