[Q] 14 years old.
16 years old.
[RT] He had a wife who was 14 years old, but
remember, on the frontier in America,
women married young, often as young as 12
years of age because the life span of
people in those days wasn't what it is today.
On the frontier, not as much in the rest of
America, but on the frontier, if you look
at population studies, if you look at censuses
of
people across the American frontier at the
time, they often married quite young . So
marrying a 14 year old in those days was not
the same — it was like marrying a 21 year
old today.
[Q] You can not compare that.
In those days marriage was also their sex
debut.
You cannot
compare that.
A 14 year old was like a 10 year old today!
[RT] My point is there was a different societal
normalized age of marriage in those days.
Let's
move on.
This is a complicated one.
[Q] You think that's the most important question.
Does the church recognize this practice
as being OK?
Does the church officially endorse this?
Polyandry.
Or do they recognize
that it might actually have been an error?
Do you have an opinion on that from the
Church?
[RT] I've never seen a formal statement about
that.
[Q] The basic question here is of course then,
was this a mistake done by Joseph Smith?
And if it was, how could he continue to be
a prophet?
And if it was not a mistake, it
must be endorsed by the church, I guess.
[RT] What the church does say on these questions
about Joseph Smith in general is this:
either Joseph was a prophet of God or he wasn't.
Correct?
And the way in which you
decide that, not just intellectually, but
spiritually, is the way that elder Jensen
talked
about at the beginning.
That's the official church statement on the
matter.
I've never
seen an official church statement that goes
into the details.
[Q] But why does my spirit talks to me and
screams wrong, wrong, wrong, even if it's
a
prophet of God?
Do I have the devil in me who's talking to
me and says I should
understand this 14 and 16-year-old girls marrying?
I can't— my spirit doesn't — I can't
get it through my mind.
Is it the devil speaks to me?
That I should accept that because
Joseph smith is a prophet?
So he did that right, it was god told him
to do that?
Go
behind Emma and take these wives.
