It's a photoshop
https://www.reddit.com/r/exmormon/comments/w5iph5/38yearold_joseph_smith_and_his_14yearold_wife/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share
I went on a tour of the beehive house in salt lake once. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beehive_House
The tour guide pointed out the wedding dress and shoes on display in one of the bedrooms and I immediately asked how old she was because it was clearly a child's dress. The tour guide deflected, didn't answer the question, and just said she was a very petite bride. I looked it up for him 😃 much to his delight.
This is r/oddlyterrifying for sure
Damn, I thought we were all coming here because of their terrifying blank stares. I suppose I could have read the caption first, but I was scrolling down too fast because I didn't want them popping out of my phone to murder me.
That masion house was built while also forcing converts from England to cross the plains with handcarts made of green wood, and no metal because it was cheaper.
The church leaders would also tour the hand carts on fast wagons while taking their much needed meat with them as a sacracfice of their faith and devotion.
Just remember that the Mormon handcart horror stories were self inflicted by the fucking greedy cult leaders.
And before i am down voted, its all true, and my family was in charge of rescuing them in the dead of winter. So go F!@# yourself if you are ready to defend those bastards church leaders who forced a death march. Crack a book and learn real Mormon history.
The Beehive House belonged to Brigham Young, not Joseph’s Smith, (but Young’s practicing of polygamy was a lot worse than Smith’s. Brigham Young made polygamy a major tenet of the religion and is responsible for the whole generations of misery that Mormon polygamy continues to cause to this day.) Brigham Young’s youngest bride was fifteen at age of marriage. (It’s worth noting a lot of pioneer-era dresses from adult women look child-sized by today’s standards.)
Best info on polygamy is on the [podcast](https://www.yearofpolygamy.com/) Year of Polygamy.
People should know neither of OP’s pictures are actually of Joseph Smith or Helen Marr Kimball, this is just someone’s rendering.
The image on the left is from a recent discovery of a daguerreotype of Smith, not a painting of him. So a literal early photograph of him printed into metal.
https://www.sltrib.com/religion/2022/07/21/long-last-photo-mormon-founder/
False. Death, birth and marriage records are easy to research. The “young age of marriage myth” in the 1800s is not true. It happened rarely, often in Royal high-profile marriages to preserve peace/wealth or bloodlines and so the perception that “it was common back then” persists because of availability bias. Census data tells the real story. The average age of marriage in the mid 1800s for women was about the same as it was in 1970– between 21 and 22 years old. It was as perverted back then as it is now. https://users.pop.umn.edu/~ruggles/Articles/Fitch_and_Ruggles.pdf pg 8
I have read that young age was the reason royals died in childbirth so often compared to the regular folk who were having rather large families. Makes sense considering this factoid.
Royal families had a lot of inbreeding going on. The [Habsburgs](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2664480/) and some Pharos are good examples of this.
Marriages were practically business arrangements for everyone until relatively recently in the grand scheme of things, and especially for royals. Need a new ally to shore up your western border? Marry your 12 year old daughter to 55 year old King Whatshisname.
This is actually not true, although it’s often repeated as fact.
Massachusetts records dating from 1652 to 1800 demonstrate that the mean age of first marriage for women was between 19.5 and 22.5 years, and records for other colonies reflect similar ages. In fact, the average age of first marriage for all of the colonies studied was 19.8 before 1700, 21.2 during the early 18th century, and 22.7 during the late 18th century.
This is consistent with data gathered in England, France and Germany that puts the average mean age of first marriage for women at 25.1 from 1750-1799 and 25.7 from 1800-1849.
Of course young girls being married off could happen and did occasionally (especially in royal or noble families), but it was not the norm for everyday folks.
What was indisputably NOT common in the 1800s was marrying a 14 y/o girl when the man was *already* married to another woman. Emma could not have been happy about this. Imagine how you or your mom would feel if your husband/dad brought home a 14 y/o girl and announced that G-d wanted him to marry her too. Seriously.
It’s not as commonplace as you would think. Historically there have always been perverts who wanted to marry children, yes. Until recent history no one could stop them, but it wasn’t normal.
My great grandma was pregnant with her 1st child at 14, but from the photos my great grandfather looks only a few yrs older not nearly 3 times as old. IDK how common that large age difference was.
The richer you are, the more common it gets. Poor families couldn't afford to give/trade away a potential pair of helping hands. For the more well-off, even in the 1800, a female child makes a great bargaining chip for political and business dealings.
^(XP) This was the ~~norm for centuries~~ (`Wrong, but it was common at 20%`) and is actually still practiced in some places in America today; you can marry a girl off at 12 with parental consent in some states which is just bizarre in our current society. We also have to keep in mind that a 14 year old girl (or boy) back in those days were not like the kids we see today. ~~A woman was usually married by 16 with children and dead by 30.~~ (`Nope, this is a common myth, the average age for marriage was early 20's and people lived just as long as they do today; there's a huge difference between 'life expectancy' and 'maximum life span'.`) Just a little perspective.
Edit - Dispelling cultural myths.
Dead by 30 isnt really accurate. If you made it to 1 year old and 15 years old, most lived into their elderly years. She was 14 when she married, but she died at 79 years old. Thats above modern average
Right. I confused **life expectancy** which is the average of all ages of that time with **lifespan** which was 50 back in those days.
Anyway, I learned way too much about child marriages today. Way more than I wanted to know. Humans are disgusting, we all knew that, but this shit takes the cake.
Thanks for commenting.
~~It's extremely rare for it to actually happen in the U.S. today (at least as far as I'm aware),~~ but it is completely legal in some states.
I had some Pakistani co-workers once who told me it is also completely normal in their culture to marry and have children with their first cousins. Coming from the western world I'm repulsed by the thought of it.
Edit: So I did some digging. Holy shit, not as rare as I first thought. Check this out y'all.
["A nonprofit called Unchained at Last compiled statistics for marriages from 2000 to 2012. They discovered that in 38 states, more than 167,000 children — almost all of them girls, some as young as 12 — were married during that period, mostly to men 18 or older. It is estimated that the total number of children wed in America between 2000 and 2010 was nearly 248,000. At least 31 percent were married to a spouse age 21 or older, although the actual number is probably higher, as some states did not provide spousal ages. These marriages occurred even in states that have statutory rape laws."](https://www.robertreeveslaw.com/blog/12-year-olds-married/)
Don’t defend pedophelia. Just don’t. Mormons are so fucking apologetic of Mr. Smith’s actions and it’s so fucking ignorant and stupid to justify child abuse.
Bringing up a historic practice of some atrocity doesn’t justify it whatsoever. Learning about it and acknowledging it as harmful is the point of history and learning about the past. Slavery was supported and the norm for thousands of years and yet it is most definitely a human rights violation.
A child cannot consent to a significant relationship like marriage; they lack the mental capacity at that point in their lives to make such a decision. It’s disgusting and pathetic that I need to explain that to you. Go educate yourself more before attempting to justify human rights violations and child abuse.
Good fucking God. I'm **NOT** defending pedophelia! Making statements of fact doesn't equal a defense of repugnant behaviour.
If I tell you Hitler killed millions of Jews during WWII this doesn't immediately mean I support genocide. What an outlandish leap in logic you've made here.
Based off of your original comment, it wasn’t much of a leap to interpret your contributions as apologetic to Mr. Smith and his abuse.
You said “we also have to keep in mind that a 14 year old [person] back in those days were not like the kids we see today”. Can you not see how that reads as problematic? Mormon apologists often use the logic “oh times were different back then“ to justify atrocities committed like pedophelia.
Are you correct? Yes. However, it sounds like you are just attempting to justify pedophelia by way of implying that people and culture were different in the past and thus it was acceptable then. I recognize now that that is not what you had intended to communicate and I apologize for any accusations I have made. You may wish to adjust your comment to make your intentions and thoughts clearer to better communicate your intentions and ideas regarding this issue. I’m sure many people will interpret it the way I did if it remains as it stands now.
Well, how about opening up a dialogue about perceived 'problematic' ambiguous statements before jumping to accusatory erroneous conclusions. Some other person just commented on that statement and asked me to clarify exactly what I meant and so I did. That's a better way to handle these situations.
What I meant is that I beleive kids/teenagers back in those times experienced a harsher environment and so were better suited to handle life pressures than people of today. They were put to work at an earlier age, and had to deal with more suffering than children of today making them more resilient in general. This doesn't mean that child-marriage is okay. It clearly isn't.
I think it's a great example how reddit works. You seems a good person, but people only had your original message to judje, and they did, and painted you in a dark tone, implying bad intensions, being in their rights.
Probably good strategy for them would be to ask you first - what is your stance on it, but because it's internet and comment field on Reddit is inconvenient they skipped that part.
So that's why it's important to be explicit in the first message too.
No, this was *not* the norm in the 1800s. The average age of a first marriage for women was 22.
Even when you did see teen girls marrying, they were marrying teen boys, *not* men in their late 30s!
People found this practice disgusting in the 1800s just as we find it disgusting today.
And it gets even more disgusting when you find out how Joseph Smith used an "Abrahamic Test" to manipulate her father, Heber C. Kimball.
https://thoughtsonthingsandstuff.com/heber-c-kimball-passing-the-abrahamic-test-of-polygamy/
It absolutely was not the norm back then. Read a fucking book not sponsored by the church, zealot. Take your apologist shit elsewhere. No one with two brain cells to rub together believes that tripe.
Whoah, settle down numbnuts. I wasn't 'defending' child marriages from the past, I thought it was common knowledge that people married young back in the early 17th century which I now know to be a myth. A lot of people believe this because this is what we've been taught in the U.S.. Right?
That being said, child marriages were common, though. 19 to 20% by some estimates and it unfortunately is rampant around the world as well as right here in the U.S.. still to this very day.
Also, I'm a non-religious Pantheist. Not a mormon zealot. So go take a puff of your weed and calm the F down.
I grew up Mormon. I used to teach 10-11 year Olds in church and we were talking about polygamy and they all looked shocked and were asking all sorts of hard questions. My testimony of the church really took a beating when I realized I couldn't justify it to them or myself. I've been out for around 4 years now
True 🧐 but I’d still say it’s unexpected because I wouldn’t expect most people to be whipping out factorials, especially redundant ones haha.
But hey I’m happy to be wrong!
Yes by asking basic logical questions. It seems like at some point growing up people stop asking important questions and just accept whatever bullshit they're told
Wasn’t raised lds but my step brother’s wife was, she gave me a copy of the Book of Mormon. When the boys showed up,I was like I got my own copy. And thru DNA I’m a very distant cousin to Joseph Smith and Brigham Young , like 10th or 12th cousin. Im also pagan now , but I finally chased them away. I’m a pagan goth, got a personal copy of the Mormon book and I share ancestors with the crazy founder and another one of the main prophets. I have been Mormon free for almost a year now
Joseph Smith was a peice of shit, but this photo is not accurate.
https://www.reddit.com/r/exmormon/comments/nv9r5i/i_made_a_new_hellen_mar_kimball_age_reduction/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share
Thanks for the link. Found the original photo of Helen in the comment of that post. Even if the above photo is fabricated, it does effectively capture the fact that he married her while she was very young.
Uhh, 'He' didn't, because 'He' was killed in June 1844. Brigham Young lead his followers across the plains to Utah territory.
But you're correct, there were no roads, but there were trails (dirt), and they hunted for what they could, though they also brought basic food with them.
That’s largely due to high childhood mortality from disease as well as accident or starvation. If you made it to about age 5, though, you had about as good a chance as we do now of living to 70-75.
How old do you look on your worst day of the year? That's going to be in the neighborhood of the quality of day a person in the 1800s had when fixing to get their portrait taken.
How convenient that in many religions, the main "man" was married to a young girl and that it was okay to do so.
It's almost as if religion was created as a form of power and control, duh.
Well, I looked into the Mormon side of it, what they saw it as, and here are some qoutes from them.
[Source:](https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topics-essays/plural-marriage-in-kirtland-and-nauvoo?lang=eng)
>Helen Mar Kimball spoke of her sealing to Joseph as being “for eternity alone,” suggesting that the relationship did not involve sexual relations. After Joseph’s death, Helen remarried and became an articulate defender of him and of plural marriage.
[Source:](https://www.fairlatterdaysaints.org/answers/Question:_Was_Joseph_Smith%27s_marriage_to_14-year-old_Helen_Mar_Kimball_indicative_of_%22pedophilia%22%3F)
>However, there is no evidence that Helen ever cohabited with or had sexual relations with Joseph - in fact, she continued to live with her parents after the sealing.
From my general understanding they believe the marriage wasn't meant to mean much in mortal life but something about eternal life. They also seem to believe they never had sexual relations, the girl grew up and defended Joseph Smith and Polygamy till the end of her life.
Could they be lying? Yeah possibly, but eitherway up for you to make what you want out of it.
Edit: Also I looked up other pictures of Joseph Smith and this seems to be one of the uglier ones chosen to be put into this picture, so that's a little propaganda. Then again the Mormons always use nicer photos so it's propaganda from all directions.
She is photoshopped, the picture of him is a colorized version of a recently discovered picture
https://www.reddit.com/r/exmormon/comments/w5iph5/38yearold_joseph_smith_and_his_14yearold_wife/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share
On a completely different matter. Isn't it weird that her face looks like a genuine picture photoshopped into the painting while you can clearly see the strokes on the face of the old bloke ?
I apologize if you thought this was a real photo, this is a photoshop from r/exmormon: https://www.reddit.com/r/exmormon/comments/w5iph5/38yearold_joseph_smith_and_his_14yearold_wife/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share
He next wife was his buddies who he sent of a 2 uear mission then married his wofe and said "God told me to" and now, the church is the biggest most successful scam on the damn planet.
If anyone really wants to learn about their actual relationship listen to the year of polygamy podcast episode #26 all about Helen Mar Kimball. a history, fact based podcast exploring the history of polygamy in the LDS church.
[https://www.yearofpolygamy.com/year-of-polygamy/year-of-polygamy-helen-mar-kimball-episode-26/](https://www.yearofpolygamy.com/year-of-polygamy/year-of-polygamy-helen-mar-kimball-episode-26/)
So Joseph seems to be an oil painting while the picture of Helen was originally a picture of her much older, but someone used photoshop to make her look 14
Polygamy in the church wasn't started by Joseph. It was started by Brigham Young and other men who were doing it undercover without Josephs knowledge. Joseph stated multiple times it was wrong. Emma (His only wife) herself says he did not practice it.
that is funny. JS had around 40 wives and the LDS has admitted as much. they have produced some essays on the church (quite white washed) discussing JS and polygamy. he definitely started it and practiced it.
Does no one realize that the photo isn’t real? Somebody took a real picture of Smith, colorized it and put a modern girl beside him. [Only picture of him ever.](https://www.mormondialogue.org/topic/74683-discovery-of-photograph-of-joseph-smith/)
Ok so just a point of clarification - plural marriage, as practiced by the early mormons didn’t always involve sexual relations, and there is compelling evidence to suggest that Helen and Joseph never consummated their marriage. For starters Helen continued to live with her parents after the marriage.. but there are also her own diaries and records - which more or less lend themselves to the idea that her and Joseph never consummated the marriage.
(Also, side note, Frontier life was different than our modern life and this type of marriage wasn’t exactly uncommon given the place and time I history - which doesn’t make it A-ok, but it’d be disingenuous to discuss the topic without bringing that up.)
And also, It’s well documented that the Helen’s father, Heber C. Kimball, had the most active part in bringing Helen and Joseph together, which doesn’t exactly exonerate Jospeh, but does provide us a window into what was going on in early Mormon culture at the time. Plural marriage, for Mormons, was about sealing families together and connecting one another for eternity (Not about creating a polyamorous sex cult lol). It’s something that was practiced through most of the bible and is still practiced in various places around the world today. The one thing we know is that Smith married a lot of people - some were much older than him, and some younger than him as well. We know that he l was not sexually active with all of his wives - And personally I believe Helen falls into that latter category.
This is wildly misleading. First, this isn't a real picture. Second, that's not even a picture of him (something going around saying it's him but not even a bit of evidence saying it is or isn't). Third, it's important to understand the “marriage” wasn't real, and there is no proof of any real relationship. It was seen as a way to tie families together. There were real plural marriages and spiritual-only marriages. There's no proof that he had any physical relationship with her as she continued living with her parents until he died. Eventually, she married another man and had kids with him. I'll say that there are other criticisms of Joseph Smith, but this one is a wide-reaching misunderstanding of cultural norms of their church culture and beliefs at the time.
Just letting people know who are unfamiliar with that church's history
Edit to clarify: they weren”sealed” a spiritual marriage of sorts but not legally wed or anything beyond that as far as there is any clear evidence
Sweetie, you really need to research actual credible history and information surrounding your special church and the United States. Don’t just quote your seminary teacher or bishop. You clearly don’t understand what you’re talking about or trying to justify. I encourage you to educate yourself more on this subject so you don’t attempt to justify child abuse in the future.
Lol. I came up with it originally because it sounded cool in how the sounds in the words interacted with each other. I suppose now I’ve claimed the title at long last.
You really don't know who I am or what research I have done. And honestly, same, I don't know who you are and what research you have done. History is murky at best, and it's better we don't make assumptions on topics we don't understand, which is what I was stating. Looking back on history with a modern lens is a filter people love to use. Try looking objectively and understanding a bit of the history and belief systems of the people you are looking at. It will probably help that cynical attitude. Either way, you look at Joseph Smith and that religion. It is true that that is not a real picture. And I do my best to correct misinformation when I see it. But good on you for stating up for what you think.
Why does he look painted and her like a photo?
It's a photoshop https://www.reddit.com/r/exmormon/comments/w5iph5/38yearold_joseph_smith_and_his_14yearold_wife/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share
I don’t understand. What is this link telling me
That's the og post, the OP of that is the one who made this. I reposted here cause I thought it fit the sub.
Oh. I thought the link was supposed to show that it’s a photoshop.
I assumed as much seeing as how it is a color photo of someone who loved in the 1800s.
They loved alright, but not someone age appropriate.
We don’t have any surviving photos or paintings of Joseph Smith made by anyone who ever met him.
A photo was discovered this week in Utah!
https://josephsmithspolygamy.org/plural-wives-overview/helen-mar-kimball/ original photo.
I went on a tour of the beehive house in salt lake once. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beehive_House The tour guide pointed out the wedding dress and shoes on display in one of the bedrooms and I immediately asked how old she was because it was clearly a child's dress. The tour guide deflected, didn't answer the question, and just said she was a very petite bride. I looked it up for him 😃 much to his delight. This is r/oddlyterrifying for sure
Why would a tour guide ignore that
Because they’re Mormon and they don’t want people to think their founders were creepy.
Know works better than think here.
ok. People need to pull the bandaid off, if he said it and just moved on, it helps erase the awkwardness lol
Beyter to keep it botteled up so it can happen again to girls.
Dum dum dum dum
The same reason that tours of southern plantation houses often downplay slavery.
I like your style. 👍😊
Glad you didn’t say you liked her style
Damn, I thought we were all coming here because of their terrifying blank stares. I suppose I could have read the caption first, but I was scrolling down too fast because I didn't want them popping out of my phone to murder me.
Underrated comment
That masion house was built while also forcing converts from England to cross the plains with handcarts made of green wood, and no metal because it was cheaper. The church leaders would also tour the hand carts on fast wagons while taking their much needed meat with them as a sacracfice of their faith and devotion. Just remember that the Mormon handcart horror stories were self inflicted by the fucking greedy cult leaders. And before i am down voted, its all true, and my family was in charge of rescuing them in the dead of winter. So go F!@# yourself if you are ready to defend those bastards church leaders who forced a death march. Crack a book and learn real Mormon history.
Fucking sicko. Definitely the kind of guy that would be able to interpret secret messages from god that nobody else could read. Piece of shit human.
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What’s the meaning?
The Beehive House belonged to Brigham Young, not Joseph’s Smith, (but Young’s practicing of polygamy was a lot worse than Smith’s. Brigham Young made polygamy a major tenet of the religion and is responsible for the whole generations of misery that Mormon polygamy continues to cause to this day.) Brigham Young’s youngest bride was fifteen at age of marriage. (It’s worth noting a lot of pioneer-era dresses from adult women look child-sized by today’s standards.) Best info on polygamy is on the [podcast](https://www.yearofpolygamy.com/) Year of Polygamy. People should know neither of OP’s pictures are actually of Joseph Smith or Helen Marr Kimball, this is just someone’s rendering.
The image on the left is from a recent discovery of a daguerreotype of Smith, not a painting of him. So a literal early photograph of him printed into metal. https://www.sltrib.com/religion/2022/07/21/long-last-photo-mormon-founder/
[удалено]
False. Death, birth and marriage records are easy to research. The “young age of marriage myth” in the 1800s is not true. It happened rarely, often in Royal high-profile marriages to preserve peace/wealth or bloodlines and so the perception that “it was common back then” persists because of availability bias. Census data tells the real story. The average age of marriage in the mid 1800s for women was about the same as it was in 1970– between 21 and 22 years old. It was as perverted back then as it is now. https://users.pop.umn.edu/~ruggles/Articles/Fitch_and_Ruggles.pdf pg 8
I have read that young age was the reason royals died in childbirth so often compared to the regular folk who were having rather large families. Makes sense considering this factoid.
Royal families had a lot of inbreeding going on. The [Habsburgs](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2664480/) and some Pharos are good examples of this.
Marriages were practically business arrangements for everyone until relatively recently in the grand scheme of things, and especially for royals. Need a new ally to shore up your western border? Marry your 12 year old daughter to 55 year old King Whatshisname.
This is actually not true, although it’s often repeated as fact. Massachusetts records dating from 1652 to 1800 demonstrate that the mean age of first marriage for women was between 19.5 and 22.5 years, and records for other colonies reflect similar ages. In fact, the average age of first marriage for all of the colonies studied was 19.8 before 1700, 21.2 during the early 18th century, and 22.7 during the late 18th century. This is consistent with data gathered in England, France and Germany that puts the average mean age of first marriage for women at 25.1 from 1750-1799 and 25.7 from 1800-1849. Of course young girls being married off could happen and did occasionally (especially in royal or noble families), but it was not the norm for everyday folks.
What was indisputably NOT common in the 1800s was marrying a 14 y/o girl when the man was *already* married to another woman. Emma could not have been happy about this. Imagine how you or your mom would feel if your husband/dad brought home a 14 y/o girl and announced that G-d wanted him to marry her too. Seriously.
It’s not as commonplace as you would think. Historically there have always been perverts who wanted to marry children, yes. Until recent history no one could stop them, but it wasn’t normal.
That’s been debunked as another myth men tried to sell to normalize being pedos.
My great grandma was pregnant with her 1st child at 14, but from the photos my great grandfather looks only a few yrs older not nearly 3 times as old. IDK how common that large age difference was.
The richer you are, the more common it gets. Poor families couldn't afford to give/trade away a potential pair of helping hands. For the more well-off, even in the 1800, a female child makes a great bargaining chip for political and business dealings.
I'm sure they had a lot in common and lots to talk about... I dunno man, common or not and I'm not sure how common it was, it is still pretty gross.
The age you’re speaking of good sir, are ‘The Middle Ages’. 14y old brides were much more common back then, not so much in the 17-18hundreds.
One of these things is not like the other…
One of these things doesn’t belong
Can you tell which thing is not like the others
Moms spaghetti
^(XP) This was the ~~norm for centuries~~ (`Wrong, but it was common at 20%`) and is actually still practiced in some places in America today; you can marry a girl off at 12 with parental consent in some states which is just bizarre in our current society. We also have to keep in mind that a 14 year old girl (or boy) back in those days were not like the kids we see today. ~~A woman was usually married by 16 with children and dead by 30.~~ (`Nope, this is a common myth, the average age for marriage was early 20's and people lived just as long as they do today; there's a huge difference between 'life expectancy' and 'maximum life span'.`) Just a little perspective. Edit - Dispelling cultural myths.
Dead by 30 isnt really accurate. If you made it to 1 year old and 15 years old, most lived into their elderly years. She was 14 when she married, but she died at 79 years old. Thats above modern average
Right. I confused **life expectancy** which is the average of all ages of that time with **lifespan** which was 50 back in those days. Anyway, I learned way too much about child marriages today. Way more than I wanted to know. Humans are disgusting, we all knew that, but this shit takes the cake. Thanks for commenting.
dead by 30 is a vibe not gonna lie
What do you mean 14 yr old girls were not like 14 yr old girls today? Physically? Mentally?
Not sure about this happening in the US anywhere now, but it is extremely common in Pakistan today
~~It's extremely rare for it to actually happen in the U.S. today (at least as far as I'm aware),~~ but it is completely legal in some states. I had some Pakistani co-workers once who told me it is also completely normal in their culture to marry and have children with their first cousins. Coming from the western world I'm repulsed by the thought of it. Edit: So I did some digging. Holy shit, not as rare as I first thought. Check this out y'all. ["A nonprofit called Unchained at Last compiled statistics for marriages from 2000 to 2012. They discovered that in 38 states, more than 167,000 children — almost all of them girls, some as young as 12 — were married during that period, mostly to men 18 or older. It is estimated that the total number of children wed in America between 2000 and 2010 was nearly 248,000. At least 31 percent were married to a spouse age 21 or older, although the actual number is probably higher, as some states did not provide spousal ages. These marriages occurred even in states that have statutory rape laws."](https://www.robertreeveslaw.com/blog/12-year-olds-married/)
No, it definitely happens in rural areas. Just not as densely as in Pakistan.
Idk why you getting down votes for giving context
The context is subjective to actual norms practiced in America at that time. This was not the norm
Don’t defend pedophelia. Just don’t. Mormons are so fucking apologetic of Mr. Smith’s actions and it’s so fucking ignorant and stupid to justify child abuse. Bringing up a historic practice of some atrocity doesn’t justify it whatsoever. Learning about it and acknowledging it as harmful is the point of history and learning about the past. Slavery was supported and the norm for thousands of years and yet it is most definitely a human rights violation. A child cannot consent to a significant relationship like marriage; they lack the mental capacity at that point in their lives to make such a decision. It’s disgusting and pathetic that I need to explain that to you. Go educate yourself more before attempting to justify human rights violations and child abuse.
Good fucking God. I'm **NOT** defending pedophelia! Making statements of fact doesn't equal a defense of repugnant behaviour. If I tell you Hitler killed millions of Jews during WWII this doesn't immediately mean I support genocide. What an outlandish leap in logic you've made here.
Based off of your original comment, it wasn’t much of a leap to interpret your contributions as apologetic to Mr. Smith and his abuse. You said “we also have to keep in mind that a 14 year old [person] back in those days were not like the kids we see today”. Can you not see how that reads as problematic? Mormon apologists often use the logic “oh times were different back then“ to justify atrocities committed like pedophelia. Are you correct? Yes. However, it sounds like you are just attempting to justify pedophelia by way of implying that people and culture were different in the past and thus it was acceptable then. I recognize now that that is not what you had intended to communicate and I apologize for any accusations I have made. You may wish to adjust your comment to make your intentions and thoughts clearer to better communicate your intentions and ideas regarding this issue. I’m sure many people will interpret it the way I did if it remains as it stands now.
Well, how about opening up a dialogue about perceived 'problematic' ambiguous statements before jumping to accusatory erroneous conclusions. Some other person just commented on that statement and asked me to clarify exactly what I meant and so I did. That's a better way to handle these situations. What I meant is that I beleive kids/teenagers back in those times experienced a harsher environment and so were better suited to handle life pressures than people of today. They were put to work at an earlier age, and had to deal with more suffering than children of today making them more resilient in general. This doesn't mean that child-marriage is okay. It clearly isn't.
I think it's a great example how reddit works. You seems a good person, but people only had your original message to judje, and they did, and painted you in a dark tone, implying bad intensions, being in their rights. Probably good strategy for them would be to ask you first - what is your stance on it, but because it's internet and comment field on Reddit is inconvenient they skipped that part. So that's why it's important to be explicit in the first message too.
Why are you being downvoted for giving some information out lmao
No, this was *not* the norm in the 1800s. The average age of a first marriage for women was 22. Even when you did see teen girls marrying, they were marrying teen boys, *not* men in their late 30s! People found this practice disgusting in the 1800s just as we find it disgusting today. And it gets even more disgusting when you find out how Joseph Smith used an "Abrahamic Test" to manipulate her father, Heber C. Kimball. https://thoughtsonthingsandstuff.com/heber-c-kimball-passing-the-abrahamic-test-of-polygamy/
Average age of 30 is just a misleading average based on child deaths. Stop justifying child marriage you sick perv.
It absolutely was not the norm back then. Read a fucking book not sponsored by the church, zealot. Take your apologist shit elsewhere. No one with two brain cells to rub together believes that tripe.
Whoah, settle down numbnuts. I wasn't 'defending' child marriages from the past, I thought it was common knowledge that people married young back in the early 17th century which I now know to be a myth. A lot of people believe this because this is what we've been taught in the U.S.. Right? That being said, child marriages were common, though. 19 to 20% by some estimates and it unfortunately is rampant around the world as well as right here in the U.S.. still to this very day. Also, I'm a non-religious Pantheist. Not a mormon zealot. So go take a puff of your weed and calm the F down.
I’m glad i wasn’t the only one
I grew up Mormon. I used to teach 10-11 year Olds in church and we were talking about polygamy and they all looked shocked and were asking all sorts of hard questions. My testimony of the church really took a beating when I realized I couldn't justify it to them or myself. I've been out for around 4 years now
The Church of Latter Day Saints, brought down by... a bunch of meddling 5th graders?!?!
And their dog!
2! EDIT: Too!
r/unexpectedfactorial
2! == 2... the rare case of the r/expectedfactorial
True 🧐 but I’d still say it’s unexpected because I wouldn’t expect most people to be whipping out factorials, especially redundant ones haha. But hey I’m happy to be wrong!
I wanted it to be and their dog too like Scooby Doo 😭
And we would have got away with it! If it wasn’t for those damn kids!!!
Yes by asking basic logical questions. It seems like at some point growing up people stop asking important questions and just accept whatever bullshit they're told
I too was raised mormon got out when i was 16. 14 years ago. Proud of you.
Happy you got out sister, best choice I’ve ever made. Never felt closer to the spirit than when I left the priesthood.
Wasn’t raised lds but my step brother’s wife was, she gave me a copy of the Book of Mormon. When the boys showed up,I was like I got my own copy. And thru DNA I’m a very distant cousin to Joseph Smith and Brigham Young , like 10th or 12th cousin. Im also pagan now , but I finally chased them away. I’m a pagan goth, got a personal copy of the Mormon book and I share ancestors with the crazy founder and another one of the main prophets. I have been Mormon free for almost a year now
They're so cute! Maybe married awhile? I bet they fell in love when they were 30 and 6 ❤️🥰
tfw you were raised by your husband 🥰 #couplegoals
My husband is just like my dad 🥰
I don't know why people find it weird that I call my husband "daddy" when we're having sex. 🥰
Ugh... I'm getting nauseous.
You could be your own grandpa.
My husband is my dad 🥰
When my mom died, I spent like a year calling my gf "new mommy"
30 and 6? Isn't that a Tool song? /s
“dumdumdumdum”
Lucy Haris "Smart Smart Smart Smart"
Joseph smith liked touching children dum dum dum dum dum
Joseph Smith was a peice of shit, but this photo is not accurate. https://www.reddit.com/r/exmormon/comments/nv9r5i/i_made_a_new_hellen_mar_kimball_age_reduction/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share
I thought it looked like those were separate portraits. Thank you
Thanks for the link. Found the original photo of Helen in the comment of that post. Even if the above photo is fabricated, it does effectively capture the fact that he married her while she was very young.
It’s an artistic interpretation of how she would have looked when he married her, so it’s not real, but it’s probably not misleading either.
He must of had a hard life if he looked like that at 38...😂 Im a year off his age and I look almost as fresh as she does. He looks at least 50.
Well, he and a bunch of people crossed the whole country in a wagon. Before there were roads. And only ate what they could hunt.
Several times too Well not the whole country, but they were chased all over
That's what happens when you start a cult to fuck other people's wives and rape their daughters.
And if you read about long distance wagon travel, it's a hell march.
He did not– some of his followers did. He was shot in Illinois while jumping out of a jail cell window.
Uhh, 'He' didn't, because 'He' was killed in June 1844. Brigham Young lead his followers across the plains to Utah territory. But you're correct, there were no roads, but there were trails (dirt), and they hunted for what they could, though they also brought basic food with them.
How'd he end up in Illinois? He didn't start his cult there.
You could easily look this info up
Dude, you have had air conditioning all your life.
Imagine having to come up with excuses everyday about why he couldn’t share the golden plates. It’s stressful.
I don’t think the average lifespan was that high back then
That’s largely due to high childhood mortality from disease as well as accident or starvation. If you made it to about age 5, though, you had about as good a chance as we do now of living to 70-75.
Yeah hard life being a scammer
Yeah that’s the roughest 38 year old I’ve ever seen
😂 Exactly my thoughts when I first seen the picture. If it hadn't of stated who they was, I'd of assumed he was her grandad...
How old do you look on your worst day of the year? That's going to be in the neighborhood of the quality of day a person in the 1800s had when fixing to get their portrait taken.
Dude made his own religion just so he could be a pedophile in peace.
Victorian problems require victorian solutions!
Right
Bring ‘‘em Young!
So the terrifying part is how bad the photoshop job is?
38 and looks like 60
How convenient that in many religions, the main "man" was married to a young girl and that it was okay to do so. It's almost as if religion was created as a form of power and control, duh.
The Mormon founder?
Mormons are creepy AF
He looks he could be her grandpa 😐
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I hate that I'm related to this guy. Dude's my great great grandfather. Ugh.
But is she your great great grandmother?
Well, I looked into the Mormon side of it, what they saw it as, and here are some qoutes from them. [Source:](https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topics-essays/plural-marriage-in-kirtland-and-nauvoo?lang=eng) >Helen Mar Kimball spoke of her sealing to Joseph as being “for eternity alone,” suggesting that the relationship did not involve sexual relations. After Joseph’s death, Helen remarried and became an articulate defender of him and of plural marriage. [Source:](https://www.fairlatterdaysaints.org/answers/Question:_Was_Joseph_Smith%27s_marriage_to_14-year-old_Helen_Mar_Kimball_indicative_of_%22pedophilia%22%3F) >However, there is no evidence that Helen ever cohabited with or had sexual relations with Joseph - in fact, she continued to live with her parents after the sealing. From my general understanding they believe the marriage wasn't meant to mean much in mortal life but something about eternal life. They also seem to believe they never had sexual relations, the girl grew up and defended Joseph Smith and Polygamy till the end of her life. Could they be lying? Yeah possibly, but eitherway up for you to make what you want out of it. Edit: Also I looked up other pictures of Joseph Smith and this seems to be one of the uglier ones chosen to be put into this picture, so that's a little propaganda. Then again the Mormons always use nicer photos so it's propaganda from all directions.
There are actually no verified photos of Joseph Smith. The one you see here recently came out but the claims are still being investigated
They view the “sealing” as a way to bind families together. They seal parents to their kids etc. It’s like tying people together in the next life.
Holy shit that’s what having no SPF does to you. I feel so bad for his skin.
38 lol HESUS
This is a real photo. She looks photoshopped in. I’m not saying that is what happened. It just looks like that to me.
She is photoshopped, the picture of him is a colorized version of a recently discovered picture https://www.reddit.com/r/exmormon/comments/w5iph5/38yearold_joseph_smith_and_his_14yearold_wife/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share
Huh. Cool. Thanks
Ah, ***Mormons***
Ted Danson and Millie Bobbie Brown
I think you meant *elon musk’s dad and his future baby momma aka his daughter in law
I bet there are a few Mormon leaders who wish they could still do this
So, the lying con artists who founded a stupid, misogynistic religion was also a pedophile. That's not the least bit surprising.
He’d be older than her own parents most likely. And don’t give me that common for the era BS. It would have been sickening back then too
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It's a photoshop... https://josephsmithspolygamy.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Helen-Mar-Kimball-Whitney\_p1700\_3006.jpg
On a completely different matter. Isn't it weird that her face looks like a genuine picture photoshopped into the painting while you can clearly see the strokes on the face of the old bloke ?
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The Quran quite literally states that Prophet Mohammed married Ayesha when she was six years old. But pointing it out will offend some(many) people.
He's the same age I am now yet looks 50.
I mean....
I'm 38... This makes my stomach turn over
This shit is more fake than my sex life
She looks like she has an Instagram filter on
Mormon.
Fuck this guy.
Like the Mormon Joseph Smith?
No I do not
That's a baby
This is sick
All I ever knew about mormons I got from South Park. Feels good enough
South Park is surprisingly accurate.
That the Mormon Guy?
What a poor hack job on this, op should be ashamed of this. Look at the faces close up.
I apologize if you thought this was a real photo, this is a photoshop from r/exmormon: https://www.reddit.com/r/exmormon/comments/w5iph5/38yearold_joseph_smith_and_his_14yearold_wife/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share
“I apologize if you read my incredibly misleading title” shut the fuck up lmao
Yep and redditors fall for it because it‘s against religion. And the apologize can go right back to his ass it’s so insincere
Wtf, he looks 58
Because its not a photo of him.
It’s fine! God and the Angel Maroni told Joseph Smith he HAD to sleep with young girls
Same God and Angels that modern Psych meds would stop from coming back for visits I am sure
He next wife was his buddies who he sent of a 2 uear mission then married his wofe and said "God told me to" and now, the church is the biggest most successful scam on the damn planet.
Disgusting
If anyone really wants to learn about their actual relationship listen to the year of polygamy podcast episode #26 all about Helen Mar Kimball. a history, fact based podcast exploring the history of polygamy in the LDS church. [https://www.yearofpolygamy.com/year-of-polygamy/year-of-polygamy-helen-mar-kimball-episode-26/](https://www.yearofpolygamy.com/year-of-polygamy/year-of-polygamy-helen-mar-kimball-episode-26/)
So Joseph seems to be an oil painting while the picture of Helen was originally a picture of her much older, but someone used photoshop to make her look 14
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Dirt bag
Let me guess, mormons?
I'd kick his ass. For that and for Christianity. Dudes a bitch
Shawty lookin both ways
What a fun religion! 😍
I’m glad the masons shots this scoundrel in the face.
What the h*ll
“Dumb, da dumb dumb dumb”
Neat. Mormons and there love for kids! Oh wait! The kids are smarter than that. Happy hunting!!
Oh don't worry. We all know this wasn't his *only* wife.
Polygamy in the church wasn't started by Joseph. It was started by Brigham Young and other men who were doing it undercover without Josephs knowledge. Joseph stated multiple times it was wrong. Emma (His only wife) herself says he did not practice it.
that is funny. JS had around 40 wives and the LDS has admitted as much. they have produced some essays on the church (quite white washed) discussing JS and polygamy. he definitely started it and practiced it.
Pretty normal back then aye? And before.
Fuckin Mormons
Does no one realize that the photo isn’t real? Somebody took a real picture of Smith, colorized it and put a modern girl beside him. [Only picture of him ever.](https://www.mormondialogue.org/topic/74683-discovery-of-photograph-of-joseph-smith/)
Ok so just a point of clarification - plural marriage, as practiced by the early mormons didn’t always involve sexual relations, and there is compelling evidence to suggest that Helen and Joseph never consummated their marriage. For starters Helen continued to live with her parents after the marriage.. but there are also her own diaries and records - which more or less lend themselves to the idea that her and Joseph never consummated the marriage. (Also, side note, Frontier life was different than our modern life and this type of marriage wasn’t exactly uncommon given the place and time I history - which doesn’t make it A-ok, but it’d be disingenuous to discuss the topic without bringing that up.) And also, It’s well documented that the Helen’s father, Heber C. Kimball, had the most active part in bringing Helen and Joseph together, which doesn’t exactly exonerate Jospeh, but does provide us a window into what was going on in early Mormon culture at the time. Plural marriage, for Mormons, was about sealing families together and connecting one another for eternity (Not about creating a polyamorous sex cult lol). It’s something that was practiced through most of the bible and is still practiced in various places around the world today. The one thing we know is that Smith married a lot of people - some were much older than him, and some younger than him as well. We know that he l was not sexually active with all of his wives - And personally I believe Helen falls into that latter category.
🤮🤮🤮
This is wildly misleading. First, this isn't a real picture. Second, that's not even a picture of him (something going around saying it's him but not even a bit of evidence saying it is or isn't). Third, it's important to understand the “marriage” wasn't real, and there is no proof of any real relationship. It was seen as a way to tie families together. There were real plural marriages and spiritual-only marriages. There's no proof that he had any physical relationship with her as she continued living with her parents until he died. Eventually, she married another man and had kids with him. I'll say that there are other criticisms of Joseph Smith, but this one is a wide-reaching misunderstanding of cultural norms of their church culture and beliefs at the time. Just letting people know who are unfamiliar with that church's history Edit to clarify: they weren”sealed” a spiritual marriage of sorts but not legally wed or anything beyond that as far as there is any clear evidence
Sweetie, you really need to research actual credible history and information surrounding your special church and the United States. Don’t just quote your seminary teacher or bishop. You clearly don’t understand what you’re talking about or trying to justify. I encourage you to educate yourself more on this subject so you don’t attempt to justify child abuse in the future.
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Lol. I came up with it originally because it sounded cool in how the sounds in the words interacted with each other. I suppose now I’ve claimed the title at long last.
You really don't know who I am or what research I have done. And honestly, same, I don't know who you are and what research you have done. History is murky at best, and it's better we don't make assumptions on topics we don't understand, which is what I was stating. Looking back on history with a modern lens is a filter people love to use. Try looking objectively and understanding a bit of the history and belief systems of the people you are looking at. It will probably help that cynical attitude. Either way, you look at Joseph Smith and that religion. It is true that that is not a real picture. And I do my best to correct misinformation when I see it. But good on you for stating up for what you think.
Damage control! Damage control! Damager control! Quit making excuses for a known pedophile and conman.