Editing Mormonism and polygamy (section)

==Criticism of LDS polygamy==

===Instances of unhappy polygamous marriage===
Critics of polygamy in the early LDS Church claim that polygamy produced unhappiness in some wives.<ref>{{Harvnb|Tanner|1979|pp=226–228}}</ref> Historian Todd Compton, in his book ''[[In Sacred Loneliness]]'', described various cases where some wives in polygamous marriages were unhappy with polygamy.<ref name="Harvnb|Compton|1997">{{Harvnb|Compton|1997}}</ref>

===A means for immoral sexual gratification===
Critics of polygamy in the early LDS Church claim that church leaders established the practice of polygamy in order to further their immoral desires for sexual gratification with multiple sexual partners.<ref>{{Harvnb|Tanner|1979|pp=204–290}}</ref> Critics point to the fact that church leaders practiced polygamy in secret from 1833 to 1852, despite a written church doctrine (Doctrine and Covenants 101, 1835 edition) renouncing polygamy and stating that only monogamous marriages were permitted.<ref>{{Harvnb|Tanner|1987|p=202}}</ref>[[File:Teenage Brides of Early Mormon Leaders.png|thumb|Bar chart showing age differences at the time of polygamous marriage between teenage brides and early Latter Day Saint church leaders.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Goodstein |first=Laurie |date=10 November 2014 |title=It's Official: Mormon Founder Had Up to 40 Wives |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/11/us/its-official-mormon-founder-had-up-to-40-wives.html |access-date=2 June 2017 |quote=[Joseph Smith Jr.] married Helen Mar Kimball, a daughter of two close friends, 'several months before her 15th birthday'.}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |last=Turner |first=John G. |date=27 October 2012 |title=Polygamy, Brigham Young and His 55 Wives |work=The Huffington Post |url=http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-g-turner/brigham-young-and-polygamy_b_1792555.html |access-date=2 June 2017 |quote=The sheer variety of Brigham Young's marriages makes it difficult to make sense of them. He married – was sealed to, in Mormon parlance – young (Clarissa Decker, 15) and old (Hannah Tapfield King, 65).}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Snodgrass |first=Mary Ellen |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mGrxBwAAQBAJ&q=sarah%20minnie%20jensen%20lorenzo%20snow&pg=PA220 |title=Civil Disobedience: An Encyclopedic History of Dissidence in the United States |date= 2009 |publisher=Rootledge |isbn=978-0765681270 |edition=1st |page=220 |quote=The name of each wife is followed by her age at marriage, the place of marriage, and the year the couple married. ... Lorenzo Snow ... Sarah Minnie Jensen, 16, Salt Lake City, 1871 |access-date=2 June 2017}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Ulrich |first=Laurel Thatcher |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0fmxDQAAQBAJ&q=Wilford+Woodruff+%26+(Emma+Smith+born+March+1st+1838+At+Diahman+Davis+County+Missouri)+was+sealed+for+time+%26+Eternity+by+President+Brigham+Young+at&pg=PA274 |title=A House Full of Females: Plural Marriage and Women's Rights in Early Mormonism, 1835–1870 |date=2017 |publisher=Knopf |isbn=978-0307594907 |page=274 |quote=Wilford Woodfruff & (Emma Smith born March 1st 1838 at Diahman Davis County Missouri) was Sealed for time & Eternity by President Brigham Young at 7 o'clock p.m. March 13, 1853. |access-date=3 June 2017}}</ref> The average age of first marriage for white US women from 1850 to 1880 was 23.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Hacker |first1=J. David |last2=Hilde |first2=Libra |last3=Jones |first3=James Holland |year=2010 |title=Nuptiality Measures for the White Population of the United States, 1850–1880 |journal=The Journal of Southern History |volume=76 |issue=1 |pages=39–70 |pmc=3002115 |pmid=21170276}}</ref>]]

===Underage polygamous marriages===
Historian [[George D. Smith]] studied 153 men who took multiple wives in the early years of the Latter Day Saint movement, and found that two of the girls were thirteen years old, 13 girls were fourteen years old, 21 were fifteen years old, and 53 were sixteen years old.<ref>[[George D. Smith]], "Nauvoo Polygamists," ''[[Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought]]'', Spring 1994, p. ix.</ref> Historian [[Todd Compton]] believes that Joseph Smith married one girl who was fourteen-years old (possibly two); according to Compton, "it is unlikely that the marriage was consummated".<ref>{{Harvnb|Compton|1997|pp=6, 606}}.</ref>{{efn|These were Helen Mar Kimball and Nancy Maria Winchester. Kimball was fourteen-years old when Smith married her in May 1843; Winchester was either fourteen or fifteen, as the date of her marriage to Smith in relation to her birthday is uncertain. On nonconsummation, Compton states, "my judgment is that it is unlikely that the marriage was consummated" and "it is not just not certain, it is unlikely, in my judgment".<ref>{{harvnb|Compton|2010|p=231}}</ref>}} Historian Stanley Hirshon documented cases of girls aged 10 and 11 being married to old men.<ref>{{Harvnb|Hirshon|1969|pp=126–127}}</ref>

The mean age of marriage for women was lower in Mormon polygamy than in New England and the Northeastern states (the societies in which Smith and many early converts to the movement had lived), and this was partly caused by the practice of polygamy, and Compton concludes that "[e]arly marriage and very early marriage were… accepted" in early Mormonism.<ref>{{Harvnb|Compton|2010|p=229}}.</ref> These marriages were frequently dynastic in purpose, meant to join people to the families of leaders, motivated by the significance of marriage for the nineteenth-century Latter-day Saint understanding of the afterlife.<ref>{{Harvnb|Compton|2010|pages=230–231}}.</ref> According to Compton, the "valid parallel" for Mormon early marriages is the "American and European history of elite early marriages that were not consummated until the marriage participants were much older".<ref>{{Harvnb|Compton|2010|p=231}}.</ref> Compton "find[s] dynastic marriages of teenage girls problematic, even if sexual consummation is delayed".<ref>{{Harvnb|Compton|2010|p=231n74}}.</ref>

===Unmarried men===
If some men have several wives and the numbers of men and women are approximately equal, some men will necessarily be left without wives. In the denominations that still practice polygamy today, such men, known as [[Lost boys (Mormon fundamentalism)|lost boys]] are often driven out so as not to compete with high-ranked polygamous men.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/jun/14/usa.julianborger|access-date=2023-09-21|date=2005-06-14|work=The Guardian|title=The lost boys, thrown out of US sect so that older men can marry more wives|first=Julian|last=Borger}}</ref>