"In this rich, thoughtful and provocative volume, Lawrence Foster draws from and builds on earlier research in 19th-century religious communitarian history to produce a compelling and timely book which will become a must read for scholars of women, family and sex roles in America."—Regina Morantz-Sanchez, author of Sympathy and Science: Women Physicians and American Medicine
"A watershed book, especially in communitarian studies, by providing new directions for exploring the complex relationship between alternative community organization, sexual gender roles, and the surrounding culture."—J. Gordon Melton, author of The Encyclopedia of American Religions
Description
Why 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.
Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION
1. Religion, Sexuality, and Women's Roles: Alternative Family and Sexual Systems in Nineteenth-Century America
THE SHAKERS
2. Celibacy and Feminism: The Shakers and Equality for Women
3. Shaker Spiritualism and Salem Witchcraft: Social Perspectives on Trance and Possession Phenomena
4. Had Prophecy Failed?: Contrasting Views of the Millerites and Shakers
THE ONEIDA COMMUNITY
5. The Psychology of Free Love: Sexuality in the Oneida Community
6. Free Love and Feminism: John Humphrey Noyes and the Oneida Community
7. The Rise and Fall of Utopia: The Oneida Community Crises of 1852 and 1879
THE MORMONS
8. Between Two Worlds: Plural Marriage and the Experiences of Mormon Women in Illinois During the Early 1840s
9. James J. Strang: The Prophet Who Failed
10. Polygamy and the Frontier: Mormon Women in Early Utah
11. From Activism to Domesticity: The Changing Role of Mormon Women in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries
CONCLUSION
12. A "Permanent Revolution"?: Reflections on the Prospects for Radical Social Change
About the Author
Lawrence Foster is Associate Professor of American History at Georgia Tech in Atlanta. His earlier book, Religion and Sexuality, won a Mormon History Association "best book" award, and his articles have appeared in numerous publications.
January 1992