Does it matter how many wives Joseph Smith had?

Several articles appeared yesterday – some front-page – that reported the astounding news that the Mormon leader and originator Joseph Smith had, over the course of his life, 40 wives.

I’m wondering why this is news – front page news, at that.. It has been known for decades that early Mormonism was a polygamous religion only changed its ways 125 years ago. Does it make a difference if he had 3, 15, 30, or 40 wives?

More disturbing to me is that he had some wives that he married when they were 14 years old, and that he took as his own women that were already married to other men.

But with this distance, does it even matter?

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