Response to Earlier Morality Accusation  This is inresponse to a cowardly unsigned 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 Edisons life Isnt the US age of consent as unsigned stated  Hey IDIOT this was the NINETEENTH CENTURY Thoughout the western world females marrying at the age of  were common Never raising as much as an eyebrow from the emerging Victoian era Actually a young girl marrying a man who was middleaged 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 verymuch todaywas 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 A young marriage was mightily discouraged by society AND the girls 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 the whole idea was nixed Also remember that arranged marriages were still quite common in turnofthecentury America And too fathers were eager to get their daughters married off as soon as possible so they wouldnt get radical ideas of independence floating in their heads Not like the mailorder 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 Its just more informal as the female ESPECIALLY is tasked by parents and relatives to choose a mate within the liking of the parents and oftentimes relatives Gotta please Mom and Dad my grandparents AND priest ya know You should also study more about Edisons life before making moronic and scurrilous accusations If you did delve further you would find that Edisons second marriage was more a politcal arrangement than anything else as little Mina was a neice of Thomas Alvas principal enemy and competitor JUPITER PIERPONT MORGAN Struggling as the latter was to keep his floundering gaslight industry afloat against the inevitability of the electric street lamp So the marrige was a very strategically diabolic investment on Morgans part to overtake Edison business which eventually happened We are reminded that Morgan a a ROBBER BARON This is what they doIt is strange that youd call Alva Edison a pedophile Why unless you seek to marr his reputation talk Veryverser  Following this clarification perhaps it was the articles 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 sAD womens liberation all females needed their parents or guardianss consent whether they were cohabitating with them or the women were apart from them andor had indepenent means This was common all over the world with this tradition being broken beginingin in North America by enforced emigrationfor exampleof Irish and other European refugees in the nineteenth and then again in the early twentieth centuries Even women who were twentyone years old in the turnofthe nineteenth and early twentieth centurys middleclass strata were required to seek a respectable wellheeled 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 chagge in America after World War I as there seemed to have been a definite cultural shift throwingoff those old traditions of a previous generation and epoch Edisons age difference is a nonissue 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 wealthly and powerful men among them old Hollywood and media types flaunt their marriage to virtual childbridesWoody Allen Rupert Murdock as obvious examples Curiouswouldnt you agreethat in both cases cited these men chose YOUNG ORIENTAL WOMEN rather than western ones for their sunset years In Alva Edisons case this was sort of a wirlwind romance manipulated by the girls uncle as I cited above to get at Edison and control of his company Think Napolean Bonafarts divorce of Josephine to marry a Hapsburgh princess and the worldshattering events that ensued from such a political union SpecialContr