(Agencies)
Updated: 2007-09-15 06:01

Obedience was paramount to Jeffs and his deputies because: "They were as God on Earth and would lead us to the Celestial Kingdom."

Those who disobeyed could be ostracized from their family and friends or exiled from the community, she said.

Although polygamy is illegal in the United States, an estimated 37,000 people in western states subscribe to it. The law is rarely enforced because local authorities say prosecuting so-called "plural" marriages is impractical.

Jeffs is not charged with polygamy and defense attorneys are expected to argue he is being persecuted for his religious beliefs.

Defense attorney Tara Isaacson, making her opening statement, questioned what really happened within the relationship and Jeff's knowledge of it.

"Was she really raped? That's the core question," Isaacson told the jury. "What did Warren Jeffs have to do with what was going on in the bedroom? Did he even know she was forced to have sex?"

The FLDS believes its prophet's power comes directly from God and marriages are arranged after a "revelation" by him. Women wear the long braids and dresses worn a century ago by the area's pioneers and are instructed to "keep sweet."

Family trees are tangled by intermarriage with unions between cousins or between young women and older men common. Most of the sect's 7,500 members live in an isolated desert enclave at the Utah-Arizona border.

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