Was it Normal for Teenage Girls to Marry in the 1800s?

“Common for Their Time”? The Myth That Excuses Exploitation

One of the most persistent defenses of early Mormon polygamy is the claim that it was “normal for the time” for men to marry teenage girls. The official Gospel Topics Essay on Plural Marriage in Early Utah even states:

Women did marry at fairly young ages in the first decade of Utah settlement (age 16 or 17 or, infrequently, younger), which was typical of women living in frontier areas at the time.
LDS Website, Gospel Topic Essay: Plural Marriage and Families in Early Utah
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topics-essays/plural-marriage-and-families-in-early-utah

This line is often repeated as if it settles the issue. But when we actually look at the data from U.S. Census records and demographic studies of the 19th century, a very different picture emerges. Perhaps the only reason for this is that the polygamous marriages were secret and not reported to the census, or the church wants us to believe that these teenage brides were typical among church leaders and not among the general public.

Apologists even discuss the age of consent and claim that no harm no foul since the past was a different world, and even state that the age of consent back then was 10-12 years old. That doesn’t take into account that average girls of those ages back then were still far from puberty and being able to conceive.

The age of consent is the age at which someone can legally agree to participate in sexual activity. Today the age of consent is between 16 and 18 years old, depending on the state you live in. In 1885, the age of consent was shockingly between 10 and 12 years old. Now, I don’t know of any women in Utah who married that young — the point is simply that standards were different back then. The social climate and culture were different.
Keystone: Teen Brides Used to Be Common in Utah (Here’s Why)
https://keystonelds.com/about-mormons/history/why-teen-brides-were-common-utah/

What the Data Actually Shows

In the 1800s, the average age for first marriage in the US was approximately 20 for women and 26 for men, though these figures varied by region and social class. Marrying earlier than this was possible, but the average age was higher than many popular myths suggest. The idea that people married much younger in the past is largely a myth. The average marriage age in the 1800s was not drastically different from the average age in the late 19th century.

The Census has tracked marriage ages since 1890. In the 1800s, the average age for first marriage in the US was approximately 20 for women and 26 for men. The average marriage age in the 1800s was not drastically different from the average age in the late 19th century. | wasmormon.org — The Census has tracked marriage ages since 1890. In the 1800s, the average age for first marriage in the US was approximately 20 for women and 26 for men. The average marriage age in the 1800s was not drastically different from the average age in the late 19th century.

The Census has tracked marriage ages since 1890. In that time the youngest median ages of marriage were in 1956, when it was 22.5 for men and 20.1 for women.
How has marriage in the US changed over time? How has the average age of marriage changed over time?
https://usafacts.org/articles/state-relationships-marriages-and-living-alone-us/

The average (median) age for a woman’s first marriage in the mid-1800s was in her early to mid-20s, not her teens. Census records from the 1850s to 1880s show women typically marrying around 22 to 24 years old, depending on region and socioeconomic status. Even in “frontier” communities, teenage brides were the exception, not the rule.

Additionally, the median age of menarche (first menstruation) in 1845 was about 16.5 years old. In other words, many of the girls Joseph Smith and other early LDS leaders married were only just reaching puberty—or hadn’t yet. These were not adult women by any reasonable biological, legal, or ethical standard.

To put it bluntly: the church’s leaders were not “marrying young by the standards of the time.” They were marrying children. This wasn’t normal in those days, and in the rare cases when a 14 or 16-year-old girl was married, it wasn’t to a man with dozens of other wives; it was to another young man.

Joseph Smith: The Pattern of Predation

Joseph Smith’s plural wives included several teenagers, the youngest being Helen Mar Kimball, who was only 14 years old—“a few months shy of her fifteenth birthday,” as church materials like to phrase it. Others, such as Lucy Walker (17) and Sarah Ann Whitney (17), were also teenagers under his spiritual and social authority.

This was not normal, not even in the 1840s. These marriages were performed in secret, often under spiritual coercion. Girls were told their eternal salvation—or their family’s—depended on their consent. Such behavior fits the modern definition of grooming and abuse, not marriage.

Brigham Young: The Polygamy Expansionist

After Joseph Smith’s death, Brigham Young institutionalized and expanded polygamy, marrying at least 55 women, several of whom were teenagers. One of his wives, Clarissa Decker, was 15 when she married him; another, Lucy Bigelow, was 19. Young himself was 42 when he took his first plural wife, and by his mid-40s was marrying girls young enough to be his daughters. He publicly defended these marriages as divine, yet used his power to seal himself to women who had little or no agency in the matter.

John Taylor: The Polygamy Defender

John Taylor, the third president of the church, continued the practice and staunchly defended it—even as the U.S. government began cracking down on polygamy. He married at least 12 wives, including two who were teenagers at the time. One of them, Sophia Whittaker, was 16, while Taylor was in his 40s. Taylor not only perpetuated the practice but also cloaked it in theology, equating obedience to polygamy with obedience to God, leaving women little choice but submission.

Wilford Woodruff: The Transitional Prophet

Wilford Woodruff, who later issued the 1890 Manifesto officially “ending” plural marriage, himself practiced it for decades. He married nine wives, at least one of whom—Emma Smith (not related to Joseph)—was 15 years old when Woodruff, age 46, married her. Despite his eventual public disavowal, he continued to authorize and perform plural marriages in secret for years afterward. The “end” of polygamy was, in truth, a political necessity, not a moral reckoning.

Lorenzo Snow: The Mentor and Groomer

Lorenzo Snow and his Nine Wives and their respective ages on the wedding day. The Plural Wives of LDS Church President Lorenzo Snow | April 3, 1814 – October 10, 1901 | wasmormon.org — Lorenzo Snow and his Nine Wives and their respective ages on the wedding day. The Plural Wives of LDS Church President Lorenzo Snow | April 3, 1814 – October 10, 1901

Lorenzo Snow married at least nine wives, including teenagers, under his ecclesiastical mentorship. His last wife, Sarah Jensen, was 15 when he married her, and he was 57! Snow was known to court young women he tutored or mentored spiritually, continuing the troubling pattern of religious authority used to secure sexual access to girls under his influence.

Joseph F. Smith: The Last Openly Polygamist Prophet

Joseph F. Smith, nephew of Joseph Smith and the sixth president of the church, was the last LDS prophet to openly live as a polygamist. He married five wives. His fifth wife, Alice Ann Kimball, was 17 at the time of their marriage; he was in his 30s. He fathered 48 children and publicly defended polygamy as an eternal principle even after the Manifesto, influencing fundamentalist offshoots that still practice child marriage today.

Heber J. Grant: The Last Polygamous Prophet

Heber J. Grant, who became the seventh president of the church in 1918, had also entered into plural marriage before the final crackdown. He was sealed to three wives, though by the time he assumed the presidency, he was living monogamously with his last surviving wife, Augusta Winters.

When defenders excuse these acts as “typical for the era,” they are not only misrepresenting history—they are minimizing harm and protecting abusers rather than victims.

Lasting Effects in Utah Culture

These early examples set a precedent that still echoes in Mormon culture today.

Purity culture and the sexualization of teenage girls persist in lessons that teach girls to be “modest” and responsible for men’s thoughts.
Age and power imbalances in relationships are normalized by stories of prophets marrying young brides.
And women’s voices—especially those who question or resist authority—are still too often dismissed or silenced.

By pretending that exploitation was “normal back then,” the institution excuses not only past abuses but also the lingering culture that protects power instead of the vulnerable.

It’s Time to Name What Happened

Calling these marriages “typical” is not an honest assessment of history—it’s a rationalization meant to protect prophetic authority. When we look at the evidence, it becomes clear: what happened was not common, not acceptable, and not of God.

It’s time we stop letting the church tell us otherwise. The first step to healing from this inherited trauma is to acknowledge it for what it is: exploitation.

Share Your Story

If you’ve wrestled with this issue or discovered the truth about early church leaders’ marriages, you’re not alone. Don’t let the church tell you that what men did to underage girls was normal or “common for their time.” Many of us placed this topic on our “shelf” for years before we were ready to face it.

But our doubts are real, and they matter. Talking about them helps remove the stigma and brings healing—not just for us individually, but for our community. Share your story on wasmormon.org and help others see that questioning is not rebellion—it’s honesty.

More reading:

Was it Normal for Teenage Girls to Marry in the 1800s?