Difference between revisions of "Group marriage" - New World Encyclopedia

From New World Encyclopedia
m ({{Paid}})
m (Starting copy edit)
Line 1: Line 1:
 
[[Category:Politics and social sciences]]
 
[[Category:Politics and social sciences]]
 
[[Category:Anthropology]]
 
[[Category:Anthropology]]
{{Paid}}{{Approved}}{{Images OK}}{{Submitted}}{{Contracted}}
+
{{ce}}{{Paid}}{{Approved}}{{Images OK}}{{Submitted}}{{Contracted}}
 
'''Group marriage''' is a form of [[polygamy|polygamous]] [[marriage]] in which more than one man and more than one woman form a [[family]] unit. All members of the marriage share [[parenting|parent]]al responsibility for any children arising from the marriage. In practice, however, communities that are known to have tried this form of marriage have encountered serious difficulties, leading to the breakdown of the group. Issues of jealousy and feelings of inadequacy when faced with one's partner's continual intimate relationships with others surfaced despite members' best efforts to avoid them. Production of children led not to happy families with multiple parents, but the decision that group members should not procreate. While group marriage may sound attractive in fiction, in reality it has proved to be but one more temptation that leads to pain and confusion. True human relationships cannot be based on this type of commitment.
 
'''Group marriage''' is a form of [[polygamy|polygamous]] [[marriage]] in which more than one man and more than one woman form a [[family]] unit. All members of the marriage share [[parenting|parent]]al responsibility for any children arising from the marriage. In practice, however, communities that are known to have tried this form of marriage have encountered serious difficulties, leading to the breakdown of the group. Issues of jealousy and feelings of inadequacy when faced with one's partner's continual intimate relationships with others surfaced despite members' best efforts to avoid them. Production of children led not to happy families with multiple parents, but the decision that group members should not procreate. While group marriage may sound attractive in fiction, in reality it has proved to be but one more temptation that leads to pain and confusion. True human relationships cannot be based on this type of commitment.
  
Line 22: Line 22:
 
The Oneida Community was a [[utopia]]n commune founded by [[John Humphrey Noyes]] in 1848 in Oneida, New York. Noyes taught that he and his followers had undergone sanctification; that is, it was impossible for them to [[sin]], and that for the sanctified, marriage (along with private [[property]]) was abolished as an expression of jealousy and exclusiveness.  
 
The Oneida Community was a [[utopia]]n commune founded by [[John Humphrey Noyes]] in 1848 in Oneida, New York. Noyes taught that he and his followers had undergone sanctification; that is, it was impossible for them to [[sin]], and that for the sanctified, marriage (along with private [[property]]) was abolished as an expression of jealousy and exclusiveness.  
  
The Oneida commune practiced sexual communalism and shared [[parenting|parental]] responsibilities, and in effect functioned as a large group marriage until sometime in the period 1879-1881. The community believed that since [[Christ]] had already returned in the year 70 c.e. it was possible for them to bring about [[Millennialism|Christ's millenial kingdom]] themselves, and be free of sin and perfect in this lifetime (a belief called "Perfectionism").
+
The Oneida commune practiced sexual communalism and shared [[parenting|parental]] responsibilities, and in effect functioned as a large group marriage until sometime in the period 1879-1881. The community believed that since [[Christ]] had already returned in the year 70 C.E. it was possible for them to bring about [[Millennialism|Christ's millenial kingdom]] themselves, and be free of sin and perfect in this lifetime (a belief called "Perfectionism").
  
 
The Oneida Community practiced "Communalism" (in the sense of communal property and possessions), "Complex Marriage," (group marriage) "Male Continence," "Mutual Criticism," and "Ascending Fellowship."  There were smaller communities in Wallingford, Connecticut; Newark, New Jersey; Putney, Vermont; and Cambridge, Vermont. The community's original 87 members grew to 172 by February 1850, 208 by 1852 and 306 by 1878. With the exception of the Wallingford community, which remained in operation until devastated by a [[tornado]] in 1878, all the other branches were closed in 1854. The Oneida Community dissolved in 1880, and eventually became the [[silverware]] giant, Oneida Limited.   
 
The Oneida Community practiced "Communalism" (in the sense of communal property and possessions), "Complex Marriage," (group marriage) "Male Continence," "Mutual Criticism," and "Ascending Fellowship."  There were smaller communities in Wallingford, Connecticut; Newark, New Jersey; Putney, Vermont; and Cambridge, Vermont. The community's original 87 members grew to 172 by February 1850, 208 by 1852 and 306 by 1878. With the exception of the Wallingford community, which remained in operation until devastated by a [[tornado]] in 1878, all the other branches were closed in 1854. The Oneida Community dissolved in 1880, and eventually became the [[silverware]] giant, Oneida Limited.   
Line 90: Line 90:
 
*[http://www.othermag.org/content/kerista.php "Test Tube Lovers: Kerista's Ambiguous Utopia"] by Annalee Newitz
 
*[http://www.othermag.org/content/kerista.php "Test Tube Lovers: Kerista's Ambiguous Utopia"] by Annalee Newitz
 
*[http://www.wired.com/news/mac/0,2125,51866,00.html "Free Love and Selling Macs"] by Leander Kahney (ex-Keristan disputed account of "seduction squads" mentioned in article)
 
*[http://www.wired.com/news/mac/0,2125,51866,00.html "Free Love and Selling Macs"] by Leander Kahney (ex-Keristan disputed account of "seduction squads" mentioned in article)
* [http://www.oneidacommunity.org Oneida Community Mansion House a museum of the Oneida Community]
+
* [http://www.oneidacommunity.org Oneida Community Mansion House a museum of the Oneida Community]
 
*[http://library.syr.edu/digital/guides/o/OneidaCommunityCollection-Inv.htm Oneida Community Collection at Syracuse University]
 
*[http://library.syr.edu/digital/guides/o/OneidaCommunityCollection-Inv.htm Oneida Community Collection at Syracuse University]
 
*[http://www.nyhistory.com/central/oneida.htm The Oneida Community], New York History Net
 
*[http://www.nyhistory.com/central/oneida.htm The Oneida Community], New York History Net
  
 
{{Credit3|Group_marriage|75869107|Oneida_Society|85080303|Kerista|67568374|}}
 
{{Credit3|Group_marriage|75869107|Oneida_Society|85080303|Kerista|67568374|}}

Revision as of 18:27, 22 August 2007

Copyediting in Process!

Group marriage is a form of polygamous marriage in which more than one man and more than one woman form a family unit. All members of the marriage share parental responsibility for any children arising from the marriage. In practice, however, communities that are known to have tried this form of marriage have encountered serious difficulties, leading to the breakdown of the group. Issues of jealousy and feelings of inadequacy when faced with one's partner's continual intimate relationships with others surfaced despite members' best efforts to avoid them. Production of children led not to happy families with multiple parents, but the decision that group members should not procreate. While group marriage may sound attractive in fiction, in reality it has proved to be but one more temptation that leads to pain and confusion. True human relationships cannot be based on this type of commitment.

Definitions

Group marriage (also known as Circle Marriage) is a form of polygamous marriage in which more than one man and more than one woman form a family unit, and all members of the marriage share parental responsibility for any children arising from the marriage (Murdoch 1949).

"Line Marriage" is a form of group marriage in which the family unit continues to add new spouses of both sexes over time so that the marriage does not end.

Group marriage is occasionally called "polygynandry," from a combination of the words polygyny and polyandry, which describe polygamous relationships involving multiple wives or multiple husbands, respectively.

Traditional Cultures

Group marriage has been judged to be rare in traditional societies, although this judgment may be unwarranted, since the modern understanding of such societies is less than perfect. Many traditional societies have been nearly or totally destroyed by colonization and other forces. Nevertheless, among the cultures listed in George Peter Murdock's Ethnographic Atlas, the Caingang people of Brazil practiced group marriage most frequently as a socially accepted form of marriage, and even among them, only 8 percent of unions were group marriage (Murdock 1949). Thus, without additional anthropological research there is little evidence to support the prevalence of these unions.

Modern Culture

Group marriage occasionally occurred in communal societies founded in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Relatively long-lived examples were the Oneida and the Kerista communities in the United States.

It is difficult to estimate the number of people who actually practice group marriage in modern societies, as this form of marriage is not officially recognized in any jurisdiction, and illegal in many; however, it seems likely that its practice is limited to relatively small numbers of people. With the legalization of same-sex marriage in Canada and some parts of the United States, there has been some discussion of attempts to legalize group marriage.

Oneida Commune

The Oneida Community was a utopian commune founded by John Humphrey Noyes in 1848 in Oneida, New York. Noyes taught that he and his followers had undergone sanctification; that is, it was impossible for them to sin, and that for the sanctified, marriage (along with private property) was abolished as an expression of jealousy and exclusiveness.

The Oneida commune practiced sexual communalism and shared parental responsibilities, and in effect functioned as a large group marriage until sometime in the period 1879-1881. The community believed that since Christ had already returned in the year 70 C.E. it was possible for them to bring about Christ's millenial kingdom themselves, and be free of sin and perfect in this lifetime (a belief called "Perfectionism").

The Oneida Community practiced "Communalism" (in the sense of communal property and possessions), "Complex Marriage," (group marriage) "Male Continence," "Mutual Criticism," and "Ascending Fellowship." There were smaller communities in Wallingford, Connecticut; Newark, New Jersey; Putney, Vermont; and Cambridge, Vermont. The community's original 87 members grew to 172 by February 1850, 208 by 1852 and 306 by 1878. With the exception of the Wallingford community, which remained in operation until devastated by a tornado in 1878, all the other branches were closed in 1854. The Oneida Community dissolved in 1880, and eventually became the silverware giant, Oneida Limited.

Even though the community reached a maximum population of about three hundred, it had a complex bureaucracy of twenty-seven standing committees and forty-eight administrative sections. Males and females had equality and equal voice in the governance of the community. A community nursery provided care for infants and children so that both parents could work.

In theory, every male was married to every female. In practice, this meant that most adults had continuous sexual access to a partner. Community members were not to have an exclusive sexual or romantic relationship with each other, but were to keep in constant circulation. To help prevent a "special love" from forming, each Community member had his or her own bedroom. This extended even to couples who came to the Community already married. A married couple entering the Community was not required or even encouraged to legally dissolve their union, but rather to extend the borders of it to the rest of the Community in complex marriage. The average female Community member had three sexual encounters, or "interviews," every week.

Post-menopausal women were encouraged to introduce teenage males to sex, providing both with legitimate partners that rarely resulted in pregnancies. Furthermore, these women became religious role models for the young men. Noyes often used his own judgment in determining the partnerships which would form and would often encourage relationships between the non-devout and the devout in the community, in the hopes that the attitudes and behaviors of the devout would influence the non-devout.

John Humphrey Noyes believed that sex had social and spiritual purposes, not only biological. To Communitarians, it was yet another path to perfection. Generally, it was believed that older people were spiritually superior to younger people, and men were spiritually superior to women. Noyes and his inner circle were at the top of this hierarchy in the Community. In order to improve oneself, one was only supposed to have sexual relations with those spiritually superior. This was called "ascending fellowship." Once a Community member had reached a certain level (usually determined by Noyes and his inner circle), they were then to turn around and practice "descending fellowship" with those Communitarians trying to work their way up.

Kerista Community

Kerista was a new religion that was started in New York City in 1956 by Bro Jud Presmont. Throughout much of its history, Kerista was centered on the ideals of "serial monogamy and creation of intentional communities."

From 1971 until 1991, the community was centered at the "Kerista Commune" (not a single physical building), founded in San Francisco, California. The Keristans practiced group marriage, and maintained a very high profile which included publication of a popular free newspaper and several national media appearances. The Keristans lived a work-optional life, shared income and could choose whether or not to have paying jobs. "Hunter-gatherers," with paying work outside Kerista would financially support the endeavors of Keristans who opted for other, non-paying endeavors.

The official Kerista website lists thirty-three people as having, at one time or another, joined Kerista during the community's history in San Francisco. In 1979 and 1980, two female members gave birth. In 1983, the adult male Keristans had vasectomies as a means to deal with birth control in the group, emphasize non-breeding new members, and address global population issues. All male applicants subsequently had the requirement of having a vasectomy within a set period of time after joining the community.

The terms "polyfidelity" and "compersion" were coined at the Kerista Commune to describe their group relationships. Polyfidelity refers to their family structure in which clusters of friends came together around shared interests and mutual attraction. Inside this group, members were non-monogamous, relating to all their partners without a hierarchy of preference. Thus each of the women had sexual relationships with each of the men, and no group member related sexually to anyone outside the family group.

The term compersion was coined to address the issue that it is normal to experience feelings of jealousy when one's sexual partner has sexual relationships with others. Thus, compersion means the opposite of jealousy, positive feelings about one's partner's other intimacies.

Although Kerista members expressed that this type of group marriage was the ideal family situation, in reality many struggled with feelings of jealousy and lack of value. As "Even Eve," one of the early founding members put it:

Polyfidelity is a great idea. Even today I could come up with a long list of features in its favor. The catch is that the idea has a hard time translating itself into successful practice. ... As committed as I used to be to the ideal of equal relationships, I sometimes found the discrepancy between the emotional reality (of being most in love with one partner) and the intellectual premise (of non-preference) to be quite excruciating. ...I finally admitted to myself that I did indeed have such a desire… and that there was nothing wrong with it. To be told "I love no one more than you," (unsaid: but others just as much) doesn't pack the same satisfying punch as "I love you," (unsaid: more than anyone else in the world). ... Whether wanting this kind of love is a matter of cultural conditioning or innate genetic predisposition is not important. No amount of indoctrination to feminist or other ideological rhetoric can change the fact that to me, success in love includes being the most important person in my lover's intimate life.

In 1991, the community experienced a major split, the founder going on to create "The World Academy of Keristan Education."

Group Marriage in Fiction

Interest in, and practice of, non-monogamous relationships is well-known in science fiction. Group marriage has been a theme in some works of science fiction, especially the later novels of Robert A. Heinlein, such as Stranger in a Strange Land and The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress. The relationship in Stranger in a Strange Land is a communal group, much like the Oneida Colony.

Heinlein described "line families" in detail in The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, with characters arguing that the line family creates economic continuity and parental stability in an unpredictable, dangerous environment. "Manuel's" line marriage was over one hundred years old, and the family is portrayed as being economically comfortable because the improvements and investments made by previous spouses compounded, rather than being lost between generations.

Conclusion

Group marriage is a form of marriage that joins groups of multiple individuals rather than just a couple. In theory it can provide those involved with sanctuary and financial security. Communally raising the children produced in such a marriage could in theory provide them with a more well rounded upbringing than the common two parent system. However, the apparent benefits of group marriages seem to remain more in theory than reality, when one regards the short lifespan and survival rate of such groups.

Reproduction became a problem in many of these groups. The Oneida and Kerista groups each found their own form of birth control as a solution to maintain the stability of the group. While the groups might have been able to stop any unwanted pregnancies, there is no way they could avoid problems such as jealousy, trust, and the possibility that someone in the group might desire one member of the group over another or want to have a child with them.

Thus, a group marriage has all the challenges of a conventional marriage, and in fact these problems are multiplied not reduced by the many partners. In fact, one of the so-called benefits of group marriage is that multiple parents would provide better support for raising children than a two-partner couple. Clearly, in practice, this turned out not to be the case, and the decision to have no children would appear to limit the "family" to a series of sexual encounters among peers with no creation of a lineage of descendants. Only in fiction could this be achieved, and fiction is not reality.

References
ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

  • Emens, Elizabeth F. (2004). Monogamy's Law: Compulsory Monogamy and Polyamorous Existence. New York University Review of Law & Social Change 29 (2): 277.
  • Murdock, George Peter (1949). Social Structure. New York: The MacMillan Company. ISBN 0029222907. 
  • Klaw, Spencer. (1993).Without Sin: The Life and Death of the Oneida Community. ISBN 0-7139-9091-0
  • Eve writes about her conversion to monogamy

External links

Credits

New World Encyclopedia writers and editors rewrote and completed the Wikipedia article in accordance with New World Encyclopedia standards. This article abides by terms of the Creative Commons CC-by-sa 3.0 License (CC-by-sa), which may be used and disseminated with proper attribution. Credit is due under the terms of this license that can reference both the New World Encyclopedia contributors and the selfless volunteer contributors of the Wikimedia Foundation. To cite this article click here for a list of acceptable citing formats.The history of earlier contributions by wikipedians is accessible to researchers here:

The history of this article since it was imported to New World Encyclopedia:

Note: Some restrictions may apply to use of individual images which are separately licensed.