Mormons Reveal That Founder Joseph Smith Had 40 Wives As Young As 14-Years-Old

The Mormon church has been notorious since its creation in the 1820’s for advocating and practising polygamy as part of its religious doctrine.

And while that is no surprise to most, the Mormon church, which today tops roughly 15 million globally, it may come as a surprise to some that its founder, Joseph Smith, allegedly had up to 40 wives, some of which were already married to his friends, and one who was as young as 14!

The new revelations come from a number of essays posted online by Mormon leaders, in an effort to come clean about the history of their religion and to quell the speculative comments which are found increasingly about the religion.

Many Mormons who were born to polygamous families say that while they knew of Smith’s successor, Brigham Young, having numerous wives, they had learned till now that Smith himself was monogamous with his one wife.

A blogger who writes often about Mormon related issues, Emily Jensen, wrote, “Joseph Smith was presented to me as a practically perfect prophet, and this is true for a lot of people. This is not the church I grew up with, this is not the Joseph Smith I love.”

The New York Times reported that while Smith probably did not have sexual relations with all of his wives, because some were “sealed” to him only for the next life, the whole Polygamy thing first wife, Emma, was”an excruciating ordeal.”

A Mormon church historian and a member of the senior leadership, Elder Steven E. Snow, said in an interview.

“There is so much out there on the Internet that we felt we owed our members a safe place where they could go to get reliable, faith-promoting information that was true about some of these more difficult aspects of our history. We need to be truthful, and we need to understand our history. I believe our history is full of stories of faith and devotion and sacrifice, but these people weren’t perfect.”

According to Mormons, polygamy was commanded by God, revealed to Smith and accepted by him and his followers only very reluctantly. On top of that, it’s openly known that Abraham from the Old Testament, as well as his sons, had multiple wives, and the Mormon movement was supposed to be an extension of that.

The majority of Smith’s wives were between the ages of 20 and 40, the essay says, but he married Helen Mar Kimball, a daughter of two close friends, “several months before her 15th birthday, ” according to the essays.