Group marriage

From New World Encyclopedia


Divisions and Definitions

Group marriage or 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.[1]

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.

Traditional Cultures

Group marriage is judged by some experts to be rare in traditional societies. Others find this judgement to 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. 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% of unions were group marriage.[2]More anthropological research is needed to gain any accurate perspective on the prevalence of these unions.

Modern Culture

Group marriage occasionally occurred in communal societies founded in the 19th and 20th centuries. An exceptionally long-lived example was the Oneida Community founded by the Congregationalist minister John Humphrey Noyes in 1848. 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 Kerista Commune practiced group marriage in San Francisco from 1971 to 1991.

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, some members of the polyamory movement are talking about a reform movement to also allow group marriage. [verification needed]

Oneida Society

The Oneida Community, was a utopian commune founded by John Humphrey Noyes in 1848 in Oneida, New York. 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, 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 rest of the branches were closed in 1854. The Oneida Community dissolved in 1880, and eventually became the silverware giant Oneida Limited.


Community structure

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.

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.

The Oneida Community was a self-supporting enterprise. Its primary industries were the growing and canning of fruits and vegetables, the production of silk thread, and the manufacture of animal traps. They were the primary supplier of animal traps to the Hudson Bay Company. The manufacturing of silverware, the sole remaining industry, was not begun until 1877, relatively late in the life of the Oneida Community. Secondary industries of the Oneida Community included the manufacture of leather travel bags, the weaving of palm-frond hats, the construction of rustic garden furniture, and tourism.

Complex marriage

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", a 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.


Ascending fellowship

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 website lists thirty-three people as having, at one time or another, joined Kerista at various times during the community's history. 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. In 1991, the community experienced a major split, the founder going on to create The World Academy of Keristan Education. The terms polyfidelity and compersion were coined at the Kerista Commune.

Group Marriage in Fiction

Interest in, and practice of nonmonogamy is well-known in modern science fiction fandom. 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. MiaHM describes a line marriage; the relationship in Stranger is a communal group, much like the Oneida Colony.

Robert A. Heinlein described line families in detail in The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress. Heinlein's characters argue that the line family creates economic continuity and parental stability in an unpredictable, dangerous environment. In Mistress, Manuel's line marriage is said to be over one hundred years old. The family is portrayed as being economically comfortable because the improvements and investments made by previous spouses compounded, rather than being lost between generations. Heinlein also makes a point of telling the reader that this family is racially diverse.

Line marriage is also commonly practiced in Joe Haldeman's 1981 novel, Worlds. Haldeman describes how individual families joined forces, both in bed and on paper, in order to avoid inheritance taxes. Many of these consensual corporations were made up of three-mate marriages called triunes.

Conclusion

Group marriage, while not wildly accepted, is a form of marriage that joins groups of multiple individuals rather than just a couple. Group marriage can provide those involved with sanctuary and financial security. Communually 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. Unfortunetly, reproduction became a problem in many of these groups. The Oneida and Kerista groups each found their own form of birth control to fix this problem and assure the stability of the group. While some research has been done into the history of group marriage, more is needed to fully understand this instution and perhaps with that understanding might come acceptance.

References
ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

  • Ethnographic Atlas Codebook, derived from George P. Murdock’s Ethnographic Atlas.
  • 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. 
  • Without Sin: The Life and Death of the Oneida Community, by Spencer Klaw, 1993, The Penguin Press, ISBN 0-7139-9091-0


Footnotes

  1. ^ , Murdock, 1949, p. 24.
    group marriage or a marital union embracing at once several men and several women.
  2. ^ , Murdock, 1949, p. 24.

External links

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