In recent years, Order weddings have become even more atypical: After David and Daniel, two of the highest ranking elders in the Order, went to prison for incest and rape—they are married to several of their own nieces, half-sisters, and cousins, some of whom were underage at the time of the weddings—the protocol changed. "They started taking the bride and the groom and whomever was going to marry them... into a separate room, after they walked down the aisle, so that no one can witness their wedding," Julianna explains. "Then people can't legally say that they saw the couple get married—and it's usually women that are underage, and it's an older guy, and they're related."
The underage brides, though, are nothing new. When Julianna was 15 years old, she dreamt that she should marry her then 19-year-old nephew, Jacob Kingston, the son of her half-brother, Order figurehead John Daniel Kingston. Because their religion—a fundamentalist interpretation of traditional Mormonism—believes that prophecies from God can come to you in your sleep, as they did to the original Mormon prophet Joseph Smith, members of the Order place special significance on the literal interpretation of dreams. [...]
"The men can dance with whomever they want, but not with a married woman they're not married to," she continues. "And if a girl is married, she's not going to dance with anyone except her husband, or maybe her dad or brother. But the married men can pretty much dance with any of the single women."
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