Posted on 05/06/2008 7:05:46 PM PDT by Grig
Critics argue that Joseph Smith's polygamous marriages to young women are evidence that he was immoral, perhaps even a pedophile.
The information we have on Joseph Smith's plural marriages is sketchy, simply because there were few official records kept at the time because of the fear of misunderstanding and persecution. What we do know is culled from journals and reminiscences of those who were involved.
The most conservative estimates indicate that Joseph entered into plural marriages with 29–33 women, 7 of whom were under the age of 18. The youngest was Helen Mar Kimball, daughter of LDS apostle Heber C. Kimball, who was 14. The rest were 16 (two) or 17 (three). One wife (Maria Winchester) about which virtually nothing is known, was either 14 or 15.
Some people have concluded that Helen did have sexual relations with Joseph, which would have been proper considering that they were married with her consent and the consent of her parents. However, historian Todd Compton does not hold this view; he criticized the anti-Mormons Jerald and Sandra Tanner for using his book to argue for sexual relations, and wrote:
In other words, polygamous marriages often had other purposes than procreation—one such purpose was likely to tie faithful families together, and this seems to have been a purpose of Joseph's marriage to the daughter of a faithful Apostle. (See: Law of Adoption.)
Critics who assume plural marriage "is all about sex" may be basing their opinion on their own cultural biases and assumptions, rather than upon the actual motives of Church members who participated in the practice.
Helen Mar "took pen and paper in hand before she died to describe vividly her ties as a member of the Latter-day Saint Church during its first two decades of existence in a series of articles published in the Woman's Exponent" in the 1880s.[2] Some of her articles dealt with plural marriage: "Her personal remembrances of those days constitute an important source that, taken together with other first-hand accounts by participants, provides a more complete view of the introduction of one of the most distinctive features of nineteenth-century Mormonism."[3] Helen Mar's writings, an important source of LDS history, were published by BYU's Religious Studies Center in 1997 in a book entitled A Woman's View: Helen Mar Whitney's Reminiscences of Early Church History. The book also includes her 1881 autobiography to her children wherein, concerning her marriage to the Prophet Joseph Smith, she wrote:
Probably the wife about whom we know the least is Fanny Alger, Joseph's first plural wife, whom he came to know in early 1833 when she stayed at the Smith home as a house-assistant of sorts to Emma (such work was common for young women at the time). There are no first-hand accounts of their relationship (from Joseph or Fanny), nor are there second-hand accounts (from Emma or Fanny's family). All that we do have is third hand accounts, most of them recorded many years after the events.
Unfortunately, this lack of reliable and extensive historical detail leaves much room for critics to claim that Joseph Smith had an affair with Fanny and then later invented plural marriage as way to justify his actions. The problem is we don't know the details of the relationship or exactly of what it consisted, and so are left to assume that Joseph acted honorably (as believers) or dishonorably (as critics).
There is some historical evidence that Joseph Smith knew as early as 1831 that plural marriage would be restored, so it is perfectly legitimate to argue that Joseph's relationship with Fanny Alger was such a case. Mosiah Hancock (a Mormon) reported a wedding ceremony; and apostate Mormons Ann Eliza Webb Young and her father Chauncery both referred to Fanny's relationship as a "sealing." Ann Eliza also reported that Fanny's family was very proud of Fanny's relationship with Joseph, which makes little sense if it was simply a taudry affair. Those closest to them saw the marriage as exactly that—a marriage.
Plural marriage was certainly not in keeping with the values of "mainstream America" in Joseph Smith's day. However, modern readers also judge the age of the marriage partners by modern standards, rather than the standards of the nineteenth century.
Within Todd Compton's book on Joseph Smith's marriages, he also mentions the following monogamous marriages:
| Wife | Wife's Age | Husband | Husband's Age | Difference in age |
| Lucinda Pendleton | 18 | William Morgan | 44 | 26 |
| Marinda Johnson | 19 | Orson Hyde | 29 | 10 |
| Almira McBride | 17 | Sylvester Stoddard | 40s | >23 |
| Fanny Young | 44 | Roswell Murray | 62 | 18 |
And, a variety of Mormon and non-Mormon historical figures had similar wide differences in age:
| Husband | Husband's Age | Wife | Wife's Age | Difference |
| Johann Sebastian Bach | 36 | Anna Magdalena Wilcke | 19 | 17 |
| Lord Baden-Powell (Founder of Scouting) | 55 | Olave Soames | 23 | 32[4] |
| William Clark (of the Lewis and Clark Expedition) | 37 | Julia Hancock | 16 | 21[5] |
| Grover Cleveland (22nd, 24th US President) | 49 | Frances Cleveland | 21 | 28 |
| Martin Harris (1808) | 24 | Lucy Harris (1st cousin) | 15 | 9[6] |
| Levi Ward Hancock (7 April 1803) | 30 | Clarissa Reed | 17 | 13[7] |
| John Milton (Paradise Lost) | 34 | Mary Powell (1st wife) | 17 | 17 |
| John Milton | 55 | Elizabeth Minshull (3rd wife) | 24 | 31 |
| Alexander Smith | 23 | Elizabeth Kendall | 16 | 7[8] |
| David Hyrum Smith | 26 | Clara Hartshorn | 18 | 8[9] |
| Frederick Granger Williams Smith | 21 | Annie Maria Jones | 16 | 5[10] |
| Joseph Smith, III | 66 | Ada Rachel Clark | 29 | 37[11] |
| Almonzo Wilder | 28 | Laura Ingalls (Little House) | 18 | 10 |
Statistical information for marital ages is available from the 1850 census [12]. Using a 1% random sample of individuals, 989 men and 962 women indicated they had been married within the last year. The plot below breaks these individuals down by census age.
Of note is that 41.7% of women married as teenagers compared to only 4.1% of men. The mean age for men was more than five years older than that for women (27.6 vs. 22.5). For young women, marriage in the early to mid teens was rare, but not unheard of as both the anecdotal and statistical evidence above show. Teenage brides married a husband that averaged 6.6 +/- 4.7 (std) years older. To put that in perspective, 13% of the time the husband was over 10 years older than his teenage wife.
The 21st century reader is likely to see marriages of young women to much older men as inappropriate.
According to the law of the early twenty-first century, someone of Joseph Smith's age might be found guilty of "statutory rape" in such a case—this is when an older person (usually a man) has sexual relations with a young person who is too young to give legal "consent." This means that even if she "wants" to have sexual relations, the law considers her too young to give that permission to someone so much older than herself.
But this is a more modern attitude.
The age of consent under English common law was ten. United States law did not raise the age of consent until the late nineteenth century. In Joseph Smith's day, most states still had declared age of consent to be ten. Some raised it to twelve, and Delaware lowered it to seven![13]
It is significant that none of Joseph's contemporaries complained about the age differences between polygamous or monogamous marriage partners. This was simply part of their environment and culture; it is unfair to judge nineteenth century members by twenty-first century social standards.
In past centuries, women would often die in childbirth, and men often remarried younger women afterwards. Women often married older men, because these were more financially established and able to support them than men their own age.
Joseph Smith's polygamous marriages to young women may seem difficult to understand or explain today, but in his own time such age differences were not typically an obstacle to marriage. The plural marriages were unusual, to say the least; the younger ages of the brides were much less so. Critics do not provide this perspective because they wish to shock the audience and have them judge Joseph by the standards of the modern era, rather than his own time.
Cult Update!
Oh, and this was posted to the religion forum. If it shows up in the News forum, that is the mods doing, not mine.
How do I get my hands on those special glasses Joe got from Gabriel that makes it all so clear now..(eyes rolling)
Bet they were rose colored.
Good grief. What gymnastics to excuse immoral behavior.
Dude was the Hugh Hefner of his day!
And this is all the fault of Mitt Romney!
I surely hope that we, as conservatives, can get past the 1800’s;
And look at Mitt’s resume as it relates to fixing problems, and working across aisles to forge a political consensus.
Unhappily, I don’t think that’s going to happen!
Sad! , even though Obama’s calling, and Hillary’s past lies, don’t make a difference to the Rats!
2 Kings 2:23-25 (New King James) re. the Prophet Elisha:
“And he went up from there to Bethel; and as he was going up the road, some youths came from the city and mocked him, and said to him, ‘Go up, you baldhead! Go up, you baldhead!’ So he turned around and looked at them, and pronounced a curse on them in the name of the Lord. And two female bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of the youths. Then he went from there to Mount Carmel, and from there he returned to Samaria.”
We members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints believe that Joseph Smith was a Prophet of God and we do not appreciate his name being ridiculed.
He couldn’t have been a pedophile because (1) the term probably hadn’t been coined; (2) people attracted to teens are ephebophiles, not pedophiles; (3) lots of men in the 19th century married teenage girls and it was acceptable
Is ‘Polly Andry’ available as a screen handle?
There are some off-the-wall cults, but none so spectacularly off-the-wall as Mormonism.
Actually, a fair amount is known. Nancy Maria Winchester was my great-great-great-great-aunt.
NANCY MARIA WINCHESTER
Nancy was born August 10, 1828 in Erie County Pennsylvania. She was the only daughter of Stephen and Nancy (Case) Winchester. When the younger Nancy was four years old the Winchesters were visited in Erie by two Mormon missionaries, John F. Boynton and Evan M. Greene. Nancy’s parents and older brother, Benjamin, were soon baptized.
The following year, the Winchesters moved to Kirtland, Ohio to be near others who shared their faith. Following Mormon practice, Nancy was probably baptized when she turned eight years of age.
By 1842 the Winchesters had spent time in Missouri and were now settled in Nauvoo, living in the “third ward”. In May of that year, Nancy joined the Female Relief Society where she served on committees with the charter “to search out the poor and suffering-To call on the rich for aid and thus as far as possible relieve the wants of all.”
Nancy’s marriage to Joseph is undocumented, although according to Mormon Church Historian Andrew Jenson, Nancy married Joseph sometime before his death in June of 1844. Nancy would have been fourteen or fifteen years old.
A few months after Joseph Smith’s death, Nancy and another six of Joseph’s wives married Heber C. Kimball. Since the temple had not been completed when Nancy married Joseph, she was re-sealed to him in 1846 in the near complete, but dedicated, Nauvoo temple. Her husband “for time”, Heber C. Kimball stood proxy for Joseph Smith in this sealing.
Nancy immigrated to Utah in 1849. Several years later she received a patriarchal blessing from John Smith. She was blessed, “to heal the sick, cast out devils, and raise the dead, if necessary.”
Nancy died on March 17, 1876 in Salt Lake City.
True prophets are holy and rise ABOVE the culture not succumb to it.
As the song goes “Send Lawyers, Guns, and Money”. Looks like even old Joe could not escape this. LOL
“True prophets are holy and rise ABOVE the culture not succumb to it.”
Polygamy is not immoral or else you had better strt questioning the entire foundation of Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
Exactly. The young marriages make better press (and are easy to defend, given America in 1840). Instead its the polyandry...that would shock even King Solomon, that is really disgusting.
Even by Old Testament standards--when polygamy was allowed--Smith grossly violated God's law: By marrying other men's wives they GAVE him (WHAT?????) and marrying sisters, and mothers & daughters. Each of these three things is forbidden even in the Old Testament times. Besides, none of his extra "marriages" were legal anyhow, hence he was just a lecher--no better than Hugh Hefner.
No way this disgusting man was a prophet of God.
Oh, one other thing:"Therefore an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife" (1 Tim. 3:2) makes it clear that Smith was unfit for ANY kind of Church leadership....let alone a "prophet" starting a new "church."
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