Posted on 10/25/2014 11:04:54 PM PDT by Up Yours Marxists
Ignorance is bliss and you must be very happy.
Amen. FrR has become a bastion of bullying lately.
I constantly laugh at the people who are all about being Patriots, but spend their time here criticizing all religions other than their own.
How intelligent people could believe in a religion founded by a man with Smith's history or gullibly accept the whole Golden Book, Angel Moroni (some jokes just write themselves), Lost Hebrew Tribes in America, stone and top hat translation method, and the book that resulted is beyond me. But as with the Global Warming zombies there's just no accounting for people's willingness to ignore their common senses and believe utterly in utter nonsense. But so long as they aren't trying to forcibly impose those beliefs on me by way of a knife to the throat or the imposition of stupid regulations against my keeping mercury free lights on and my home warm in the winter then I've got no real problem with them.
When they try to imposed their own theocracy or Gaia-ocracy it's a different story.
Not exactly. Google "Mountain Meadows Massacre".
But she told me she was 16!
His testicles are on display at the Smithsonian.
Thereby encouraging millions of church members to deny it occurred in spite of well-documented evidence.
He is still a pedophile to me
Do a search on legal marriage ages by state. Many allow 15 or 16 under certain circumstances. Some can be younger with parental approval.
Yes, and my grandmother was married at 15—she was a Roman Catholic.
Yes Sir!
Well said!
In all fairness, with a few notable exceptions, leaders who marry many women do so not because of sex or procreation, but for “political” reasons. That is, by “marrying” the daughter of some powerful clan or faction, it creates a tie with that faction.
The assumption is that through that daughter, they will have a “direct line to the throne”. And to some extent, this is correct.
Marriages also work as informal peace treaties and alliances. It also means that the “first wife”, not necessarily numerically, is like the “chief of staff” of the other wives, and her sons are the heir apparents.
And yes, there is *lots* of contention between wives over their pecking order. Among the Mormons, either Smith or Young set forth very strong rules that wives had to be treated equally. This was almost certainly done to keep the peace.
The LDS leadership has folded its tent in the fight against homosexual civil marriage. It is now willing to acknowledge its polygamous history with something more than embarrassed silence and excuses. Perhaps the way is being paved for a new revelation to resume its practice?
>>>>>”he was greedy for women.........I don’t have a high opinion of him”....
. I don’t have a high opinion of the whole cult.
Long Term Marriage Patterns in the United States from Colonial Times to the Present, Michael R. Haines, The National Bureau of Economic Research, 1996.
By 1816, the Singulate Mean Age at First Marriage in the US was 25.5 years for females, according to the NBER.
However, in 1840, 40% of all marriages (not necessarily SMAFM) were to teenagers. Fewer than 1% of marriages were to 14-year-olds and the likelihood of a 14-year-old bride went down as the husband's age went up. These statistic had nothing to do with being a member of the Latter-Day Saints movement.
A 37-year-old husband with a 14-year-old bride? Not at all common. Uncommon. Perhaps one out of 200 37-year-old men. Fourteen-year-old bride, 37-year-old groom, no formal marriage, polygamy, marriage kept secret, promise of eternal salvation to her entire family if marriage occurs . . . what is the word for "so uncommon as not to be adequately described by the word 'uncommon?'"
Other resources include Gapminder (Interactive Singulate Mean Age at First Marriage by Country and Year), FairMormon Blog: 19th Century Nuptiality and Propaganda II, and Helen Mar Kimball, Wife of Joseph Smith.
Marriages between 37-year-old men and 14-year-old women occurred and being a LDS had nothing to do with it. However, suggesting that an 1840's marriage between a 37-year-old man and a 14-year-old woman was anything but uncommonly uncommon is apologetics.
Harriet Amelia Folsom?
But do they allow multiple wives?
How old was her husband at the time? Was he near 50 and have other wives?
Thanks for the info. Your links confirm my findings. I’m not LDS, but I do a lot of genealogy, and have for over 25 yrs. I’m currently working on my certification.
Marrying at 14 was highly uncommon, especially in the US. It did happen, but it was not looked upon favorably, and in some cases the girls were considered ‘less than proper’. Marrying at 15 was slightly more common, but still relatively rare in the US.
For example, in tracing both my & my husband’s families, going back to 1607/1620 we each have no more than 2-3 female ancestors who married at 15, and none at 14. Our families are a combo of US regions, mainly Western European roots. The vast number of women in both our families married for the first time between 18-22. I think our families mirror the wider culture of the US.
In Eastern Europe, early marriage was more common, but usually if the wedding was held at 12,13,14, the consummation was sometimes held off for awhile. Remember, while girls hit puberty relatively early now, many back then did not hit puberty until almost 15, 16 sometimes 17 if conditions & nutrition were poor. Your particular families may have different histories, but even in the ‘old days’ midwives knew that really young girls had difficulties in childbirth, and did not encourage early marriage.
As far as the Joseph Smith marriages are concerned, the nicest thing I can think to say is I don’t think all of them were about purely ‘spiritual connectedness’, if you catch my drift, especially with the pretty ones under 30. There are numerous historical accounts about how Helen Kimball was quite attractive, and the fate of the poor young man who was interested in her before she caught Smith’s fancy.
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