![]() Mutual criticism Įvery member of the community was subject to criticism by a committee or the community as a whole during a general meeting. Contained within the archives was the journal of Tirzah Miller, Noyes' niece, who wrote extensively about her romantic and sexual relations with other members of Oneida. In 1993, the community archives were made available to scholars for the first time. Noyes often used his judgment in determining the partnerships that would form, and he would often encourage relationships between the non-devout and the devout in the community in the hope that the attitudes and behaviors of the devout would influence the attitudes of the non-devout. Likewise, older men often introduced young women to sex. Furthermore, these women became religious role models for the young men. Women over 40 were to act as sexual "mentors" to adolescent boys because these relationships had a minimal chance of conceiving. Noyes argued that this practice not only kept them from producing unwanted children but also taught the male considerable self-control. The difference was what Noyes called "male continence", in which the male partner avoided ejaculation. Propagative love was sex for the purpose of having children amative love was sex for the purpose of expressing love. They developed a distinction between amative and propagative love. But sex meant children not only could the community not afford children in the early years, the women were not enthusiastic about a regime that would have kept them pregnant most of the time. The basis for complex marriage was the Pauline passage about there being no marriage in heaven meant that there should be no marriage on earth, but that no marriage did not mean no sex. All men and women were expected to have sexual relations and did. Noyes developed a distinction between amative and propagative love.Ĭomplex marriage meant that everyone in the community was married to everyone else. Possessiveness and exclusive relationships were frowned upon. The Oneida community strongly believed in a system of free love – a term which Noyes is credited with coining – which was known as complex marriage, where any member was free to have sex with any other who consented. Silverware manufacturing began in 1877, relatively late in the community's life, and still exists. Secondary industries included manufacturing leather travel bags, weaving palm frond hats, construction of rustic garden furniture, game traps, and tourism. They were a major employer in the area, with approximately 200 employees by 1870. As Oneida thrived, it also began to hire outsiders to work in these positions. Although more skilled jobs tended to remain with an individual member (the financial manager, for example, held his post throughout the life of the community), community members rotated through the more unskilled jobs, working in the house, the fields, or the various industries. ![]() Women tended to do many of the domestic duties. Īll community members were expected to work, each according to their abilities. Structure John Humphrey Noyes (1811–1886) led the communityĮven though the community only reached a maximum population of about 300, it had a complex bureaucracy of 27 standing committees and 48 administrative sections. This eventually became the silverware company Oneida Limited, one of the largest in the world. The Oneida Community dissolved in 1881, converting itself to a joint-stock company. The branches were closed in 1854 except for the Wallingford branch, which operated until the 1878 tornado devastated it. There were smaller Noyesian communities in Wallingford, Connecticut Newark, New Jersey Putney and Cambridge, Vermont. The community's original 87 members grew to 172 by February 1850, 208 by 1852, and 306 by 1878. ![]() The Oneida Community practiced communalism (in the sense of communal property and possessions), group marriage, male sexual continence, Oneida stirpiculture (a form of eugenics), and mutual criticism. The community believed that Jesus had already returned in AD 70, making it possible for them to bring about Jesus's millennial kingdom themselves, and be perfect and free of sin in this world, not just in Heaven (a belief called perfectionism). The Oneida Community was a perfectionist religious communal society founded by John Humphrey Noyes and his followers in 1848 near Oneida, New York. ![]()
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