I know we like to see things as black and white.

But stuff is nuanced.

We are talking about 1400 years ago. What was the norm in those times and how different is this from those norms? Were the things being preached better than the norms? If so, I think that’s progress.

Right now, average age of marriage has been going up and is early 30s in the US. About a 100 years ago, it was early 20s/late teens. In some states the official age didn’t get part mid teens till recently.

With that in mind, should we be judging the people of 1920s as advocates of child marriages?

Child marriage with no minimum age is currently allowed in 5 US states, including California. We should probably be raising more of a fuss about that if we think a guy doing this 1400 years ago is a problem.

…wikipedia.org/…/Child_marriage_in_the_United_Sta…

Between 2000 and 2018, some 300,000 minors were legally married in the United States.[16] The vast majority of child marriages (reliable sources vary between 78% and 95%) were between a minor girl and an adult man.[16][17][18] In many cases, minors in the U.S. may be married when they are under the age of sexual consent, which varies from 16 to 18 depending on the state.[19] In some states, minors cannot legally divorce or leave their spouse, and domestic violence shelters typically do not accept minors.[20][21]