Washington Times

"Polygamy is one big male excuse" for sex, Mrs. Erickson told The Times, using graphic language.

She grew up in the Latter-day Church of Christ, a polygamous Mormon sect also known as the Kingston family. At age 20, she became the second wife of her older sister's husband; the couple bore eight children together.

"My children and I lived in dire poverty in a two-and-a-half bedroom house," Mrs. Erickson said.

Her husband lived separately from the family, and she was prohibited from disclosing their true relationship to others — including to the couple's own children — so as not to raise the suspicion of the civil authorities.

"My children didn't have a father," Mrs. Erickson said. "They had to grow up with my sister's children calling him 'dad,' while my children could never call him by anything other than his name. My children never had an identity of a father."

"These children have difficulty bonding or relating to others," she said.

Former FLDS member Rena Mackert agrees. Born and raised in the FLDS, her earliest memories are those of being severely beaten and "sexually abused by my father from the time I was three-and-a-half years old."

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