Wow! Such utter historical ignorance, which I address below...followed up by utter recent historical ignorance by Morpheus2009:
As for this situation, the worst crime these people commit, IMO, is cutting themselves off from the rest of society, and the fact that it isn’t a problem for so many people to tolerate someone living in our nation yet not taking part in the processes that affect the rest of us as well. Just about every other problem that they have comes from this. [Morpheus2009, post #35]
The State of Texas would disagree with you. They contend that aggravated sexual assault of children is a serial problem with this group. [Pebcak to Morpheus2009, post #37]
Pebcak is right. I just posted last weekend this article from Canada, since that country is still pondering the constitutionality of polygamy. In this story, PARENTS transported 2 12 yo across the border for the purposes of "marriage." And the article also mentions the discovery of a 13 yo Canadian girl tied to the raid on the Texas compound.
For details, see: B.C. probing child-trafficking charges in cross-border polygamous marriages
I guess you don't see a "crime" in child trafficking, eh Morpheus2009?
As for 19th century historical ignorance about the way Mormon polygamy was...consider these facts:
Note how young the 19th century Mormon wives were!
The book, Changing World, p. 226: The early Mormon leaders certainly did allow their young people to marry at an early age. Mosiah Hancock was only 11 years old when he was "sealed" to a "young girl." According to his journal, he was "born in Kirtland, Ohio, on April the 9th, 1834." ("The Mosiah Hancock Journal," typed copy, p.1). On pages 20 and 21 of the same journal, he recorded: On about January 10, 1846, I was privileged to go in the temple and receive my washings and annointings. I was sealed to a lovely young girl named Mary, who was about my age, but it was with the understanding that we were not to live together as man and wife until we were 16 years of age. The reason that some were sealed so young was because we knew that we would have to go West and wait many a long time for another temple.
According to Stanley P. Hirshon, who wrote a biography of Brigham Young: "Make haste and get married," Remy heard Young preach. "Let me see no boys above sixteen and girls above fourteen unmarried." ... In 1857 The New York Times, reporting the sealings to old men of two girls aged ten and eleven, estimated that most girls married before they were fourteen.... Troskolawsski knew one bishop who was sealed to four of his nieces, the youngest thirteen years old....On August 1, 1856, he put on the stagecoach for Ohio twelve-year-old Emma Wheat, who was being forced into a marriage she detested." (The Lion of the Lord, pp.126-27).
Changing World, p. 225: The shortage of women was so great that some of the men were marrying girls who were very young. Fanny Stenhouse stated:
"That same year, a bill was brought into the Territorial Legislature, providing that boys of fifteen years of age and girls of twelve might legally contract marriage, with the consent of their parents or guardians!" (Tell It All, 1875, p.607).
According to http://www.utlm.org/newsletters/no91.htm, Stenhouse was "at one time had been a firm believer in Mormonism and had even allowed her husband to take another wife. She wrote: "It would be quite impossible, with any regard to propriety, to relate all the horrible results of this disgraceful system.... Marriages have been contracted between the nearest of relatives; and old men tottering on the brink of the grave have been united to little girls scarcely in their teens; while unnatural alliances of every description, which in any other community would be regarded with disgust and abhorrence, are here entered into in the name of God...It is quite a common thing in Utah for a man to marry two or even three sisters.... I know also another man who married a widow with several children; and when one of the girls had grown into her teens he insisted on marrying her also... and to this very day the daughter bears children to her step-father, living as wife in the same house with her mother!" (Tell It All, 1874, pages 468-69)
Per researcher George D. Smith (Source: "Nauvoo Polygamists", George D. Smith, Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, Spring 1994, p. ix, as found at http://www.utlm.org/newsletters/no91.htm) discovered that of "a list of 153 men who took plural wives in the early years of the Mormon Church. When we examined this list, we noted that two of the young girls were only thirteen years old when they were lured into polygamy. Thirteen girls were only fourteen years old. Twenty-one were fifteen years old, and fifty-three were sixteen years old when they were secretly enticed into this degrading lifestyle."
"I shall not seal the people as I have done. Old Father Alread brought three young girls 12 & 13 years old. I would not seal them to him. They would not be equally yoked together...Many get their endowments who are not worthy and this is the way that devils are made." (Source: Wilford Woodruff, Wilford Woodruff's Journal, 5:58.)
Examples of real young girls being married off in 19th century Mormon families (Source -- appendix of A Solemn Covenant by B. Carmon Hardy, Univ. of IL Press...as appendix shows 260 additional plural unions between 1890 and 1910):
Judson Tolman, 19, married first wife Sarah Holbrook, 13, in 1846 before adding 4 more wives; James Francis Johnson married Rozina Richmond,13 (perhaps 14) in 1876...then J.F. Johnson took on another wife in 1894 after the so-called "manifesto" supposedly "ending" polygamy--to Clara Barber who was 16--maybe 17. J.F. Johnson was in his late 30s at that time he married Barber.
24 yo Arthur Clark married 14 yo Mary Rasmussen as the second of four wives; Charles Richardson married 14 yo first wife Sarah Adams in 1882--his third wife (Carolina Jacobson) was probably 16 & he was 30. (He had 4 wives overall)
Thomas Chamberlain II actually double-married two 17 yo on the same date in 1873!...and then added on a 15 yo (Ann Carling) in 1875 followed by her sister--also 15--three years later.
Notice how the initial LDS leaders set the terrible example for fLDS leaders by being in their 40s or late 30s (or beyond re: later LDS "prophets"):
Just look at the compulsory "wifehood" of underaged teens: Brigham Young, when he was in his 40s, wedded 15-year-old Clarissa Decker, 16-year-old Ellen Rockwood (when Young was 44); and 16-year-old Lucy Bigelow (when Young was 45).
Its initial "prophet"--Joseph Smith--promised salvation to the household of the Kimball Klan, and what do you know? 14-year-old Helen Mar Kimball, who initially hated polygamy, was part of Smith's harem. Smith also added to his long list of wives 16-year-old Presendia Huntington. Abel Hardy married a 15 yo (Maria Cooley) in 1896 and then post-manifesto, married Cynthia Porter (16) in 1901. (Hundreds of 16 yo LDS girls were married off as plural wives in the 19th century and early 20th century).
I can see sarcasm is wasted on you.
Get a grip.
Wow! Such utter historical ignorance, which I address below...followed up by utter recent historical ignorance by Morpheus2009:
As for this situation, the worst crime these people commit, IMO, is cutting themselves off from the rest of society, and the fact that it isn’t a problem for so many people to tolerate someone living in our nation yet not taking part in the processes that affect the rest of us as well. Just about every other problem that they have comes from this. [Morpheus2009, post #35]
The State of Texas would disagree with you. They contend that aggravated sexual assault of children is a serial problem with this group. [Pebcak to Morpheus2009, post #37]
Pebcak is right. I just posted last weekend this article from Canada, since that country is still pondering the constitutionality of polygamy. In this story, PARENTS transported 2 12 yo across the border for the purposes of “marriage.” And the article also mentions the discovery of a 13 yo Canadian girl tied to the raid on the Texas compound.
There is no ignorance, especially of the roots of what is going on. The root of what is happening is because they live in some isolated compound apart from the rest of society. I don’t have any disagreements with you there. I know all too well about the underage issue. But do you honestly think that would happen if they were living with the rest of us in some city versus in some isolated compound? I doubt that would be very likely. I believe that there should be a crime to be living in the U.S. yet not be subject to the same scrutiny as your average American, we could likely better catch people like this group that way.