The Lost Boys of the FLDS
400 to 1,000 Teenage Boys Have Been Abandoned by the Sect
The polygamist group led by Warren Jeffs may have cast out teenage boys to make more women available for marriages to older men.
The FLDS raid media coverage focuses on the women and children of the polygamist sect, but teenagers have been cast out of the sect to allow more older men to marry more of the available women.
These male teenagers, known as the Lost Boys are sometimes taken out and left on a road and told by the person who took them their that they cannot go back to the FLDS settlements where they were raisedand now that they are no longer bound for Heaven.
Why the Lost Boys Become Lost
Statements from the leaders of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints insist that the Lost Boys have been kicked out of the polygamist communities they found themselves in and told that they cannot go back to FLDS communities or get into the highest level of the Celestial Kingdom. FLDS doctrine states that a man must have three wives to enter the highest degree of glory.
The pracitce of plural marriage among the group requires an increasing number of women that usually get married to older men. The age differences between a man and his polygmous wives varies widely, sometimes as much as forty years or more. The Lost Boys are forced to leave the FLDS compunds to make more women available for marriage with more favored members of the polygamist sect.
A spokesman for the group said that the Lost Boys were turned out of their community because they were rebellious. While infringements of the rules may be the case for some of these Lost Boys, the treatment and the shunning can be harsh. The supply of women can be limited in polygamist communities such as those favored by the FLDS. Teenage boys cast out of the polygamist communities of the FLDS often end up in foster care or shelters while their female peers are forced into arranged marriages.
Help for the Lost Boys
The women and younger children caught up in the FLDS get more media attention, while the teenage males left to fend for themselves at direction of the leadership have been largely ignored by the media. It is likely that the young boys are sent away to reduce the competition for plural wives. Smiles for Diversity is a group based in Salt Lake founded by a former Lost Boy dedicated to helping the teenage boys the sect abandoned.
With the focus on what has been done to young women in the FLDS and other Fundamentalist Mormon groups it is easy to overlook other people who have suffered abuse at the hands of the group Warren Jeffs led.
Resources:
“Lost Boys Thrown Out of U.S. Sect so that Older Men May Claim More Wives.” Jill Borger. The Guardian. Tuesday, June 14, 2005.
Help the Child Brides – the Lost Boys
