# Mormon church: Joseph Smith married girls and other men's wives **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [October 27, 2014, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mormon-church-joseph-smith-married-girls-and-other-mens-wives/702652 "2014-10-27T15:25:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2014, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mormon-church-joseph-smith-married-girls-and-other-mens-wives/702652/21 "2014-10-28T16:21:29Z")
> [@Sattua](#): > > Okay. First observation, anyone who knows anything about the pre-20th-century world shouldn’t be surprised to hear that teenage girls were getting married. Even young ones. A 13-year-old gets married in the Little House on the Prairie books. So that particular aspect sounds like a tempest in a teakettle. OK, I’ll bite. How many other prominent religious leaders of the 19th century married 14-year-olds? How common was it for 13-year-olds to get married, especially outside of the frontier? You have to keep in mind that Nauvoo was as large as Chicago, and not some one-room shack on in the sticks. IIRC Laura expresses surprise about the marriage and talks disparagingly of the mother. > [@robert\_columbia](#): > > And this is why it is so dangerous to judge the behavior of historical figures by the standards of today. I’m aware of studies which show the average age of marriage for women in the US in 1840 to be around 18-19 years of age. Outside of a few possible frontier marriages, it would seem as scandal, especially for someone who was in their late 30s, let alone as a secret marriage. One noted scholar pointed out that in New Jersey in 1848-50, as an example, only 0.1 percent of the women married at 14 years or younger. The problem which you and **Sattua** are glossing over is that these marriages to Smith were polygamous and because of Smith’s position as almost a demi-god in a tight-knit group waiting for and expecting the Second Coming, inherently coercive. Helen Mar Kimball, one of the 14-year-olds Smith married, was the daughter of Smith’s close associate. > [@](#): > > “[My father] asked me if I would be sealed to Joseph … [Smith] said to me, ‘If you will take this step, it will ensure your eternal salvation & exaltation and that of your father’s household & all of your kindred.[’] This promise was so great that I willingly gave myself to purchase so glorious a reward.” Regardless if a very small percentage of girls on the frontier (which Nauvoo was not) were getting married, it would still be unconscionable for a religious leader of Smith’s status to obtain girls for marriage in that manner. > [@BubbaDog](#): > > I read an article on this in my Sunday paper. Given the newspaper’s ability to screw up even the most basic facts I’m not offering this as any kind of an argument. > > Their article mentioned the age (non)-issue. The article also touched upon the question of whether the added marriages by Smith included sex. There’s no verification either way whether the marriages were sexual or purely spiritual. The articles I’ve seen have been very sloppy, mostly just quoting from the one-sided essay. Non-apologetic historians have established that some of the marriages were sexual, but there is no “proof” ether way for some of them. That argument just seems to be an bazaar attempt to somehow minimize the ickiness of the whole deal. > [@Shodan](#): > > Did the Mormons use to deny this? I am not seeing how it gives new or startling revelations. > > Early Mormons practiced polygamy. If there’s anything I knew about Mormons off the top of my head, that would be it. Surprisingly, yes. Mormons have attempted to make that whole thing go away, especially for Smith’s marriages to girls and his polyandrous relationships, as the former does not sit well morally and the latter were expressly forbidden by his own claimed revelation on the matter. The church apparently has really attempted to erase the memories of polygamy, going so far as to portray Brigham Young as monogamist, skipping the other 54 wives, and editing his teachings which reflected polygamy. Likewise biographies of other early pioneers have any mention their other wives or sister wives removed. One example is [Zina Diantha Huntington Jacobs Smith Young](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zina_D._H._Young), where the “Jacobs” was her original husband, “Smith” is Joseph and “Young” is Brigham, who married Zina after Smith’s death. > [@](#): > > Zina recorded in her autobiography that when she was twenty and being courted by Henry Bailey Jacobs, she received a secret proposal from Joseph Smith[3][4] As Smith was already married, Zina claimed Smith explained to her that God was restoring the ancient order of plural marriage.[5] Zina declined the proposal and on March 7, 1841, she married Jacobs. Nauvoo mayor John C. Bennett conducted the ceremony. > > Zina wrote that within months of her marriage to Jacobs, Smith sent word to her that he had “put it off till an angel with a drawn sword stood by me and told me if I did not establish that principle upon the earth I would lose my position and my life.”[3][6] She and Smith were married on October 27, 1841. This theme of Smith getting chicks by claiming his life was threatened by an angel happens a number of times. Anyway, back to Zina. After Smith is killed, Young claimed Zina for himself, calling her legal husband on a mission to England. > [@](#): > > One account, written by a former Mormon, states that just before Jacobs was to leave on his mission, after the Latter Day Saints had left Illinois and were camped in Iowa: > > ``` > "Brigham Young spoke in this wise, in the hearing of hundreds: He said it was time for men who were walking in other men's shoes to step out of them. 'Brother Jacobs,' he says, 'the woman you claim for a wife does not belong to you. She is the spiritual wife of brother Joseph, sealed up to him. I am his proxy, and she, in this behalf, with her children, are my property. You can go where you please, and get another, but be sure to get one of your own kindred spirit.'"[15] > > ``` > > Jacobs struggled with the arrangement and, in later years wrote to Zina, “the same affection is there … But I feel alone … I do not Blame Eny person … [M]ay the Lord our Father bless Brother Brigham … [A]ll is right according to the Law of the Celestial Kingdom of our God Joseph”. For the [LDS church](https://www.lds.org/friend/1989/02/zina-diantha-huntington-young-angel-of-mercy?lang=eng) take on the circumstances: > [@](#): > > Chariton Jacobs, Zina’s second son from her marriage to Henry Jacobs, was born in a covered wagon in a rainstorm on the bank of the Chariton River in Iowa. But Zina did not seem to “mind the difficult situation, for my life had been preserved, and my babe was so beautiful.” > > After Henry deserted Zina and the two little boys, Zebulon and Chariton, she married Brigham Young and crossed the plains to the Salt Lake Valley with his family. A few years later a daughter, Zina Presendia Young, was born. While one poster expressed a disinterest in the human drama and heartbreak these relationships entailed, polygamy was a very lonely and sad experience for almost all of the women. Had the Internet not happened, then the issue would have gradually faded away as people became further and further removed from their polygamous ancestors. I’m fifth and sixth generation Mormon, with several polygamous great-great and great-great-great grandparents. Each subsequent generation adds another “great” and the family stories become dimmer. Mormonism has always portrayed itself as a literal religion, that the events in the Book of Mormon actually occurred. That God and Jesus actually appeared to Joseph Smith. That Smith had actually translated some Egyptian papyri which Abraham had written himself. That the church is lead by people who regularly communicate directly with God. Prior to the Internet, there were very few who had access to the unedited history of Smith, Young, other leaders and all the teachings and events prior to the period around 1920 when the doctrine became more fixed. When teachings and histories conflicted with the sanitized version, it would be labeled as “anti-Mormon” and members were told to shun it, much like early Christianity went through several centuries before settling on an orthodox version. However, there simply is too much information available, and as it has become more and more accessible to average members, more and more members have stumbled on the troubling issues and have left the church. For those of us growing up hearing stories such as that of Zina, and then to find out that the church misrepresented the facts has led many to decide to leave. The church has acknowledged that these historical issues is causing an unprecedented number of people to leave the religion. > [@Johnny\_Bravo](#): > > Cite? This isn’t snark - I’d be interested to read the Mormon reaction to this, since from my outsider’s view none of this seems particularly revelatory. [Here](http://timesandseasons.org/index.php/2014/10/new-polygamy-essays/) is one good place to start. The blog has many of the more liberal members who still believe, while a number of conservatives also interact with them. Here is [a podcast](http://mormonstories.org/new-lds-org-polygamy-essays-part-1-with-lindsay-hansen-park-john-hamer-and-j-nelson-seawright/) by a really liberal, non-believing member. The negative comments run much higher. One interesting comment. > [@](#): > > A couple years ago there was a group of girls who liked to spend their open study time in his [brother’s] classroom (they could choose which class to go to). One these girls happened to be the granddaughter of one of the quorum of the twelve (I won‘t say who). > > Anyway, one day they came into his class and were all excited about something. They asked my bro. “Did you know that Brigham Young had 55 wives?” (They were surprised by the number, not that he was a polygamist) My brother innocently replied, “Yeah I did know that, and I think Joseph had something like 25.” > > But of course the idea that Joseph married other women had not been taught to them, and their reaction was pretty extreme. They all got very defensive and told him that he was wrong and there was no way it could be true. One said that she had just gone to see the “Joseph and Emma” movie and if it was true, they would have said something about it in the movie. > > Realizing the bomb he had stepped on, my Bro. didn’t back track his statement, but tried to defuse the situation. He basically said that it was probably best not debate it, and they could talk to their parents or church leaders about it. The granddaughter of the Q12 said that her grandfather was coming for dinner that night and she was going to ask him. > > Well, the next day they all came back chagrined to find out the truth. My bro. asked the one girl what her grandfather said. He had basically given her the faithful LDS response, but confirmed, of course, that Joseph had other wives. My brother didn’t a have a chance to talk much more about it, but could tell they were all pretty unsettle by it. > > Anyway, I thought this was a funny, though very typical story, but interesting that a member of the 12 was involved. As a note, the Mormon church is lead by a president and his two counselors and then the Quorum of the 12, modeled after Jesus’ apostles. The 3 in the presidency + the Q12 makes up the Big 15 as us ex-Mormons call them, or The Brethren as the Mormons say. This is very typical, that member now did not know Smith practiced polygamy, let alone issues of age and polyandry. Anyway, that’s my [del]novel[/del] story, and I’m sticking to it. ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2014, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mormon-church-joseph-smith-married-girls-and-other-mens-wives/702652/22 "2014-10-28T16:40:14Z")
This is interesting in that it’s saying that some women had more than one husband (it doesn’t say they divorced their first husband when they married Smith), and that’s news to me as far as the practice went. ---
**Author:** ![Sattua](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sattua/32/11906_2.png) [@Sattua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sattua)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2014, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mormon-church-joseph-smith-married-girls-and-other-mens-wives/702652/23 "2014-10-28T17:35:02Z")
> [@TokyoBayer](#): > > OK, I’ll bite. How many other prominent religious leaders of the 19th century married 14-year-olds? How common was it for 13-year-olds to get married, especially outside of the frontier? You have to keep in mind that Nauvoo was as large as Chicago, and not some one-room shack on in the sticks. IIRC Laura expresses surprise about the marriage and talks disparagingly of the mother. I’m perfectly happy to agree that Joseph Smith was a shyster and a scumbag. I wasn’t trying to get you to “bite” anything, I kind of thought that I was “biting” your OP. I don’t have enough information about how you, personally, feel about this information to have much of a discussion with you about it, capice? You hadn’t presented any of your own thoughts at that point. I happen to remember that you used to be Mormon. That’s all the information I had to go on. ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2014, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mormon-church-joseph-smith-married-girls-and-other-mens-wives/702652/24 "2014-10-28T18:02:26Z")
> [@Sattua](#): > > I wasn’t trying to get you to “bite” anything, I kind of thought that I was “biting” your OP. Whatever. Here’s your comments, which I challenged. > [@](#): > > Okay. First observation, anyone who knows anything about the pre-20th-century world shouldn’t be surprised to hear that teenage girls were getting married. Even young ones. A 13-year-old gets married in the Little House on the Prairie books. So that particular aspect sounds like a tempest in a teakettle. I replied on how that is not the case. So. . . . . . . ---
**Author:** ![Sattua](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sattua/32/11906_2.png) [@Sattua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sattua)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2014, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mormon-church-joseph-smith-married-girls-and-other-mens-wives/702652/25 "2014-10-28T18:18:38Z")
I stand by my observation, in contrast to the way marriage to a 14-year-old would be viewed in today’s society. I’m not saying it was an everyday thing then or that nobody blinked an eye at it, I’m saying that there was nothing disgraceful about it at that time. Polygamy is the more unusual, more interesting aspect of all this. And I still don’t know how you personally stand on this issue, how Mormon you still are, how shocked you are, in what way you’re shocked, etc. You’re obviously worked up about all this, I just don’t know exactly why. ---
**Author:** ![Sattua](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sattua/32/11906_2.png) [@Sattua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sattua)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2014, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mormon-church-joseph-smith-married-girls-and-other-mens-wives/702652/26 "2014-10-28T18:34:57Z")
Anyhow, maybe I’d better clarify my own stance on these “revelations”: It doesn’t surprise me one iota to find out that any religious leader has done any bad thing. I don’t believe that all religious leaders have, but I certainly suspect all of the charismatic ones of being hucksters and criminals. Same for politicians. Same for businessmen. I do, however, think that the “married a 14 year old girl”, in the context of the 19th century, is the wrong part of all this to get upset about. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2014, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mormon-church-joseph-smith-married-girls-and-other-mens-wives/702652/27 "2014-10-28T18:47:13Z")
Polygamy and underwear seem to be all that non-Mormons can think of that is characteristic of Mormons, so I guess I am not as shocked as I should be. Smith married a fourteen year old - again, not common but not unheard of either. I always assumed that polygamy meant only one man and several wives, but that was just an assumption on my part. I am a Christian but not a Mormon, and I am used to the idea of “polygamy is another form of marriage that is not always condemned by God” from stories about the patriarchs, and I heard speculation that the BVM was fourteen or so when she was betrothed to Joseph, so the idea “it was different back then” doesn’t strike me as much by way of special pleading. And it strikes me rather as discussions about the perpetual virginity of Mary do - it seems rather clearly contradicted by Scripture, the case in its favor is weak, but I don’t particularly care either way because I was not raised to believe it and see no reason to accept it now. So if someone definitively proved that Joseph and Mary had sex, I would react much as I do here. Okay, so the Mormons officially downplayed or denied the polygamy thing and Smith marrying a young girl. Now they are admitting it. That’s nice. But it is like how they finally figured out that blacks could be priests (or whatever it was) - at least they are changing their story now that they have figured out they’re wrong. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2014, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mormon-church-joseph-smith-married-girls-and-other-mens-wives/702652/28 "2014-10-28T20:09:40Z")
A sex addict invents a religion and structures it so he can have all the nooky he wants? Sounds like Charlie Manson, only without the gruesome murders. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2014, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mormon-church-joseph-smith-married-girls-and-other-mens-wives/702652/29 "2014-10-28T20:17:30Z")
> [@Chefguy](#): > > only without the gruesome murders. Well, except for the [Mountain Meadows massacre](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountain_Meadows_massacre). ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2014, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mormon-church-joseph-smith-married-girls-and-other-mens-wives/702652/30 "2014-10-28T20:32:45Z")
> [@GoodOmens](#): > > Read “Under The Banner of Heaven” by John Krakauer. It’s the story of a horrible double murder committed by two fundamentalist Mormons, as well as a history of the faith itself, including the development of the “revelation” of plural marriage. Many distinct and overlapping types of up-fuckedness. Lets not forget about **The Mountain Meadow Massacre** , either. They get all ansty-in-the-pantsy when you bring that up. EDIT: **Shit!** See what happens when I get up to let the dogs in and forget to hit the “post” button for 15 minutes. Now I look like a non-readin’ fool! ---
**Author:** ![BrotherCadfael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2014, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mormon-church-joseph-smith-married-girls-and-other-mens-wives/702652/31 "2014-10-28T23:52:04Z")
Smith and company were part of the widespread religious revival known as the Second Great Awakening. The western New York area hosted so many revival meetings in the region that it was said to have been “burned over” by the fervor of the worshipers. From what I understand, the revival movements had a lopsided membership; many more women joined up then men. So, this brings up a question: Was polygamy the result of horny male leaders wanting to get it on, or a reaction to the sex imbalance among the various movements? Did they have to take to polygamy to find a place for all of the extra women? I haven’t been able to find an answer while perusing Wikipedia and other sites (I saw _Book of Mormon_ last weekend, and got curious about the history of the LDS movement), so I am throwing the question out to the teeming millions. Anyone have an answer? ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2014, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mormon-church-joseph-smith-married-girls-and-other-mens-wives/702652/32 "2014-10-29T03:00:54Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > Well, except for the [Mountain Meadows massacre](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountain_Meadows_massacre). There’s also speculation that Mormons were responsible for killing three members of John Wesley Powell’s expedition that first boated down the Colorado River. Said members left the expedition in favor of hiking out overland, since everyone was starving by then. They were never heard from again. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2014, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mormon-church-joseph-smith-married-girls-and-other-mens-wives/702652/33 "2014-10-29T03:38:32Z")
An irony that’s not mentioned above: Orson Scott Card is one of the most zealous (some would say rabid) defenders of “traditional marriage”, and he’s a descendant of the multi-married Zina mentioned above (the one God yo-yo’d between her husband Henry, Joseph Smith, and Brigham Young). Orson is her descendant by Brigham. He’s named for Orson Pratt (who was a good looking [young man](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c6/Orson_Pratt_engraving.png/220px-Orson_Pratt_engraving.png)) whose wife Sarah Ann ([painting as a young woman](http://photos.pratt-family.org/bates-cat/sarah-marinda-dup2.jpg)) was ordered to leave her husband and marry Joseph; her husband left the church over it, but later “repented” and evidently Sarah did as she was told. She went back to Orson when Joseph died, went with him to Utah, and there lived in poverty as her husband began taking many other wives (including a teenager when he was [an old man](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ed/OrsonPratt.jpg)- he had a total of 45 children), causing Sarah to say- in terms about this plain- “This is some fucked up bullshit” and leave him after all of her children were grown; most of them left the church as well as she had raised them to do. Orson Pratt’s brother Parley was actually killed by the previous/legal husband of one of his many wives; one of his descendants is Mitt Romney. Helen Mar Kimball’s “sealing” to Joseph was no secret at all; she wrote about it in her autobiography (and she died a devout Mormon). Her father ([this sexy beast](http://oneclimbs.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/heber-c-kimball.png)) was one of the most married men in Utah history: he had dozens of wives and fathered at least 65 children (a huge number of whom died young). In fairness, Joseph Smith had a solid alibi for not being involved in the Mountain Meadows Massacre: he was long dead at the time. Brigham Young’s involvement is the subject of much debate (outside of Mormonism- inside Mormonism it’s a resounding “he…knew…NOTHING…Elder Hogan!”). However, it should be remembered that when Smith was murdered he and his brother were in jail for destroying an anti-Mormon printing press whose publisher had been roughed up a couple of times before, so they weren’t exactly tolerant of dissenting opinions. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2014, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mormon-church-joseph-smith-married-girls-and-other-mens-wives/702652/34 "2014-10-29T04:02:06Z")
> [@TokyoBayer](#): > > OK, I’ll bite. How many other prominent religious leaders of the 19th century married 14-year-olds? How common was it for 13-year-olds to get married, especially outside of the frontier? You have to keep in mind that Nauvoo was as large as Chicago, and not some one-room shack on in the sticks. IIRC Laura expresses surprise about the marriage and talks disparagingly of the mother. > > I’m aware of studies which show the average age of marriage for women in the US in 1840 to be around 18-19 years of age. Outside of a few possible frontier marriages, it would seem as scandal, especially for someone who was in their late 30s, let alone as a secret marriage. One noted scholar pointed out that in New Jersey in 1848-50, as an example, only 0.1 percent of the women married at 14 years or younger. > > The problem which you and **Sattua** are glossing over is that these marriages to Smith were polygamous and because of Smith’s position as almost a demi-god in a tight-knit group waiting for and expecting the Second Coming, inherently coercive. > > Helen Mar Kimball, one of the 14-year-olds Smith married, was the daughter of Smith’s close associate. Regardless if a very small percentage of girls on the frontier (which Nauvoo was not) were getting married, it would still be unconscionable for a religious leader of Smith’s status to obtain girls for marriage in that manner. Perhaps if you weren’t fixated on the LDS you’d know that 19th century America was filled with religious cults that had sexual practices repugnant to society at large. You could start by looking at the [Oneida community and their concept of Complex Marriage](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oneida_Community#Complex_marriage). You could also look into the [Robert Matthews](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Matthews_(religious_figure))and his religious order. Interestingly he met Joseph Smith once. Those are just a couple of the cults that broke off from the mainstream religious practices. You can be sure plenty of clergymen were using their positions to engage in all sorts of sexual shenanigans. It’s a very common religious theme, embodied in the American culture through the novel the Scarlet Letter. The only thing unique about the LDS was that they survived and the descendants of it’s founders have to deal directly with their heritage. ---
**Author:** ![Morgenstern](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Morgenstern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morgenstern)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2014, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mormon-church-joseph-smith-married-girls-and-other-mens-wives/702652/35 "2014-10-29T04:55:14Z")
> [@Boyo\_Jim](#): > > These marriages were all about begetting, weren’t they? Not necessarily. Many of the plural wives were married due to the circumstances of the day. Once a woman was widowed, she typically had no means of support. Plural marriage was a means of providing for these women. Of course, many unions produced children too. Honestly, this is no surprise to church members. If the OP’s article was dated after 1852, then he got ninja’ed 'cause we all knew that all along. Heck, JS made a revelation that plural marriage was cool during his life. There was a scandal of sorts, and that had to do with the direction the church took after Joseph died. Joseph’s wife and kid were actually RLDS members then, and they are the ones who wanted this “scandal” buried. And some as young as 14. Already addressed up-thread, that was really not uncommon back then for rural areas. ---
**Author:** ![Claverhouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/13edae/32.png) [@Claverhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Claverhouse)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2014, 5:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mormon-church-joseph-smith-married-girls-and-other-mens-wives/702652/36 "2014-10-29T05:36:06Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > Well, except for the [Mountain Meadows massacre](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountain_Meadows_massacre). I recalled the only chap who was shot for it, twenty years after, John D. Lee, because the **[wiki page](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_D._Lee)** has a **[photograph](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:John_D._Lee_pre-execution_photo.png)** of him sitting on his coffin before being killed. Major Lee left 19 wives and 56 children. ---
**Author:** ![Claverhouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/13edae/32.png) [@Claverhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Claverhouse)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2014, 5:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mormon-church-joseph-smith-married-girls-and-other-mens-wives/702652/37 "2014-10-29T05:42:40Z")
That should be _by_ his coffin. ---
**Author:** ![BaldDudePeekskill](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/b5e925/32.png) [@BaldDudePeekskill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BaldDudePeekskill)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2014, 11:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mormon-church-joseph-smith-married-girls-and-other-mens-wives/702652/38 "2014-10-29T11:13:56Z")
The problem plaguing Mormonism is that they don’t have the luxury of time…it’s pretty hard (but not impossible) to prove or disprove biblical events that occurred thousands of years ago…however, it is really not hard at all to discern the roots of the Mormon religion. Key doctrines of the faith can be traced, as one poster mentioned, to the prevailing morality and faith climate at the time of its inception. Then there is also the whole Mason connection which cannot be denied…the so-called Word of Wisdom, allegedly received from God was in part due to the Temperance movement of the day…and prohibition against coffee, tea and tobacco (all of which Joseph Smith used up to his death) can be traced to Brigham Youngs desire to not trade outside the Mormon settlements and pay taxes to the US government, who was quite antagonistic to all things Mormon. We are not talking ancient history, here…and it’s a lot easier to debunk events occurring than two hundred years in the past. ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2014, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mormon-church-joseph-smith-married-girls-and-other-mens-wives/702652/39 "2014-10-29T13:42:35Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > Polygamy and underwear seem to be all that non-Mormons can think of that is characteristic of Mormons, so I guess I am not as shocked as I should be. Hey, how about those wacky Mormons going around baptizing Jewish people into the Mormon Church post-mortem? Granted, the thread is about the polygamy issue, but those are the three that come to mind for me. ---
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2014, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mormon-church-joseph-smith-married-girls-and-other-mens-wives/702652/40 "2014-10-29T14:15:20Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > Well, except for the [Mountain Meadows massacre](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountain_Meadows_massacre). Anyone ever notice that the Mountain Meadows Massacre took place on 9/11? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mormon-church-joseph-smith-married-girls-and-other-mens-wives/702652.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mormon-church-joseph-smith-married-girls-and-other-mens-wives/702652.md?page=3)