Hey all. We all know the argument that ol Joe was fine marrying 14 year olds because people married younger back then. Well, a while back somebody posted evidence here that proved this to be false. It showed historic average marriage ages for quite a long period of time.

Does anybody know where I could find this?

Thanks in advance.

Age of consent is likewise not a factor in the JS/HMK thang.

Because Horn-Dog Joe was already married to Emma, he was in no position to ask HMK's consent and HMK was in no position to grant her consent.

There is no apologetic response in this case that cannot be easily debunked.

Timothy

Here's the link. It was nowhere near 14. More like between 21 and 22. These are census numbers.

http://www.wivesofjosephsmith.org/Age.htm

Ron

http://www.i4m.com/think/polygamy/teen_polygamy.htm

At the end of the article it lists these ref

Coale and Zelnik assume a mean age of marriage for white women of 20 (1963: 37). Sanderson's assumptions are consistent with a mean of 19.8 years (Sanderson 1979: 343). The Massachusetts family reconstitutions revealed somewhat higher mean ages. For Hingham, Smith reports an age at first marriage of 23.7 at the end of the eighteenth century (1972: Table 3, p. 177). For Sturbridge, the age for a comparable group was 22.46 years (Osterud and Fulton 1976: Table 2, p. 484), and in Franklin County it was 23.3 years (Temkin-Greener, H., and A.C. Swedlund. 1978. Fertility Transition in the Connecticut Valley:1740-1850. Population Studies 32 (March 1978):27-41.: Table 6, p. 34).

Average age of puberty for girls was 16 too. It's very likely those 14 year olds were prepubescent when he started having sex with them.

I really appreciate it.

Marriage at 17 was not unheard of, but raised an eyebrow. Marriage at 16 (in those days) was very uncommon.

Marriage at 14-15 was a scandal of a major size, as girls at that age had not yet started their periods. For JS to "marry" and have sex with girls this age could lead to all kinds of undesidered consequences.

Having used his position as a trusted church and community leader to have sex with underage girls is called aggrevated sexual child abuse. 5-life for each count, at least today. Then, it could get you killed.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/06/2011 04:25PM by Stray Mutt.

It was illegal to marry more that one spouse in every state or territory that the Mormon's practiced polygamy.

Also, even IF it was common to marry such young girls, it wasn't the usual practice to marry in private and hide (or lie about) the marriage from family & friends. It wasn't the practice for the married couple to live separately as if they were single. It wasn't the practice for a young girl to marry a husband so much older that she was. And it certainly wasn't the practice to marry more than one at a time.

http://www.census.gov/population/socdemo/hh-fam/tabMS-2.pdf

Marriage to young girls was mostly either the very rich and powerful making dynastic ties, of the very poor and rural.

I have hundreds of marriages in my genealogy going back to the 1600s and the only teenagers are in early Utah.