Bishop's records offer rare look inside polygamist families

Under Texas law, children under the age of 17 generally cannot consent to sex with an adult.

The young men in monogamous marriages will likely seek additional wives as they age, Bistline said.

"A man has to have at least three wives to get to the highest degree of heaven," he said.

After the raid, the state took custody of 464 children belonging to FLDS families, including one born later to a teen mother. Authorities alleged that teenage girls were being systematically abused and forced into underage marriages, while boys were being groomed to become future abusers.

Church officials insist they are being persecuted for their religious beliefs.

FLDS spokesman Rod Parker said the records indicate that many sect members "are either monogamous couples or adult couples, and that incidence of underage marriage is actually not very prevalent."

No criminal charges have been filed, though state authorities continue to investigate.

"Our investigation and prosecution will go where the evidence leads," Jerry Strickland, a spokesman for the attorney general's office, said in an e-mail statement.

As in many states, government-recognized marriage in Texas to more than one person at the same time is a felony. But the law also apparently applies to anyone who "purports to marry" -language used in Utah to target polygamists who marry in religious services but don't get marriage licenses.

Ken Driggs, an Atlanta lawyer who is an expert on the FLDS and the legal history of polygamy, said any prosecution of FLDS members for multiple marriages would be difficult because of the law's vagueness, questions of jurisdiction and the community's refusal to testify in previous instances.