You've been wondering about it since Big Love started airing on HBO: The big frontier dresses that went out of style with Little House on the Prairie, the high-top braids that remind us of high school in the '80s, the lack of any makeup, not even some basic mascara and lip gloss...what gives?

Of course, when you consider that the Texan polygamist sect in the news of late, the one headed up by Warren Jeffs, may have engaged in some serious child abuse--sexual and otherwise--the outfit question seems incredibly crass and superficial. There are more important questions to ask, like did anyone let her adolescent daughters be married off to men four times their elders and forced to have sex and then babies with them?

However, the answer to the wardrobe question actually reveals a lot about the sexual control of women in such polygamist Mormon sects: Dress the same to squelch your individuality, tie your hair back and cover up so as not to entice men, and wear old-fashioned clothes to help keep you segregated from a modern world where women have the right to wear what they want, marry who they love, sleep with whom they choose, and reproduce when they decide the time is right.

On Friday, The Early Show had a former member of such a sect on air to discuss this issue: "It's a way to keep the women separated from everyone else so that--and it also does affect your individuality and, you know, you're not allowed free expression as far as what you're allowed to wear." Read more here and then thank your lucky stars you were born into a culture that lets you shop at Forever 21 well into your 50s, even if you shouldn't.