Another tale of horror from the Christian homeschool movement: A young woman narrowly escapes being sold by her family for $25,000 into an arranged marriage to a man twice her age.

In an exclusive interview with Daily Mail Online, Jennyfer Austin tells her horrific tale of being victimized by her Christian fundamentalist family and the Christian homeschooling movement.

Much of the abuse is all too familiar: growing up and being denied any meaningful contact with the outside world, living in a cloistered hell of religious indoctrination, being force fed a steady diet of ignorance and superstition, and being forced to cover her body from head to toe because of the sick and twisted puritanical impulse of Christian fundamentalism.

Austin reports: “Even my swimsuit went down to my knees and had sleeves”

The interview offers a fascinating inside view of the cult of extreme fundamentalist Christian homeschooling that many Americans take to be a harmless expression of educational freedom – but is in reality often the source of mental and physical abuse.

As for being sold into an arranged marriage, the groom apparently paid for his bride-to-be in a series of installment payments adding up to $25,000, all the while family members and the groom-to-be kept their plans a secret from bride-to-be Austin.

Perhaps even more heartbreaking, according to Austin, the going rate for the Christian homeschool bride is closer to $50,000, however, because Austin had been sexually abused as a child, her family and the the associated Christian homeschooling community considered her to be “damaged goods,” and thus worth only $25,000.

Yet the story does have a happy ending: Austin did manage to avoid being forced into the arranged marriage, and escaped her Christian fundamentalist family.

Austin is now married to a man she loves, and is trying to rebuild her life. As for religion, Austin says:

The one thing I know is I am not a Christian.

To sell a daughter into a forced arranged marriage is at once horrific, and Biblical. Austin’s story is yet another tale of the often sinister nature of extreme fundamentalist Christian homeschooling.

(H/T Daily Mail)