Women, Family, and Utopia: Communal Experiments of the Shakers, the Oneida Community, and the MormonsWhy would thousands of Americans before the Civil War have joined new religious movements that rejected conventional monogamous marriage in favor of alternative life-styles? The Shakers created a celibate system that gave women full equality with men in religious leadership. The Oneida Perfectionists set up a form of group marriage, or "free love," that radically changed relations between the sexes. And the Mormons eventually introduced a form of polygamy based on Old Testament models. Lawrence Foster provides the most comprehensive analysis yet written of how and why women's roles were restructured in these three groups and the reasons for the initial success and eventual failure of these efforts to introduce alternatives to monogamous marriage. Foster argues that although none of these groups was explicitly "feminist" in its approach, all of them struggled to reshape and revitalize relations between the sexes in their communal experiments. He offers a coherent, overall perspective, making this an important book for all readers interested in American social history, religious studies, sociology, communalism, and women's studies. |
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achieve activities American analysis Ann Lee associated believers Brigham Young Burned-over District celibacy celibate century Church of Jesus commitment complex marriage continued developed Early Utah economic Emma Emma Hale Smith emotional England eventually experiences female feminist followers Foster free love husband ideals Illinois individuals Jacobs James Jesus Christ John Humphrey Noyes Joseph Smith Journal Kimball larger Latter-day Saints leadership Lebanon living male continence Meacham ment Millerites Mormon church Mormon Enigma Mormon History Mormon Polygamy Mormon women Mother Ann movement Nauvoo Newell and Avery nineteenth nineteenth-century Noyes's Ohio Oneida Community Perfectionists period perspectives phenomena plural marriage plural wives polygamy practice Press problems Prophet Putney relations Religion and Sexuality religious and social revelation revivalistic Richards role Salem Salt Lake City sexes Shaker communities Shaker leaders Shaker spiritual Sonia Johnson spiritual manifestations Strang suggested theology tion trance Univ Utah Utopian wife witchcraft woman Woman's Exponent York