• 'Religious education' may be an aspect of child abuse

One core FLDS belief is that polygamy not only should be allowed, but is essential in order to achieve greater status within the church and in the afterlife, where a person's holiness is based largely on the number of offspring he produces. The Mormon church bowed to public pressure and officially abandoned polygamy about 1890.In the FLDS, female children in their early teens are turned over to older men to join their stable of wives. The choice of husband is determined by church elders, all of them male. Once "married," they are the husband's property, subject to his total authority. They are bred like cattle in order to increase his herd of children.