It’s not the actions of Joseph that ultimately matter in this discussion. It’s the very nature of God.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/17/syrian-mothers-child-brides?CMP=fb_gu

So girls in Syria are more mature and it’s ok to marry them young (surely their lives are hard and thus they grow up fast)? They are protected and better off married because of rape? Or protecting them from losing their virginity before marriage? Just_like_Syria. Meg Stout, you’ve even argued in the case of Lorenzo Snow that he was good in taking teenage girls at Winter Quarters because at least they had rice–just like Syrian mothers argue it’s ok because these girls have a house. Icky.

The historical treatment of Mormon polygamy needs too look at these young marriages, coerced marriages, polygamous marriages–and see that when this happens now. It is almost always in times of violence, displacement, and scarcity. The same applies here. Mormons were driven out, there was violence, there was scarcity. But there is absolutely nothing sacred about it. It is just as sad and tragic and abusive as the Syrian situation.

What we don’t know is what was going on at those dances.

We do know that women who were innocently participating in a Church choir were followed and pressured into sex (Sarah Searcy Miller and I think Mary Clift). Not a possibly sexless covenant, but into reproductive sex wth a morning after “medicine” of some sort with men who didn’t bother making any promises or covenants. And as mentioned, the morning after medicine didn’t work for Mary Clift. Two other sisters (Matilda and Margaret Nyman) were on their way to a school gathering when they were “escorted” by a man who proceeded to coerce them into yielding up their virginity. Again, no marriage or covenant. There are other seductions we know about, but these four demonstrate the peril involved in innocent social events in Nauvoo at the time.

We know that teenage sons of High Church leaders were being swayed to be involved in or at least accepting of illicit intercourse. Orange Wight (son of Lyman Wight, an apostle) reported that he’d been fully initiated in 1841. Sarah Whitney and her parents didn’t tell Horace about the New and Everlasting Covenant, because they were terribly afraid that he would be swayed by Francis Higbee (see Brian Hales website and look at the information regarding Sarah Whitney). These are exactly the “teenage” beaux Helen mght have wished to dance with. In fact, she would later marry Horace, who appeared to have been saved from involvement in the illicit intercourse mess by his mission. Orange Wight doesn’t appear to have been as fortunate.

We are informed that hundreds of men were poised to rise up and murder Joseph Smith in 1844, and that most of the leaders of this conspiracy were men who had been named as seducers in 1842. How did they know which men in Nauvoo would be willing to murderously rebel against Joseph? I assert the possibility that these were the same men who had been involved in the seductions. We don’t have a roster of the hundreds of men, any more than the Gadianton robbers held roll call and published membership lists. But it is telling that the two members of the group who turned double agent for Joseph were 19 and 20 in 1844. In 1841-1842, when the ring of seduction was being investigated, these two individuals were both teenagers.

So again, Joseph and fathers of teenage girls had very good reason to be afraid of their daughters dating their age-peers in 1842-1843 Nauvoo. I do believe that when Joseph spoke of salvation, he meant it. But sometimes it is a salvation to be prevented from marrying a corrupt man. And far too many of the possible teenage beaux were still deeply involved in corruption in the days when Joseph was asking them to covenant with him in righteousness for the salvation of their souls.

My guess is Mormonism will outlast Unitarianism by a good country mile. It’s more disciplined, and it matters more.

Seriously, you’re attacking someone for an arranged marriage where the person in question was free to leave and was given a choice in which in appears there were no relations at all when the founding story of Christianity is about a girl younger given no choice who was pregnant in the situation.

Seth R., (129) Bull. Just read the text, D&C 132:51-66.

“then shall she believe and administer unto him, or she shall be destroyed, saith the Lord your God; for I will destroy her”

Women are “given.” Women “belong” to a man. If a man is bad (i.e. David), women are “given” to another man. The text is written as though it were the voice of God himself promising salvation and threatening destruction, contingent on a woman complying to marry a man. The man allegedly conveying the voice of God has an immediate interest in women complying. In particular, the man is threatening his own wife for much of the passages.

There is no salvation for these verses. There is no amount of apologetics that makes it a “better” idea. Anyone who gives a damn about how women are treated cannot defend these ideas.

These passages and ideas have a shelf life of over 180 years! Think about what that means. It festers and metastisizes and there’s apparently no way to excise this idea–for 180 years.

Now consider what the 21st century will look like. Ideas are not allowed to fester in the 21st century for 180 hours, let alone 180 years. Do you see any future for an organization that cannot clean up 15 verses in 180 years?

That’s a rhetorical question. I’m done commenting on this thread.

Don’t get me wrong. I think our views of race, development, and gender are far healthier than most of those in the 19th century let alone early 19th rural America. But let’s be careful here in assuming they understood all those things when trying to apply the light God gave them. It’s fine to say God should have given them 21st century ethical understanding. But he didn’t. Were we to go to 1st century Palestine we’d have been even more shocked since that culture made 19th century America seem like Utopia.

The reality is that in the 19th century marriage was rarely the romantic ideal of love we have today. (Which is not to say people didn’t love each other – just that things were more complex) Most people lived short brutish lives. Death in childbirth was common.

Do I wish Joseph and Brigham had placed big limits on marriage? Heck yeah. It would have been much healthier. I wish they had adopted a thoroughgoing egalitarianism on race too. For that matter I wish God had revealed most of the major scientific developments, especially regarding health, that came over the next 100 years. Would have made people’s lives far better.

But if we’re going to criticize a bunch of people in their ignorance trying to make the best of a difficult situation that’s fine. But let’s at least criticize them in terms of the era. Don’t get me wrong. It’s all a difficult situation to me as well. I find most of the 19th century figures problematic. But then I find most of the NT figures even more problematic. I’m glad we’ve progressed to where we are. Ultimately what counts is finding out if Joseph was a prophet and if the Book of Mormon is true. Difficult challenges in history make it so we can’t take our religion for granted. If we want to know if we should stay, it requires finding out directly from God. On my mission most of my investigators got antied with all this stuff by the 3rd discussion. Yet if they were praying the challenges of the history led to a much deeper and better testimony.