God has a perfect plan in place for imperfect people. "After two years, when I was around 19, I started having serious doubts about religion because I got old enough to start thinking for myself. "If you were ever going to have sex you had to be married, that was a very taboo thing, to be sexually active. That is arranged rape. After finding out the news just three weeks into her adolescent marriage that she would give birth to her first child, Matt, Shavaun, just sixteen at the time, says she struggling to cope emotionally. The children of such marriages could only be baptized once they turned 18, and to do so they needed to move out of the household and disavow same-sex cohabitation and marriage. NC "I understood early on that non-religious people didn't relate, so I lived a dual life and there were a lot of secrets that we kept about the faith, we even used coded language.". Mormons are firmly against abortion, because “parenthood gives us a foretaste of godhood.” They also prohibit having children outside of marriage and believe only married homes can provide the appropriate atmosphere to raise children. "The Sun", "Sun", "Sun Online" are registered trademarks or trade names of News Group Newspapers Limited. "It took me an extra ten years to catch up because I missed that part of my life. Polygamy and Mormonism are inseparably entwined. "I felt a lot of inner shame because although I knew getting out of it had been the right thing, I still felt that I had sinned and I was a bad person. Shavaun describes the mix of excitement and nerves she felt on her wedding day despite her parent's concerns but it wasn't long before married life started to change for the mom-of-three. "What I wanted wasn't important and what he wanted was important. "People carry the trauma for the rest of their lives. "There wasn't much of a reason to go to college because we weren't going to be here long enough. "My husband was never sexually abusive but sometimes they can be. Mormon sexuality can be a difficult and fraught subject. In the western United States, there are at least 30,000 people involved in the practice of Mormon-based … "I prayed to God that he would help me through the labour, I was convinced he would help me but instead, it was hellish 24-hour labour. Our journalists strive for accuracy but on occasion we make mistakes. But making love is an important part of married life. In Mormon groups that accept underage marriages, marriage licenses are easy to obtain. "There are so many ways that young women are exploited. Mormons believe a woman's primary role is to have children. One of the most offensive aspects of Mormon-based polygamy is the rampant practice of taking underage girls as polygamous wives. Then all of a sudden you get married and it's this very positive thing," Willoghby told host Nancy Redd. Shavaun, who was married with three children by the age of  23, recalls how she felt trapped in her marriage to an abusive partner who was unable to cope with her becoming an adult after marrying her as a child. In Shavaun's church, it was not uncommon for girls to marry at a young age, and she says it was often encouraged when girls became sexually active. The mom-of-three, now living in Oregan, has spoken out to condemn what she describes as 'archaic and medieval' legislation, overriding rape laws that ban sex with minors under the age of 16. I was three weeks pregnant when we married but didn't know. 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