Elder Oaks and Elder Ballard "Face to Face" Event: Dealing with doubts

[Scott Lloyd]

45 minutes ago, california boy said:

Calm, I agree with you.  There is a difference between how a kid reports their age and how a church trying to be frank about it's history reports her age.  She was 14, just three months from her August birthday is so much better and eliminates the feeling that the church is once again shading the truth.

Saying the Church is “shading the truth” is overwrought nonsense. There’s no way a reader of reasonable intelligence is going to see that and not understand she was some where between 14 and 15. 

[Scott Lloyd]

1 hour ago, Tacenda said:

"Like"!

I thought it sweet that you asked what yummy thing Jeanne was cooking!

I’m in a festive mood. I live everything about Thanksgiving. 

I hope yours is warm and memorable. 

[california boy]

1 hour ago, Scott Lloyd said:

Saying the Church is “shading the truth” is overwrought nonsense. There’s no way a reader of reasonable intelligence is going to see that and not understand she was some where between 14 and 15. 

So why is this an issue with some people?  Can you even acknowledge that they may be hypersensitive because of past shading of the history of the church?

Edited November 22, 2017 by california boy

[sjdawg]

4 hours ago, Scott Lloyd said:

As I've already pointed out, it's at least as misleading -- and probably more so -- to say she was 14 as it is to say she was a few months shy of 15, as the former is apt to make the reader think she was closer to 14 than to 15. At least the latter imbues it with a greater degree of precision, which, in the end, is more trustworthy and credible.

I'm sorry.  I'm not following.  How is it misleading to say a 14 year old girl is 14 years old?  

I don't believe the latter was done at all to imbue a greater degree of precision.  If that was the goal they could have been far more specific.  

[sjdawg]

3 hours ago, smac97 said:

That's possible, I suppose.  I've never construed the apostate-boasting-of-his-church-pedigree-and-bona-fides phenomenon that way, but now that you mention it . . . 

I've generally thought that this phenomenon has been about the burnishing/bolstering of credentials.  "You can trust me and my decision to forsake the Restored Gospel because notwithstanding my service in the Church and my long line of ancestors in the Church, I have come to know the truth about the Church, and I am sharing it with you now..."  That sort of thing.

Thanks,

-Smac

The church pedigree of an active mormon is also often quoted to establish credibility

[Scott Lloyd]

6 hours ago, sjdawg said:

The church pedigree of an active mormon is also often quoted to establish credibility

To establish credibility? I don’t think I’ve ever seen that. 

I’ve seen the opposite, in fact. I’ve seen it taught that you can’t rely on your ancestors’ deeds to establish your own credit. See for example, the landmark address by J. Reuben Clark, “To They of the Last Wagon.” 

I’ve seen people pay homage to their progenitors and express appreciation for the legacy they left. But that’s not the same thing as exploiting them to “establish credibility.” 

[Scott Lloyd]

7 hours ago, sjdawg said:

I'm sorry.  I'm not following.  How is it misleading to say a 14 year old girl is 14 years old?  

How is it misleading to say she had several months to go (it was, in fact, only three) before she turned 15?

Edited November 22, 2017 by Scott Lloyd

[Scott Lloyd]

8 hours ago, california boy said:

So why is this an issue with some people?  Can you even acknowledge that they may be hypersensitive because of past shading of the history of the church?

I will acknowledge that, for whatever reason, they are way too quick to find fault. 

Again, this is an absurdly trivial point to get spun up over. 

Edited November 22, 2017 by Scott Lloyd

[sunstoned]

9 hours ago, sjdawg said:

I'm sorry.  I'm not following.  How is it misleading to say a 14 year old girl is 14 years old?  

I don't believe the latter was done at all to imbue a greater degree of precision.  If that was the goal they could have been far more specific.  

It is not misleading to state clearly a person's age.  The church is dealing with the subject of an adult 38 year old man taking a fourteen year old girl to wife (something that can get you jail time).  There is no positive way to spin this, and to attempt to do so just further casts the church as being less than forthright.  

[ALarson]

37 minutes ago, sunstoned said:

It is not misleading to state clearly a person's age.  The church is dealing with the subject of an adult 38 year old man taking a fourteen year old girl to wife (something that can get you jail time).  There is no positive way to spin this, and to attempt to do so just further casts the church as being less than forthright.  

I agree.  It's ridiculous to see some here try to justify why this was done (or state it was an honest statement....it may be technically true, but not really being upfront, etc.).  Where else is age stated that way for anyone in any of the essays or other church writings put out by the church? 

A young man cannot be ordained a deacon a few months shy of his twelfth  birthday and youth cannot be baptized a few months shy of their eighth birthday and so on.  Being accurate about age is important to church leaders.  Helen was 14 years old, so just state that was her age.  It's actually kind of insulting for whoever wrote and approved the essays to believe that stating it as they did fooled anyone.  As soon as I read it I knew why they used the number 15 instead of 14 for members to see and I just smiled as I saw right through it.  This is one of Joseph's marriages that many members really take issue with and they obviously were at least doing what they could to downplay that she was only actually 14 years old.

It's obvious why they stated it as they did (when that was not the common way to state age for anyone else), so just own it (or accept it) and move on.  I get why they tried to downplay her age as much as possible.

Edited November 22, 2017 by ALarson

[smac97]

10 hours ago, california boy said:

So why is this an issue with some people?  

Because the Church has a bunch of nitpicking faultfinders who will always, always stand ready to do their self-appointed task to the best of their ability.

Quote

Can you even acknowledge that they may be hypersensitive because of past shading of the history of the church?

Acknowledge hypersensitivity?  Yes.  Indulge and rationalize hypersensitivity?  No.

Thanks,

-Smac

Edited November 22, 2017 by smac97

[Tacenda]

12 hours ago, Scott Lloyd said:

I’m in a festive mood. I live everything about Thanksgiving. 

I hope yours is warm and memorable. 

Yours too, not too long and you'll be speaking or seeing too, with your missionary son on Christmas!!

[stemelbow]

16 hours ago, Scott Lloyd said:

As I've already pointed out, it's at least as misleading -- and probably more so -- to say she was 14 as it is to say she was a few months shy of 15, as the former is apt to make the reader think she was closer to 14 than to 15. At least the latter imbues it with a greater degree of precision, which, in the end, is more trustworthy and credible.

It's more misleading to say she was the age she was then it is to say she was several months shy of the year older?  This is pretty silly Scott.

The problem with it is not so much it's inaccurate.  It's a funny way of putting it.   It's not a way of putting it that makes sense.

the other problem with this claim, as I previously pointed out is that Helen mar may not have been the youngest of Joseph's wives.  There was another, born the same year as Helen Mar, but might have been married to Joseph a year earlier, or even months earlier, which would have made her the youngest.  The essay doesn't acknowledge this, but suggests they know Helen mar was the youngest.  

Also.

What it says doesn't really tell the story when the essay says:
 

Quote

Marriage at such an age, inappropriate by today’s standards, was legal in that era, and some women married in their mid-teens

Marriage by teen girls to boys who also were teens, inappropriate by today's standards, was not so inappropriate back then.  But of course, teen girls marrying men 20 years old was uncommon and considered inappropriate back then.  They (anonymous authors) failed to acknowledge that as well.  

 

 

 

[Calm]

"considered inappropriate back then."

cFR

[Pete Ahlstrom]

I prefer to say that the marriage was just 9 months after her 14th birthday because really it is no big deal to emphasize that she was still 14 - a total yawner.

[Pete Ahlstrom]

How about just 1 year 9 months after her 13th birthday?  That is still true, right?  No big deal?  Presentism?

Edited November 22, 2017 by Pete Ahlstrom

[stemelbow]

16 minutes ago, Calm said:

"considered inappropriate back then."

cFR

Before I go searching for a reference for you, I'm curious if you really feel that people in 1840 US were ok with a 36-38 year old male marrying a 14 year old girl?  If you truly think they were ok with it, generally speaking, then I'll see what I can find.  Other than that, I have no idea why i'd waste my time to find a reference.  

[rongo]

34 minutes ago, stemelbow said:

Before I go searching for a reference for you, I'm curious if you really feel that people in 1840 US were ok with a 36-38 year old male marrying a 14 year old girl?  If you truly think they were ok with it, generally speaking, then I'll see what I can find.  Other than that, I have no idea why i'd waste my time to find a reference.  

They absolutely were "okay with it." I've asked people before to check and get back to me with how old their great-great-great grandmas and grandpas were when they were married, and it is often sobering for them. It wasn't every couple every time, of course, but I want to say something like 40% of the women were teens when they were married and their husbands *averaged* 26 (meaning that many were much older than that). This is recollection based on Greg Smith's sharing of 1850 census information (the closest in time to the period in question). 

This came up the other night at dinner. I had made some really good breaded fried pork chops with sauteed mushrooms, and I asked the kids if they remembered reading the story in the 8th grade reading book our district used to use by the screenwriter for "Who Shot Liberty Valance." The surprise ending of the story was that her stepmother was a teenager whom her father married when they were little girls (the girl had cared for them while their father was away, and when they ran out of food, she gathered giant mushrooms, fried them, and then ate one. The girls clamored for food, and she wouldn't give them any, and they were resentful. She expected to die from eating the mushrooms, but wanted to be sure they wouldn't kill the little girls. When she survived, they feasted on them. The closing line of the story was, "My mother was an amazing woman"). This turned the discussion to the past prevalence of wives being teenagers and their husbands being much older.

Needless to say, this is not going to be a shelf-breaker for my kids.  They already know about it.

[Scott Lloyd]

2 hours ago, Tacenda said:

Yours too, not too long and you'll be speaking or seeing too, with your missionary son on Christmas!!

He’s home now. Has been since August. 

The two years go by in a flash. 

[smac97]

1 hour ago, stemelbow said:

Before I go searching for a reference for you, I'm curious if you really feel that people in 1840 US were ok with a 36-38 year old male marrying a 14 year old girl? 

First cousin marriages were a common thing in the 19th century, but today they trigger a significant "Ick!" response.

The current "age gap" in the U.S. is about 2 years.  The gap was considerably bigger in the 19th century.

And there's this bit about marriage in 19th-century English Canada (like America, only nicer!):

Quote

The size of the age gap between spouses, however, was a function of the age at which people married.  Brides in their teens almost invariably married men considerably older than themselves, on average six years their senior in the parishes sampled here.  But by their later twenties women were more likely to marry someone their own age or younger than someone older...

...

The older me grew, the more likely they were to take a younger wife, and the greater the spread in their ages. ... {M}en in their late twenties and early thirties wed younger women nine times out of ten, and the average gap between them was eight years...

...

Both Peter Laslett and Edward Shorter have argued that great age disparities were the hallmark of pragmatic marriages while small ones signified marriage for love...  

"Pragmatic" marriages, in an LDS context, probably included "dynastic" (and non-sexual) marriages, which is how Todd Compton characterizes Joseph Smith's marriage to Helen Mar Kimball.  

FAIR also does a pretty good job of pointing out 19th-century "mainstream" marriages which had significant age disparities, such as Johann Sebastian Bach (17 years older than his wife), Lord Baden-Powell (Founder of Scouting) (32 years older), Grover Cleveland (22nd, 24th US President) (28 years older), Thomas A. Edison (19 years older), John Milton (Paradise Lost) (31 years older), John Tyler (US President, 1844) (32 years older), Almonzo Wilder (10 years older), and so on.

Quote

If you truly think they were ok with it, generally speaking, then I'll see what I can find.  Other than that, I have no idea why i'd waste my time to find a reference.  

Presentism, front and center!

Thanks,

-Smac

Edited November 22, 2017 by smac97

[Duncan]

If someone can find a document then to me it's not all that hidden then. I saw on FB someone say that the First Vision accounts aren't even on the church website, but they have a screenshot of the first page. In my mind if they have it then it's not hidden so how did they get it then? Hidden history is stuff nobody now even knows about. Either it's being suppressed never recorded (how much of history was never recorded?) or documents were discarded or even not even true when they were written

[Tacenda]

2 hours ago, smac97 said:

Because the Church has a bunch of nitpicking faultfinders who will always, always stand ready to do their self-appointed task to the best of their ability.

Acknowledge hypersensitivity?  Yes.  Indulge and rationalize hypersensitivity?  No.

Thanks,

-Smac

I agree people find fault all the time...I'm guilty of it. And I believe the church wants to stay away from anything resembling Warren Jeffs' church for sure and that is why the church has PR out there, I don't blame them.

Sometimes I have to recheck my thinking. I think the church shouldn't be held accountable for past mistakes, they could apologise for leaders that have made wrong choices though. And try to make good choices that involve so many lives.

I think the church has so many good qualities and like a person that has done things in the past they're not proud of, maybe we should cut leaders a break and think ahead to the future. And remember the good things the church has done and will continue to do. I wouldn't want someone bringing up my past of things I've done wrong either.

Edited November 22, 2017 by Tacenda

[JLHPROF]

51 minutes ago, stemelbow said:

Before I go searching for a reference for you, I'm curious if you really feel that people in 1840 US were ok with a 36-38 year old male marrying a 14 year old girl?  If you truly think they were ok with it, generally speaking, then I'll see what I can find.  Other than that, I have no idea why i'd waste my time to find a reference.  

Marriageable age in the 1800s was around 16.  
That is when eligible young ladies made their debut into society.  This tradition is in many, many cultures.
In many Latin cultures it was 15, hence the quinceañera where gifts were given to provide a dowry.  In the South they had debutantes and cotillions.  In England they referred to young women being "out in society".  Even today when 18 is the age of adulthood these traditions continue, sweet sixteen parties and all that.  

And the further back you go the younger marriageable age was.  In some earlier societies the age was younger than 16.(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_views_on_marriage#Ages_of_marriage).  Henry VIII was 49 and his fifth wife was 16.  Imagine the scandal today.
But that is presentism.  In Joseph's day 16 was seen as old enough to marry, and just as today there were always a few outliers from the generally accepted age.

In short, society accepted 15-16 as old enough to get married until the 20th century and laws allowed marriage as young as 14.  So culturally and legally there was no problem with the age of the bride.

So if the age of the bride isn't the societal issue, was age difference considered an issue in the 1800s?
I'll have to look later.

ETA - Smac beat me to it.  Looks like neither the age of the bride nor the age gap was a problem in the 1800s.
So our problem with it is pure presentism.

 

Edited November 22, 2017 by JLHPROF

[Tacenda]

3 minutes ago, Scott Lloyd said:

He’s home now. Has been since August. 

The two years go by in a flash. 

Oh dear, I must have missed that! Well have a wonderful holiday with him now!!

[Pete Ahlstrom]

4 minutes ago, JLHPROF said:

Marriageable age in the 1800s was around 16.  
That is when eligible young ladies made their debut into society.  This tradition is in many, many cultures.
In many Latin cultures it was 15, hence the quinceañera where gifts were given to provide a dowry.  In the South they had debutantes and cotillions.  In England they referred to young women being "out in society".  Even today when 18 is the age of adulthood these traditions continue, sweet sixteen parties and all that.  

And the further back you go the younger marriageable age was.  In some earlier societies the age was younger than 16.(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_views_on_marriage#Ages_of_marriage).  Henry VIII was 49 and his fifth wife was 16.  Imagine the scandal today.
But that is presentism.  In Joseph's day 16 was seen as old enough to marry, and just as today there were always a few outliers from the generally accepted age.

In short, society accepted 15-16 as old enough to get married until the 20th century and laws allowed marriage as young as 14.  So culturally and legally there was no problem with the age of the bride.

So if the age of the bride isn't the societal issue, was age difference considered an issue in the 1800s?
I'll have to look later.

ETA - Smac beat me to it.  Looks like neither the age of the bride nor the age gap was a problem in the 1800s.
So our problem with it is pure presentism.

 

So, do you think the polygamy essay saying a few months shy of 15 instead of saying only 9 months after her 14th birthday was for presentism purposes?