Oneida Utopian Community

Oneida Utopian Community The Oneida Community can be considered one of the most successful utopian societies that there has ever been. “The Oneida Community, in many ways the most radical social and sexual experiment in American history, was founded in central New York by John Humphrey Noyes and a small band of Christian perfectionists in March 1848” (Olin, 285). The community eventually came to an end around 1879 and although somewhat short-lived, this utopian community presented many ideas that had never been considered much in times previous to it’s coming. It stood for togetherness, perfectionism and communalism. They structured their community around ideas known as mutual criticism, complex marriage, and contraception. It was these characteristics
as well as their morals and rituals that soon brought the community to an end. “John Humphrey Noyes… was a graduate of Yale Theological Seminary… where he had been preaching” (Kephart, 261). He was an educated man who was brought up well by his family. His family had a strongly political background so growing up he learned much through his family. He had a change of heart during the Second Great Awakening, however, as did many other American’s at the time. He began to focus much more on religious views and abandoned a majority of his political side. After preaching for sometime and learning the ways of the church, he developed new concepts that would eventually lead the beginning of the Oneida Community. Noyes thought that the second coming had already happened and that there was another final coming soon approaching. He thought that his followers and himself needed to free themselves from sin and live perfectly on earth. (Foster & Noyes, xix). He focused on this perfectionist world and the idea that spiritually perfection will eventually be attained and since the second coming had already occurred, perfection would soon follow. He believed in Bible communism, as well, which was the idea that God wanted all people to love and share everything equally (Kephart, 261). The concept of sharing became one of the keystones while forming and keeping the Oneida Community together. Everything was based off of communism with a few other ideals that he came to present. Noyes’ charismatic way of presenting himself and his ability to get others to mutually agree on certain things, brought him to power and in control of the new Oneida Community that he then started.
He began the community but very few people got involved. The original location of the community did not help them gain followers and this resulted in a move to Oneida, New York, where they built a mansion and found themselves in a community now with several hundred members (Kephart, 261). The community grew rapidly and more people began to hear about what the community stood for and became intrigued as it was nothing they had ever heard before. The Oneida community really put an emphasis on togetherness and it was something that held the community together for so long. Upon wanting that sense of family, the house that they built was designed to hold the entirety of the community. The house was spacious enough for every member to have their own room but was also designed to have a community feel to it. There were multiple areas to the house where time could be spent together such as the dining and living rooms (Kephart 262). All the members desired to be with each other and made the most of the time spent in the house. Noyes emphasized many strict rules while in the community mansion including small portions of meet and the forbidding of any type of alcohol (Kephart, 263). Although the members were pleased, the rules they had to follow and the way they had to obey Noyes made it
hard at times Along with a sense of togetherness, the Oneida community had other ideals that were necessary to uphold in order to please their leader, one of those ideals being specific sexual acts.
“…Noyes argued, that among fully faithful Christians, selfish, exclusive marital ties would be replaced by a “complex marriage” in which all adult believers could love each other fully and have the possibility of heterosexual relations with each other” (Foster & Noyes, xx). This, overall, emphasized the idea of togetherness once again since there would be no one on one relationships among the members. Nobody was bound to anyone else and they were able to freely intermingle and do as they pleased with any of the members. “Complex marriage was based on religious assumptions that all saints were dedicated to Christianity” (Olin, 291). Religious assumptions were another concept that bound the community. Since all the saints were dedicated to Christianity, then it was only right that they were all dedicated to each other and not just a single person among the group. They thought that communism in a sexual relationship was as important as communism in economic circumstances (Olin, 291). Upon sharing everything in this Bible Communism based society, it only made sense to them that they should share intimate exchanges with any and all members of the
community. “Since relationships in this community were polygamist, men were responsible for withholding ejaculation which would distinguish procreative intercourse” (Olin, 292). Procreation was not necessarily wanted and by withholding ejaculation, they were able to come to a conclusion on which individuals were trying to conceive and not upholding the ideas that the community stood for.