Wikipedia: Oneida Community

In theory, every male was married to every female. Status at Oneida was based on people’s spirituality. 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. Likewise, older men often introduced young women to sex. 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.

(via claytoncubitt)

Notes

  1. pegobry reblogged this from claytoncubitt
  2. dharmabumgirl reblogged this from bibliosaurus and added:
    Interesting, considering I grew up about 20 minutes from Oneida. The things we DIDN’T learn about CNY history…
  3. bibliosaurus reblogged this from poobah and added:
    not only did i do a report on...my amerian history class, there
  4. poobah reblogged this from claytoncubitt and added:
    ••••• Always found this society fascinating. It started in about 1850 in Oneida NY and lasted for 30 years. Get more...
  5. lammer reblogged this from claytoncubitt
  6. claytoncubitt posted this