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bcspace wrote:Just curious. Did Joseph Smith obtain any marriage licenses for any of those to whom he was sealed?

"Sec 121. Bigamy consists in the having of two wives or two husbands at one and the same time, knowing that the former husband or wife is still alive. If any person or persons within this State, being married, or who shall hereafter marry, do at any time marry any person or persons, the former husband or wife being alive, the person so offending shall, on conviction thereof, be punished by a fine, not exceeding one thousand dollars, and imprisoned in the penitentiary, not exceeding two years. It shall not be necessary to prove either of the said marriages by the register or certificate thereof, or other record evidence; but the same may be proved by such evidence as is admissible to prove a marriage in other cases, and when such second marriage shall have taken place without this state, cohabitation in this state after such second marriage shall be deemed the commission of the crime of bigamy, and the trial in such case may take place in the county where such cohabitation shall have occurred."
(Revised Laws of Illinois, 1833, p.198-199)

The main reason why Joseph Smith did Not obtain Marriage licenses for any of those to whom he was 'married' and sealed to, is because Bigamy was illegal within the State of Illinois back then.

bcspace wrote:Sure. Though I was thinking more along the lines of no additional marriage licenses being further evidence that these were not marriages of the type you critics want them to be. Perhaps the fact that there are no children from these sealings is the best evidence for that.

- Faithful Mormon and wife of Joseph Smith, Sylvia Sessions (Lyon), on her deathbed told her daughter, Josephine, that she (Josephine) was the daughter of Joseph Smith. Josephine testified: "She (Sylvia) then told me that I was the daughter of the Prophet Joseph Smith, she having been sealed to the Prophet at the time that her husband Mr. Lyon was out of fellowship with the Church."
(Affidavit to Church Historian Andrew Jenson, 24 Feb. 1915)

bcspace wrote:Sure. Though I was thinking more along the lines of no additional marriage licenses being further evidence that these were not marriages of the type you critics want them to be.

The only reason we call them "marriages" is out of tradition, nothing more.

Tell us, bcspace, what type of marriages do you apologists want them to be?

bcspace wrote:

The only reason we call them "marriages" is out of tradition, nothing more.

Ignorance or agenda I'd say.

Tell us, bcspace, what type of marriages do you apologists want them to be?

Speaking only for myself, I have no desire for them to be anything but what they were. Because the evidence suggests they were not marriages out of tradition; they only seem to be sealings.

Sure. Though I was thinking more along the lines of no additional marriage licenses being further evidence that these were not marriages of the type you critics want them to be. Perhaps the fact that there are no children from these sealings is the best evidence for that.