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The Secret Facebook War for Mormon Hearts and Minds

thedailybeast.com

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Re: The Secret Facebook War for Mormon Hearts and Minds

#41

Post by dTal »

lazyasciiart wrote: post #28
richeyrw wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did a search for the number 14 and 16 without seeing anything that matched the claim. The closest I saw was "These men averaged thirty-six years of age (range: 24-60) and had been married an average of ten years (1-32 years) before marrying a second wife of a mean twenty-five years of age (14-39 years). At that time, their legal wives averaged thirty-two years of age (22-56)."

I don't think that claim is about Joseph Smith and marriages while he was alive, because polygamy wasn't official church doctrine then. I haven't found a good dataset, but this book has this comment: "Latter-day Saints were surprisingly obedient to the counsel to marry, and in 1860 Manti, only 1.6 percent of women over the age of 16 had never been to the altar." I believe 14 was the minimum legal age of marriage for…

That's a rather horrifying statistic, especially as nowadays we would not class 14-16 year olds as "women". It beggars belief that 98.4% of Mormon girls would have fallen in love by age 16, especially with older men who already have a harem of wives, so we have to assume a shocking degree of social pressure, amounting essentially to arranged marriages.

I've always wondered at the historical accuracy of "A Study In Scarlet", but its depiction of the social climate regarding marriage among the LDS would appear to be spot-on...

Re: The Secret Facebook War for Mormon Hearts and Minds

#43

Post by nesyt »

colejohnson66 wrote: post #32
empressplay wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Bountiful has come under intense scrutiny for its involvement in the polygamous sect. Warren Jeffs, who was one of the FBI's Ten Most Wanted Fugitives, is thought to have visited a dozen or so times in 2005. The Vancouver Sun on January 28, 2006, released information stating that Utah's Attorney General is collaborating with British Columbia's Attorney General in attempting to deal with polygamy and the alleged abus…

The FLDS are not related to the LDS

They're both offshoots of Smith's movement.

Re: The Secret Facebook War for Mormon Hearts and Minds

#44

Post by kbutler »

xnyan wrote: post #21
kbutler wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No reason at all. It was generally allowed in the U.S. Age of consent was typically 10 years old until 1885 https://discover-the-truth.com/2013/09/09/age-of-consent-in-... "After 1885, age of consent laws changed around the country, reaching 16 in New York in 1889 and 18 in 1895. Prior to these changes the age of consent in most places in the United States was 10 or 12 years." There's a very strong trend to criticize…

This is a common rationalization taught to educated true-believing mormons. While it is true that the age of consent was lower than today, according to the contemporary census (1890s is what I have records for, Smith's relationships were 1830s-40s) age of marriage was about the same it is now ( http://i.imgur.com/HnQjG67.png ). Whats more, looking at comparable relationships contemporary or even before Smith's time,…

1890s/1900 was actually a local maximum in women's marriage age that would not be equalled until about 1980. http://users.hist.umn.edu/~ruggles/Articles/Fitch_and_Ruggle... shows 10% of native-born, white US women were married by age 17 in 1850 (first year of data), and that 10% threshold rose rapidly through the latter half of the century, so it may have been more common to have very young brides earlier in the century. Though at 10% even in 1850, it was not unusual. Add confounding factors like immigration and poverty, and young brides may have been even more common (and vulnerable to be protected or taken advantage of depending on your perspective)

Re: The Secret Facebook War for Mormon Hearts and Minds

#45

Post by amazingman »

richeyrw wrote: post #11
stevenwoo wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The founder Joseph Smith had 14, 16, 17 year old brides. If it was allowed for Joseph Smith why should anyone else be different?

I'm not saying it didn't happen. It's clear it happened, a lot. I'm taking issue with the idea that the wives were "disproportionally" 14-16.

>I'm taking issue with the idea that the wives were "disproportionally" 14-16

Isn’t the usual proportion somewhere slightly above 0%?

Re: The Secret Facebook War for Mormon Hearts and Minds

#46

Post by [deleted] »

richeyrw wrote: post #2

I'm an active member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and I've tried to be as educated as possible about the controversial/anti-mormon stuff (for example I've read the CES letter). But this is the first time I've come across this claim: "During that time [when plural marriage was part of the doctrine] some male followers of the Latter Day Saint movement took dozens of wives each, disproportionately…

[deleted]

Re: The Secret Facebook War for Mormon Hearts and Minds

#47

Post by User23 »

VoidSetAndMatch wrote: post #20

“Ex-Mormons responded in droves to dump their contact lists of current Mormons. By the end of the first day his ad target list had grown from 30 to 397” So now people get doxxed by friends and family. Imagine someone pretending to do this to influence someone in one direction, but then using it for any other reason. Who can say none of their friends would be tricked?

In my observation, ex-Mormons are particularly vindictive, even by normal Christian atheist standards.

Re: The Secret Facebook War for Mormon Hearts and Minds

#49

Post by ahje »

hizxy wrote: post #48

Mormonism is just odd.

Abrahamic religions are weird in general. What's your point?

The article highlights the fact that it is now possible for single individuals to order Facebook ads targeted at very specific groups, and asks whether the practice is ethical or not. This could just as easily have been done inside other organizational structures, such as political parties and other interest groups.

Re: The Secret Facebook War for Mormon Hearts and Minds

#50

Post by twtw »

dTal wrote: post #41
lazyasciiart wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that claim is about Joseph Smith and marriages while he was alive, because polygamy wasn't official church doctrine then. I haven't found a good dataset, but this book has this comment: "Latter-day Saints were surprisingly obedient to the counsel to marry, and in 1860 Manti, only 1.6 percent of women over the age of 16 had never been to the altar." I believe 14 was the minimum legal age of marriage for…

That's a rather horrifying statistic, especially as nowadays we would not class 14-16 year olds as "women". It beggars belief that 98.4% of Mormon girls would have fallen in love by age 16, especially with older men who already have a harem of wives, so we have to assume a shocking degree of social pressure, amounting essentially to arranged marriages. I've always wondered at the historical accuracy of "A Study In Sc…

FWIW Manti in 1860 probably had a population of a few hundred, so the population of females aged 16-25 (or whatever upper age you think is reasonable) could have been quite small.

If only 2% of women over age 16 as also under age 18, that statistic is not so shocking. I don't agree that this statistic alone demonstrates that "almost all women were married between 14-16."

"A study in scarlet" is not historically accurate. IIRC, Conan Doyle said so himself.

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