"A Response to Earlier Morality Accusation == 
 This is in response to a cowardly ""unsigned"" commenter who suggested that Thomas Alva was a ""pedophile"". The entire section was deleted. I think the response is worth keeping as it delves into the intrigue in Edison's life. ""Isn't the U.S. age of consent 18?""-(as ""unsigned"" stated). To which I responded: Hey IDIOT, this was the NINETEENTH CENTURY, after all!!! Thoughout the western world, females marrying at the age of 16 were common. Never raising as much as an eyebrow from the emerging Victoian era. Actually, a young girl marrying a man who was middle-aged and still in the prime of life was applauded AND encouraged, as well as her parents for matching her with any man who had established means. What was frowned upon at that time (and still very-much today,)was if the man were eighteen to her, say sixteen, or both were the same teen age (though today, as was true then, a parent could get a waiver, and consent to the union, in certain states in the U.S.). A young marriage was mightily discouraged by society AND the girl's parents in that bygone era, as they saw ""young love"" as impetuous, irrational, and especially IMMATURE. Unless the man was shown to be of more than sufficient means, maturity and responsibility; that he came from a respected family, otherwise the whole idea was nixed. Also, remember that arranged marriages were still quite common in turn-of-the-century America. (And too, fathers were eager to get their daughters ""married off"" as soon as possible, so they wouldn't get ""radical"" ideas of ""independence"" floating in their heads.) Not like the ""mail-order brides"" of the rambling Old West! (Actually, would it surprise you that arranged unions are still widely carried out today accross every interested section and spectrum of society in the West. It's just more informal, as the female ESPECIALLY is tasked by parents and relatives to choose a mate within the liking of the parents, and often-times, relatives. ""Gotta please Mom and Dad, my grandparents AND priest, ya know?"" You should also study more about Edison's life before making moronic and scurrilous accusations. If you did delve further, you would find that Edison's second marriage was more a ""politcal"" arrangement than anything else, as little Mina was a neice of Thomas Alva's principal enemy and competitor JUPITER PIERPONT MORGAN. Struggling as the latter was to keep his floundering gas-light industry afloat against the inevitability of the electric street and house-hold lamp supplanting oft-dangerous gas-fueld illumination. So, the marrige was a very strategically diabolic ""investment"" on Morgan's part to overtake Edison' business, which eventually happened. (We are reminded that Morgan was a ROBBER BARON: This is what they do.)It is strange that you'd call Alva Edison a pedophile. Why, unless you seek to marr his reputation? |talk]]) Veryverser 

 Following this clarification, perhaps it was the article's author who attempted to resolve this by offering the results of his ""genelogical study"" of what was conventional in such relationships in that period that Edison lived. This I felt was inadequate, so I countered with... 

 We are talking SOCIAL CONVENTIONS here, of course. Naturally long before the 1960sA.D. ""women's liberation"", all females needed their parents or guardian(s)'s consent, whether they were co-habitating with them, or the women were apart from them and\or had indepenent means. This was common all over the world, with this tradition being broken, begining in North America by enforced emigration(for example)of Irish and other European refugees in the nineteenth, and then again in the early twentieth centuries. Even women who were twenty-one years old in the turn-of-the nineteenth, and early twentieth century's ""middle-class"" strata were required to seek a respectable, well-heeled sponsor, to give consent to a bethrotal if these females ever were to hope to enter what was then regarded as ""respectable"" society"". This all seemed to change in America after World War I, as there seemed to have been a definite ""cultural shift"", throwing-off those old traditions of a previous generation and epoch. Edison's age difference is a non-issue. Even in most parts of Asia and Europe today, age in a marriage of an older man to a (well, sometimes much) younger woman is revered. Here, in the States, various wealthy and powerful men, among them old Hollywood and media types flaunt their marriage to virtual child-brides(Woody Allen, Rupert Murdock are obvious examples. Curious-wouldn't you agree-that in both cases cited, these men chose YOUNG, ORIENTAL WOMEN, rather than western ones for their ""sunset years""). In Alva Edison's case, this was sort of a ""wirlwind romance"" manipulated by the girl's uncle, as I cited above, to get at Edison and control of his company. Think Napolean Bonapart's divorc