The founder of the gospel of Jesus Christ 2.0 had no regard for the family bonds of his in-laws. None of Emma's friends or family members attended their marriage. During the ceremony, Joseph Smith was safe from harm due to the distance and privacy that eloping offered.

Such a valiant example to us all.

https://josephsmith.net/article/joseph-and-emma?lang=eng

Emma's embarrassed and outraged parents lacked the Holy Spirit of forgiveness.

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it seems likely to me that this was a classic case of the "bad boy" meeting the young girl who had a weakness for bad boys.

He was the bad boy/alpha guy who came to town and she saw him leading a bunch of older guys around on treasure hunts and it impressed her. Like a lot of those "bad boys" I'm sure he was a big talker and a smooth talker, painting pictures with words of all of the great things he was going to do. (In modern terms, it would be like some guy bragging about all of his planned future acquisitions--a vacation home on Maui, a private jet, a vineyard in France and making it sound like he's actually on track to do all that, when in reality he's just been fired for incompetence and laziness from his shelf-stocking job at the local supermarket.)

Emma was probably a bit of a rebellious spirit herself and Joe, with all his big talk, likely appealed to her desire to break free from her conservative family and get out there in the big world with this exciting young guy who was going to be rich, rich, rich and famous, famous, famous. He was going places (and if you doubted, all you had to do was ask him).

Then, as is often the case, the "bad boy" surprised her by turning out to be a bad man, who cheated on her, scammed others and whose big talk about all the great things he was going to do turned out not to be so impressive in the long run. TBH, cold as it may sound, she was probably relieved and glad to be rid of him when his bad deeds caught up to him at Carthage.

Of course you will never see Joe and Emma's relationship described in realistic terms like this in any Church publication.

Wally Prince Wrote:
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> it seems likely to me that this was a classic case
> of the "bad boy" meeting the young girl who had a
> weakness for bad boys.

Emma was likely a witch quite like her peep-stone Joe. Why would he choose to steal less out a window.

His new-found witchy woman soon after gifted him with a grotesquely deformed kid. Typical fruit of vines like these.

I'd say it was bad boy meets bad girl and both sailed away on a crazy, Masonically scripted, magical mystery tour.

So you may be onto something.

Although I was aware of Joseph Smith's interest in Salem as expressed in D&C 111. I'm starting to see indications that there were more connections to Salem than meets the eye.

I am positive that the historical record that is available to us only gives us a tiny, fractional glimpse of what these families were into and what their antecedents were.

That's the problem with history in general. Probably not even 1% of the important things that transpired minute by minute, hour by hour, month by month, year by year ever get accurately recorded anywhere. But it seems like human nature for us to mistakenly think that if we read a couple of thick "history" books about a given person or time period we then have a clear understanding of what really happened.

I am saddened to see such disrespect for the third greatest album ever produced.

I lost my faith in God, but music remains holy to me and mine.

https://youtu.be/soLCJHELTlg