Mormon Church Admits Smith Married 14 year old

[Jackalope]

I don't believe that.  Mormons are never far from marketing their bullshit.

Yeah that's the stereotype. It doesn't necessarily play out that way in life.

My mother was raised in a Mormon household. Her entire living half of my family tree is Mormon, with very few exceptions. None of them have ever tried to convert me.

They have some nutty beliefs, yeah but the Mormons I have personally known have all been decent people.

Romney's still an asshole, though.

[JesusHChrist]

I guess I'm having trouble seeing the scandal here - 14 was well above the age of consent at the time.  Yeah, it offends modern sensibilities, but not contemporary.

No doubt getting married at 14 was common in the early 1800s. The issue is more of how it looks from our modern times. And the fact, the marriage to a 14 year was just one of many.

If "revelation" is from God, why should any acts be relative to the time period? Jews and proper Christians have the same issue, as do the Muslims. Perfect man in 680AD means perfect today, no? Uh, no.

This example, to me, shows Smith as just another horny old goat finding a way to get money, chicks and power, using the same methods as have been used throughout history. Too bad he ended up shot before he could really take advantage of the situation. 

So, not so much a scandal as painting a less than desirable picture of a "great" man. As they say in marketing....not good optics.

[Clueless Morgan]

I guess I'm having trouble seeing the scandal here - 14 was well above the age of consent at the time.  Yeah, it offends modern sensibilities, but not contemporary.

No doubt getting married at 14 was common in the early 1800s. The issue is more of how it looks from our modern times. And the fact, the marriage to a 14 year was just one of many.

http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-2536601450.html

By 1860 most Americans were in their early to mid twenties when they married, with the average age somewhat lower in the South.

Later than Smith's generation, but still.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3002115/

Community-based studies suggest an average age at marriage of about 20 years for women in the early colonial period and about 26 for men. As population densities increased and land prices rose in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, American couples delayed marriage, and a higher proportion remained permanently unmarried.

Looking at the ages of the women in one family in New York when they got married, which covers roughly the same geographic area as Smith lived, and roughly a similar time period:
http://clermontstatehistoricsite.blogspo...ew-of.html

So all my evidence thus far points to Livingston girls of the 18th century getting married primarily in their late teens and early 20s with a few notable exceptions.

In England and Ireland in the 1830s, the average age of marriage for women was 24 1/2
https://books.google.com/books?id=vxo7AA...0s&f=false

So, no, it doesn't appear to be the case that women were routinely married off around the age of 14.

[JesusHChrist]

So, no, it doesn't appear to be the case that women were routinely married off around the age of 14.

I suppose I should have researched that first. Thanks for checking it out.

Makes it look even worse for Smith then.

[Divinity]

I got married when I was 13. So did my mother. Times have changed a lot. People are considered a child until they're 18, and can't drink alcohol until they're 21. This has forced religious groups to switch from "get married young" to "abstinence only" which is total bullshit. Of course back then arranged marriages were commonplace, and people don't tend to look back on them and go "WHAT THE FUCK! THAT IS FUCKING TERRIBLE!" (well not most people anyway).

The truly terrible thing is more that he probably used his position of power to get these women to marry him. Much like you have in these crazy cults where the leaders consider the young girls their 'wives'. The girls have no ability to consent because they are not in a position to decline, not because of their age.

[Clueless Morgan]

The truly terrible thing is more that he probably used his position of power to get these women to marry him.

There are allegations that he threatened the reputation of women who rejected him and went public with it.  That's apparently the key: if the women kept their mouths shut he'd simply move on to the next, but if they said something and the story got out, he, or more accurately his cronies, would slandering the girl.  For example, this is a statement given by Sarah Pratt:

Begins on page 62 of the link
http://olivercowdery.com/smithhome/1886WWyl.htm#pg060a

You should bear in mind that Joseph did not think of a marriage or sealing ceremony for many years. He used to state to his intended victims, as he did to me: 'God does not care if we have a good time, if only other people do not know it.' He only introduced as marriage ceremony when he had found out that he could not get certain women without it. I think Louisa Beeman was the first case of this kind. If any woman, like me, opposed his wishes, he used to say: 'Be silent, or I shall ruin your character. My character must be sustained in the interests of the church.' When he had assailed me and saw that he could not seal my lips, he sent word to me that he would work my salvation, if I kept silent. I sent back that I would talk as much as I pleased and as much as I knew to be the truth, and as to my salvation, I would try and take care of that myself.

In his endeavors to ruin my character Joseph went so far as to publish an extra-sheet containing affidavits against my reputation. When this sheet was brought to me I discovered to my astonishment the names of two people on it, man and wife, with whom I had boarded for a certain time. I never thought much of the man, but the woman was an honest person, and I knew that she must have been forced to do such a thing against me. So I went to their house; the man left the house hurridly when he saw me coming. I found the wife and said to her rather excitedly: 'What does it all mean?' She began to sob. 'It is not my fault,' said she. 'Hyrum Smith came to our house, with the affidavits all written out, and forced us to sign them. 'Joseph and the church must be saved,' said he. We saw that resistance was useless, they would have ruined us; so we signed the papers.'

Nancy Rigdon is the other well known (probably the more well known) case of Smith being caught in the act, so to speak.  The Mormons went to town on her, saying that she had become "notorious in the city" and "little, if any better, than a public prostitute"
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