ST. GEORGE, Utah — Followers of polygamous sect leader Warren Jeffs made a rare public appearance in a Utah courtroom Tuesday to help defend their "prophet" from allegations that he used his authority to force a teen to marry her cousin and have sex with him.

In a sea of pastel prairie dresses, six teen brides in the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints took the witness stand to describe their own experiences with arranged marriages under Jeffs' guidance.

Lawyers for Jeffs also called three male followers, or "priesthood heads" as they are called in the FLDS, in an effort to convince jurors that women in their faith choose whether to submit to their husbands.

The testimony stood in marked contrast to claims from the woman at the heart of the case, who says that she felt the culture trapped her in an unwanted marriage from which Jeffs refused to "release" her.

Jeffs, 51, faces five years to life in prison if convicted of two counts of rape as an accomplice.

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Washington County prosecutors rested their case Tuesday after three days of testimony from the alleged victim and her two sisters about growing up in the insular community of the FLDS, which Jeffs took over in 2002, after his father's death.

The three women, all of whom have since left the church, described a culture that demanded from them absolute obedience to their husbands or the forfeiture of their eternal salvation.

But nine FLDS members who testified Tuesday presented a different picture of life in the secluded polygamist communities of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Ariz., where Jeffs is facing charges stemming from the arranged marriages.

Jennie Pipkin, 26, testified that her faith had taught her that a woman always chooses whether to have sex with her husband and that God does not condone the use of force in marital relations.

Wearing a long-sleeved, floor-length dress typical of FLDS women, Pipkin testified that she resisted sexual advances from her husband more than once after her third child was born.

When he continued to "nag" her, she said, she referred him to one of the prophet's teachings: "A man should only have those marital relations with a wife if she invites it."

"I realized I was supposed to be in charge. It was my invitation," Pipkin said, as Jeffs' accuser sat in the courtroom gallery, taking notes.

Pipkin, who owns a small business as a Webmaster, also showed jurors the iPod on which she keeps hundreds of Jeffs' sermons and lessons on family training.

When her husband continued to make unwanted sexual advances, she said, she informed Jeffs, who released her from the marriage.

Unlike the alleged victim, who says she told Jeffs that she was too young to marry, Pipkin and the other women testified that they willingly "turned" themselves over to the prophet for their "placement" in marriage.

Members of the faith believe God speaks through the prophet, who receives revelations from God about who marries who.

Charlotte Anna Jessop testified that, when she told her father she wanted to be married, he made her wait a few months before going to Jeffs' father, Rulon Jeffs, who was the prophet at the time.

Eventually, according to the witness, God revealed to Rulon Jeffs that she was to marry Paul Stanley Jessop, who was 47 when he took the 17-year-old as his third wife.

The witness, a pharmaceutical technician at the local drug store in Hildale, said she waited more than two months until she was ready to have sex with her husband.

Several of the women said they did not know their husbands before they married, unlike Jeffs' accuser, who testified that she knew her cousin well enough to know that she did not care for him.