Editing Mormonism and polygamy (section)

===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>