Sex and Marriage in Utopian Communities: Nineteenth-Century America [Mass Market Paperback]

Raymond Lee Muncy (Author)

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback
• Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics) (June 1, 1974)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0140218602
• ISBN-13: 978-0140218602
• Product Dimensions: 7 x 5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,132,166 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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5.0 out of 5 stars FASCINATING STUDY OF "RELATIONSHIP" PATTERNS IN UTOPIAN COMMUNITIES, January 20, 2010

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Steven H. Propp (Sacramento, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Sex and Marriage in Utopian Communities: Nineteenth-Century America (Mass Market Paperback)

Raymond Lee Muncy was a professor of history when he wrote this book in 1973. Muncy states that Utopian John Humphrey Noyes' question, "Has any attempt at close association ever succeeded, which took marriage into it substantially as it exists in ordinary society?" challenged him "to examine the literature and records of the major utopian communities of the nineteenth century in America in an effort to determine if communal societies could indeed exist over an extended period while maintaining the nuclear family."

Muncy studies the Shakers, the Rappites, the Fourierites, Zoarites, Jansonists, Oneida, New Harmony, the Mormons, and other groups in fourteen thematically-oriented chapters (e.g., "They Neither Marry Nor are Given in Marriage"; "Celestial Marriage: An Experiment in Polygamy"; "Unusual Sexual Practices, Fact and Rumor"; "Women's Rights in Utopian Communities").

Muncy's focus allows him to unearth facts not often brought out in such surveys; e.g., Shaker founder Ann Lee "scolded her own mother for 'carnal acts of indulgence' in the marriage bed"; George Rapp "believed that Jesus was perfect and did not possess a physical sex organ"; "There had been one brief experiment in polygyny among (Anabaptists) Christians during the sixteenth century"; "Rarely did the Oneida male spend the entire night with a lady, as this might lead to an exclusive attachment, the worst of all Oneida sins."

This specialized book, though older, is still of great interest to those interested in utopian societies, intentional communities, communes, and similar experiments in living.