Apologists keep framing the question on whether a girl of 14 was mature enough to marry. Was it legal? Well, possibly marriage to a single man was legal.

But, what about a man with a legal wife who was marrying women right and left? That is the real question. JS could not legally marry other men's wives, nor dozens of single women.

How shameful to couch the argument on whether a 14-year old had reached puberty.

While it may have been legal for a 30 year old SINGLE man to marry a 14 year old girl, it was most certainly NOT legal for a married man to marry anyone else. They effectively admit this in the essay.

Please note that at no time and in no place that plural marriage was practiced was it legal. NEVER. Not in the US, not in Mexico, not in Canada.

don't know if it's legal per se, but if you do it, you might go to jail and then die in a gun fight.

Yep, very "shameful", and yep you're going end up pissing off a dad, uncle, brother, grandpa, husband, etc....and yep' you're gonna end up with some hot lead up your ying yang. Joseph Smith was a POS. He got was was coming to him. If I would have been with that mob, I would have charged up the stairs after 'em. Miserable bovine excrement he was.

The average age for marriage in the 1930's was 20.5 for a woman.
JS was a pedophile. Helen Mar Kimball fought him off at age 14 but her dad pretty much traded her like a horse in exchange for those celestial rewards. She hated them both. They changed her age in LDS genealogy sites, but she was 14. And the Partridge sisters?
Yes, check out their misery, too. No, it was also illegal to marry children back then, too.

That was 1830's! Not just 1930's!

Although technically legal, it was not common for a 14 or 15 year old girl to marry. IF she did, it was to someone closer to her own age, not a man old enough to be her father.

The marriage was publicly acknowledged and the couple set up their own household. They did not hide the marriage or continue to live apart presenting themselves as unmarried individuals.

THIS right here.

Joseph Smith made the claim:

"What a thing it is to be accused of committing adultery and having seven wives, when I can find only one. I am the same man, as innocent as I was 14 years ago; and I can prove them all perjurers".

Does that sound like a man who knew these marriages were of God, and perfectly ok and legal to do?

What was the reason for all the secrecy? Garments as a sign one was a polyg, and secret temple ceremonies, and living apart while both staying married to others? Why was "for time" or "for eternity", brought into it?

And why did so many polygs run to Canada or Mexico, where it was also illegal to engage in such "plural marriages"? Why not simply stand up and say: We did what our prophet Joseph Smith said God told him to do; this is right and good? If they really believed that or believed in the truth of what Joseph said, they would have done so, or something much more like it. Not run off, pretend they did not engage in it, and label people who told the truth about it both liars and anti-Mormons.

The fact they lied to other Mormons amongst them who asked about it, and excommunicated those Mormons among them who spoke out against it, too? Despicable.

That Joseph lied to Emma about it at times; that later Utahans who followed Briggy lied to the federal government about it? When they had the chance to tell the whole truth about it, many times?

Then later leaders polished the turd by saying they did it to protect the women, that there were more women than men in Utah at the time, spin that Helen Mar Kimball was almost 15 (not the 14 years of age she actually WAS) and then, the ultimate in stupidity: it was a chaste, sexless, paper marriage to a 14 year old, so we should all just forget about it, and move on.

Tells me just about everything I need to know, about polygamy in the church, and Joseph Smith, about Brigham Young, and about anyone who still says these were good and honest men who built up a good and honest church with a good and honest message.

http://mormonthink.com/joseph-smith-polygamy.htm#illegal

Most of Joseph Smith's polygamous marriages occurred in Illinois in the early 1840s. The Illinois Anti-bigamy Law enacted February 12th, 1833 clearly stated that polygamy was illegal:

"Sec 121. Bigamy consists in the having of two wives or two husbands at one and the same time, knowing that the former husband or wife is still alive. If any person or persons within this State, being married, or who shall hereafter marry, do at any time marry any person or persons, the former husband or wife being alive, the person so offending shall, on conviction thereof, be punished by a fine, not exceeding one thousand dollars, and imprisoned in the penitentiary, not exceeding two years. It shall not be necessary to prove either of the said marriages by the register or certificate thereof, or other record evidence; but the same may be proved by such evidence as is admissible to prove a marriage in other cases, and when such second marriage shall have taken place without this state, cohabitation in this state after such second marriage shall be deemed the commission of the crime of bigamy, and the trial in such case may take place in the county where such cohabitation shall have occurred."

Isn't marriage a commitment to one partner to be faithful, etc.?

Thought so...



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/27/2014 03:29PM by SL Cabbie.