Posted on 08/04/2011 8:41:36 AM PDT by MizSterious
The West Texas jury deciding the fate of polygamy cult leader Warren Jeffs listened through headphones to 21 minutes of heavy breathing yesterday. Some in the room wept. Others held their hands over their mouths. The X-rated recording, a cornerstone of the state’s child-sex-assault case, allegedly chronicled Jeffs’ encounter with a 12-year-old girl, an episode that ended with the self-proclaimed prophet declaring, “In Jesus Christ, amen.”
The jurors heard an almost inaudible voice. “Amen,” echoed the child.
It got worse. According to prosecutors, Jeffs and his new “celestial wife” were not alone. A dozen of his most trusted men were witnesses to the “sealing.” It was a family affair: At least one of Jeffs’ other wives, his purported favorite, Naomi, was also in the room. “What are you feeling?” Jeffs asked the girl. And in a moment that froze everyone in the courtroom, she answered meekly, “Very well, thank you.”
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
JESUS: Hey Smith! Remember that boast you made about doing more than even I had done to hold the 'church' together?
JOSEPH SMITH: Where am I?
JESUS: Don't you remember? A few seconds ago you were in that jail.
JOSEPH SMITH: Oh; yeah; but where am I NOW?
JESUS: Don't you remember? Does bang - bang ring a bell?
JOSEPH SMITH: Oh; yeah - that crummy gun I had was about USELESS!
JESUS: I hope you left instructions on how to hold your church together.
JOSEPH SMITH: Dang! I knew there was SOMETHING I was forgetting!
JESUS: Looks like there's a power struggle going on down there.
JOSEPH SMITH: Yeah; there was always SOMEone who wanted the power that I held - especially over the LADIES - wink wink.
JESUS: No need to worry about that now; remember what my friend Matthew wrote down?
JOSEPH SMITH: This? “At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven” (Matthew 22:30)
JESUS: That's it.
JOSEPH SMITH: I thought that was mistranslated.
JESUS: Nah - it was right.
JOSEPH SMITH: Oh well; it was fun while it lasted. My buds will still get it on with the girls.
JESUS: Uh; I'm sorry; in just a few more years; your followers will cavein to the United States government and abandon the 'Eternal Covenant' that you came up with.
JOSEPH SMITH: ME!? YOU are the one that told me to do that!
JESUS: Sorry; but you must have mistranslated what I told you. What part of Do NOT commit ADULTERY did you not understand?
JOSEPH SMITH: mumble....
JESUS: What did you say?
JOSEPH SMITH: Oh, nothing.
JESUS: Well; it was interesting talking to you; but now I must get back to perparing a place for those who believe in Me.
JOSEPH SMITH: Oh, yeah; the Celestial Kingdom.
JESUS: No...
JOSEPH SMITH: The Telestial one?
JESUS: Nope.
JOSEPH SMITH: SUREly not the TERRESTRIAL one!!
JESUS: Nope. Didn't you read that the mind of man had NOT conceived of it? Paul wrote it down in 1 Corinthians 2:9.
JOSEPH SMITH: I thought that was mistranslated.
JESUS: No; it wasn't.
JOSEPH SMITH: You SURE?
JESUS: Yes. Now I must be going: what did you say your name was again?
JOSEPH SMITH: Joseph Smith.
JESUS: Hmmmm. According to my Heavenly FAITHbook, you didn't sign in as one of my friends - sorry, I never knew you.
JOSEPH SMITH: But....
AMEN!
Iff'n the cricks don't rise.
What about in the old days when people married at a much younger age?
Twelve year old girls to 50 some year old men?
What’s *much younger*?
Much younger than 30 can be 20. You’re not also going to jump on the *Well, twelve is maybe physically mature, so what’s the problem* bandwagon, are you? Because there’s a big difference in mental and emotional and yes, physical maturity of the human body between 12 and 13 and even 15, much less 16-18.
Please tell us what age you’re referring to and show us your statistics to back up age range.
"I have used the plight of women as an example. The list of clashes between Bible and modern culture is long. The Bible reflects an absurd understanding of the structure of the universe. The Bible shows little understanding of physical and mental illnesses. The Bible was and is on the wrong side of patriarchal authority, marriage, equality for women, homosexuality, slavery and the rights of an older son."
And you expect someone to take an article as biased as this seriously???
Neither does this address the marriage age question.
Well, yes, it happened...but it's largely a cultural myth if you think that was prominent.
Posters Ansel12 & Sky Pilot were already addressing this on FReeper polygamist threads in Spring 2008.
Ansel12's posted links showed that in the UK, the average age for a woman marrying between 1851 and 1890 was just under age 26 for “all brides” (including women becoming remarried...and was over age 24 for single women...the average age for a single woman to be married in the UK/Wales in the last half of the nineteenth century was never younger than 24.3 years [1871-1875])
[Note: Ya gotta remember that a lot of Utah brides in the 1860s & beyond were UK converts coming to Utah] …
The data came from this source: UK/Wales average age of “all brides”
That was the UK...what about the United States in the latter half of the 19th century?
In New England, the average marriage age in MA 1850-1860 was age 23.6. In Vermont in 1858 it was 21.4.
Two other table charts I came across included one where the average age for 1750-1890 at about age 22 -- only dipping down below that for one decade --1870-1879 (21.7 yrs).
Another table showed the average age for women marrying in 1650 was 20; 1750, 23; 1850, 24; 1950, 20. So your cultural myth is quite off-base: Women were much more likely to get married earlier in 1650 and 1950 (average age 20) than 1850—average age 24.
FACTS SEEM TO INDICATE 'TWAS MORE PARTICULARLY 'MORMON' TO MARRY VERY YOUNG THAN THE BROADER US 19TH CENTURY CULTURE
Warren Jeffs' culpable actions can be laid at the doorstep of the mainstream Mormons:
* A BYU professor, Kathryn M. Daynes, researched marriages in Manti, Utah area in the 19th century. She concluded that ”Women throughout the period married young, younger than outside Utah.” BYU Source: More Wives Than One: Transformation of the Mormon Marriage System, 1840-1910
* Even the LDS prophet who passed the manifesto which began an exit strategy for LDS' war on monogamy in 1890 wrote in his journal: ”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.)
* Brigham Young's #19 wife, Ann Eliza Young, divorced him and wrote Wife Number 19 in 1875. In chapter 18, she recounts how an Lds 19th century bishop from Springville, Utah lined up all of his young nieces to marry.
Richard Abanes, citing that 1875 Ann Eliza Young book published by Dustin, Gilman, and Co., wrote: "Bishop Aaron Johnson of Springville, Utah...claimed six of his own nieces as wives--the eldest being only 15 years old when he wed her. The younger nieces ranged downward in age to 2 years old. Johnson asked that they be given to him as they matured, which is exactly what happened. He was finally sealed to the littlest girl when she reached about 13." (Abanes, Inside Today's Mormonism, p. 231, Harvest House, 2004)
Thanks for that, MetMom!
In 1650 it was age 20 and now in 2011 it is 26.5 (as of 2009).
Considering that a women’s fertility starts falling off the cliff at around 30 that doesn’t make having children an easier.
Thanks for the ping. Whenever men declare they are the supreme infallible authority over the Scriptures then the souls as well as the bodies of men and women are in danger from them.
Twenty is not an unreasonable age for marriage, by any means.
The only reasons I’d recommend someone to way until early twenties are one, to be able to earn a living and support yourself and your family, which generally means finishing college and getting a job, and the other is that I’ve seen very few early marriages last, not like they did in the *old* days, even my parents generation when there was the commitment to make the marriage work.
On a strictly practical level, a girls body is simply not physically mature enough to adequately handle a pregnancy much before the age of 18, regardless of what others do or have done across the world in place or history.
There is no valid reason for lowering the age of consent to below 16 at an absolute minimum.
Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Only God is good enough and powerful enough to be able to handle it.
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