Joseph Smith's marriages to young women

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Presentism, at its worst, encourages a kind of moral complacency and self-congratulation. Interpreting the past in terms of present concerns usually leads us to find ourselves morally superior…Our forbears constantly fail to measure up to our present-day standards.
—Lynn Hunt, President of American Historical Association

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Joseph Smith's marriages to young women

Jump to Subtopic:

• Question: Was Joseph Smith a "serial practitioner of statutory rape" or a "pedophile"?
• Joseph Smith's marriage to Helen Mar Kimball
• Question: What were the circumstances surrounding the sealing of Helen Mar Kimball to Joseph Smith?
• Question: Was Helen Mar Kimball's marriage to Joseph Smith ever consummated?
• Question: Did Helen Mar Kimball "confess" to having marital relations with Joseph?
• Question: What were Helen Mar Kimball's views on plural marriage?
• Helen Mar Kimball: "I have encouraged and sustained my husband in the celestial order of marriage because I knew it was right"

Question: Was Joseph Smith a "serial practitioner of statutory rape" or a "pedophile"?

Jump to details:

• Question: Was Joseph Smith a "serial practitioner of statutory rape" or a "pedophile"?
• Charges of statutory rape are inapplicable, since no such law or convention applied to any of Joseph's wives
• Large spousal age differences were not uncommon before and after Nauvoo, among members and non-members
• What is Presentism?
• Hitchens' attack on Joseph Smith for "statutory rape" is a textbook example of presentist history
• "Pedophilia" applies to children; Helen was regarded as a mature young woman
• Four Key Questions
• 1. The Age of Joseph's Wives
• 2. Were there marital relations?
• 3. Statutory Rape and the Law
• 4. Did Joseph violate societal norms?
• Why the modern world is different

Joseph Smith's marriage to Helen Mar Kimball

Jump to details:

• Question: Was Joseph Smith's marriage to 14-year-old Helen Mar Kimball indicative of "pedophilia"?
• It is claimed by critics that the average age of menarche in 1840 was 16.4 years and that therefore Helen Mar Kimball was prepubescent when she was sealed to Joseph Smith at age 14
• The age of menarche in America in 1840 has a normal distribution close to a mean of 15.2 years and a standard deviation of 1.85
• Helen and her contemporaries considered her mature for her age
• Joseph was sealed to Helen Mar Kimball at her father's request
• Evidence supports that Mormon teens did not marry until they had reached maturity.
• Helen continued to live with her parents after the sealing, and then married someone else and had children with them after Joseph's death
• There is no evidence whatsoever that Helen's marriage to Joseph was ever consummated—even where such evidence might be expected.
• Critics have alleged that at one point, Helen "confessed" to sexual relations with Joseph.
• Helen spoke out on the subject later in her life

Question: What were the circumstances surrounding the sealing of Helen Mar Kimball to Joseph Smith?

Jump to details:

• Question: What were the circumstances surrounding the sealing of Helen Mar Kimball to Joseph Smith?
• Helen’s father, Heber C. Kimball, had the most active part in bringing Helen and Joseph together
• Brigham Young instructed polygamous men to wait to consummate their sealings to younger brides until they were at least eighteen
• Helen was not called to testify in the Temple Lot case, in which the Church was attempting to prove that Joseph had normal marital relations with some of his plural wives, even though she was available
• Helen became an advocate of plural marriage and vigorously defended it

Question: Was Helen Mar Kimball's marriage to Joseph Smith ever consummated?

Jump to details:

• Question: Was Helen Mar Kimball's marriage to Joseph Smith ever consummated?
• Critics generally do not reveal that their sources have concluded that Helen's marriage to Joseph Smith was never consummated
• Helen wrote a poem entitled "Reminiscences," which is often cited by critics
• Helen was disappointed that she was not permitted to attend a party or a dance

Question: Did Helen Mar Kimball "confess" to having marital relations with Joseph?

Jump to details:

• Question: Did Helen Mar Kimball "confess" to having marital relations with Joseph?
• Helen allegedly said "I would never have been sealed to Joseph had I known it was anything more than ceremony"
• The source of the statement is "suspect"
• In order for this story to be true, Helen would be telling a story at variance with all other things that she wrote
• If we accept the statement as valid, we may interpret it in other ways than conjugality.

Question: What were Helen Mar Kimball's views on plural marriage?

Jump to details:

• Question: What were Helen Mar Kimball's views on plural marriage?
• Helen disliked plural marriage because of the difficulties it placed on her mother

Helen Mar Kimball: "I have encouraged and sustained my husband in the celestial order of marriage because I knew it was right"

Jump to details:

• Helen Mar Kimball: "I have encouraged and sustained my husband in the celestial order of marriage because I knew it was right"

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Learn more about polygamy and marriage to young women

Key sources	Craig L. Foster, David Keller, and Gregory L. Smith, “The Age of Joseph Smith’s Plural Wives in Social and Demographic Context,” in The Persistence of Polygamy, eds. Newell G. Bringhurst and Craig L. Foster (Independence, MO: John Whitmer Books, 2010), 152–83.
Wiki links	Joseph Smith's marriages to young women Joseph Smith's marriage to Helen Mar Kimball
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Source(s) of the criticism:

Critical sources

George D. Smith, Nauvoo Polygamy: "...but we called it celestial marriage" (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2008), ix, 1, 22, 29-32, 44, 53, 142-142, 198, 408. ( Index of claims , (Detailed book review))

Notes