Oneida Community: Did Biblical Movements Affect Group's Gender Behaviors?

Oneida Community started in the 1840s, an intentional community that consisted of men and women who were there to glorify their God through their lifestyle. Bible communism and perfectionism were the main tenets of this intentional community.

The society, based out of the reform period and also specifically the burnt over district was primarily the result of John Noyes's leadership. Fogarty (1994) summarized excellently the issues that they addressed: family planning, child care, women's rights, adult education, job diversification, and the problem of maintaining the communal family that had replace the nuclear family (p. 4). The community contended that they addressed the inequities that women had faced in the United States in the 19th century regarding their gender and sexual roles. Social scientists who take the position of admiration, unfavorable, or neither don't agree with each other if women's conditions were improved. Since the beginnings of Oneida, the practices of liberating women from suppressive gender and sexual expectations were progressive, considering the mixed evaluations of true achievement.

In the area of reform, the perfectionism movement started to arise in the United States, approximately in the decade of 1820s. Theodore Parker, critic of the perfectionist movement and distinguished clergyman said it was their aim to:

"create a society full of industry and abundance, full of wisdom, virtue, and the poetry of life; a state with unity among all, with freedom for each; a church without tyranny, a society without ignorance, want, or crime, a state without oppression; yes, a world with no war among the nations to consume the work of their hands, and no restrictive policy to hinder the welfare of mankind."

Historians further contend that he also noted that they created havoc by their means of creating this perfect society (Blum, McFeely, Morgan, Schelsinger, Stampp, & Woodward, 1993, p. 259).

The Burnt Over District was known for the religious movements that were rising in NY and other parts of the US. The fire was from the period of the Great Awakening that came from such examples as Mormonism, Shakers, Seventh Day Adventists, and Perfectionists, who challenged the traditional Calvinism ways, set out by the Puritans (Hillerbran, 2004). Perfectionists traveled the countryside of CNY, visiting Madison, Oneida, and Onondaga counties (i.e. Oneida county: Augusta, Verona, and Lairdsville). Famous meetings occurred in Lairdsville and Genoa NY which made the prospective relocation in Oneida official since the violent backlash in NYC and Vermont (Noyes Robertson, 1977).

John H. Noyes , founder of the Oneida community, came from a Puritan lineage from Vermont, had transfigured his heart at a revival gathering in 1831, and found his path in perfectionism. After losing his license to preach, and accused of heresy because of his different viewpoints of religion, he proceeded to carry on his efforts in regenerating a fallen society. Fogarty writes in 1994 that he "struggled to find a balance between self and society, between the demands of faith and reason, of theology and prophecy, of the head and the heart�" (p. 5). He received harsh criticism when he wrote and spoke on socialism, non traditional values of marriage (complex marriage), and gender roles. He questioned whether women were only alive for the sole purpose of reproduction, when it was so taxing on their health, and ultimately could take their lives; this also extended to children (his wife labored several stillborn children). It led him investigating birth control methods, finally settling on male continence. He made a statement in 1846 that "the new commandment is that we love one another, not by pairs, but en masse" (p. 7), which revealed the future of complex marriage. The community based in Putney, Vermont was eventually dispersed by angry mobs, which Noyes left early when he heard word (Noyes Robertson, 1978).

Bible communism in the Oneida community reflected in their communitarian development was a mutually agreed social, economic, spiritual contract with each other. John Noyes had founded the community circa 1848 (see figure 2). Noyes Robertson (1978) had reprinted the Theocratic Platform as printed in The Circular c 29 August 1852:

Sovereignty of Jesus Christ, dating from his Resurrection and manifested at his Second Coming.
Union with Christ and the Primitive Church, by faith and love
Unity of All Believers, in this world and in Hades, with one kingdom in the Heavens.
Resurrection of the Spirit, resulting in salvation from sin and selfish habits.
Resurrection of the Body, preventing or overcoming disease, renewing youth, and resulting in the abolition of death, and the loosing of the captives in Hades.
Community of Property, of all kinds, with inspiration for distribution.
Abandonment of the Entire Fashion of the World- especially marriage, and involuntary propagation.
Cultivation of Free Love. Dwelling together in Association or Complex families.
Home Churches and Home Schools.
Meetings Every evening.
Lord's Supper at every Meal.
Cultivation of Free Criticism.
Horticulture, the leading business for subsistence.
A Daily Paper as the gathering point for all separate Associations. (pp. 277 - 278).

Blum, McFeely, Morgan, Schelsinger, Stampp, & Woodward 1993), wrote "it's height it grew to 200 members, established a model educational system, and prospered economically, operating a large farm and several manufacturing enterprises" (p. 271). In their press, they had said:

Communism has moved in a parallel course in the heavenly world, and if, as all history shows, superior races and civilizations supplant those which are inferior, the time must come when this perfected social state will begin to extend reproduce itself in this world, and raise our invisible human society to its own standard (The Circular, 1865, p. ).

The Circular Press (1853), in their popular usage of a colloquial usage of question and answer, Mr. Freechurch responded in the question of labor practices, that the current labor force were constantly worried about making a living. They would work hours on end, without concern for inspiration. They argued for the course of free labor, where work is organized through rotation and work bees, opted for its members to find what work they were best suited for in the community. This included men and women. The divided workload created space for their inspirations. Hard work was inviting when people work together and get the job done, when they take the first step together (p. 13). Women wore shorter dresses with pantalettes in order to accommodate to the working conditions (see figure 3). Again, with the colloquial manner of the mock community member (X) and visitor, it was written:

Visitor " I see that the costume of women here is well-adapted to freedom of movement. I suppose the short dress is worn by them from choice.

X - Yes I believe it originated here. At least it has been the fashion of the community from the beginning (The Circular, 1865)

Kephart (1963) stated that the attire was distinguishable from 19th century American women. Along with knee length dresses with loose trousers, they had bobbed hair, since 1848.
Property was also divided among its community members. When a person enters the community, they are given a deed and give all their property to the community. Mr. Freechurch also argues that there is no biblical right to individual property. People can use community property when God's will inspires them. The community makes a contract with God, with all the property that is provided to them. Access to property is for all in the community. This eliminates waste and none should go without (pp 10- 12).
As for marital property, in mainstream society, the man takes property of his wife when he is married to her. This was not the case in the Oneida Community. The Circular (1853) stated this was the argument:

In the Kingdom of Heaven, the institution of marriage which assigns the exclusive possession of one woman to man does not exist [Mathew 22:23-30] for in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage but are as the Angels of God in Heaven.

When joining the community, Mr. Freechurch advises that "joining us is like a marriage" (p. 17) and one should assess in their premarital stage, if it would mutually be beneficial for them and their community. In The Circular (1853) said that "a community-home in which each is married to all, and where love is honored and cultivated, will be as much more attractive than an ordinary home, even in the honey-moon, as the Community out-numbers a pair" (p. 57). Men, women, and children were relieved from a single unit family stress of when they totally relied on the male figure head for their sustainability.
The adjustment to marriage life was easy compared to the several drawbacks of arranged marriages, due to the many people involved in coordination. Kephart (1963) interviews an Oneida community survivor, and had asked if jealousy was a prevalent issue in the community. The interviewee replied:

I don't think it was much of a problem. Certainly the old folks, when they talked about the Community, never made an issue of it. Their religious teachings emphasized spiritual equality, and their whole way of jealousy. Also, with so many women to choose from, why would a man experience feelings of jealousy? Once in a while a man and woman would be suspected of falling in love --- "special love" they called it " but it happened infrequently. When it did, the couple was separated. One would be sent Wallingford, Connecticut " we had a small Community branch there for a while (p. 266).

A famous example of special love was reported by Foggarty (1994) when he painstakingly combed over a male Oneida community member journal, which had left the community with the woman he loved. He was denied to have sex or try to conceive with her.
Schweiter (2000) says that the society wouldn't last without everyone alleging to the community before their own kin and anything else tangible. Without cooperation in this manner, there would have been more conflicts of interest, the heart of communism disseverment. This is the nature of socialism, and this is how the Oneida community collaborated to ensure mutual aid and everyone doing their fair share to obtain their fair share. Children were actually housed in separate quarters after nursing, but all had access to them. It would idolatry to favor your own kin, however. The children's house was filled with children ages one through fifteen and were raised by a rotating system of mothers, and then reenter into the house of adults between twelve and fifteen. The entrance and exit of the children depended on their level of development. It was said:

It suits the mothers, because it gives them opportunity to turn at proper times from baby tending to purposes of culture and more general usefulness. It is good for the children because it secure to them wholesome care and judicious treatment without sickly overfondness. It pleases the community, because it cultivates a general interest in all the children and so the family feeling on the broadest scale [sic] (The Circular, 1865, p. 13).

Socialism was alarming to some 19th century Americans, however not for the same reasons that were present in the Cold War period. According to Cochran (2004) and the London Municipal Society (1908) the fear was rightly placed that women were going to arise as distinct individuals, standing next to men. Later, the loss of individualism was argued against socialism in the Cold War. One dissenter's commentary in the NY Post in 1855 has said:

The championship of Socialism, or of universal Libertinism and Adultery, which is but another name for the same thing " is carried forward under various disguises and by many different agencies; but they all aim at the same thing, -- the destruction of the Marriage Relation as it is created and recognized by Christianity and by law, and the substitution for it of a system which will permit every man and every women to consult solely their own inclinations in the relations they shall form and maintain (Cochran Higgins, 2004).

In their research, Blum, McFeely, Morgan, Schelsinger, Stampp, & Woodward (1993) had found even in the time of reform, mainstream American women were seen as submissive and subservient to men. Their lives were limited to the domestic sphere, which meant no development in school, workforce, political, or religious endeavors. The rationale was they were expected to have limited opportunity for intellectual and leadership growth. They were expected to have sex only as the duty of being a wife, and not for sensual purposes. However they point out the double standard of men, all though it was still considered taboo, could get away with promiscuous behavior. The Circular made an excellent argument c 18 April 1870:

Nature and justice alike cry out against the wrong done to society and to woman, but imposing upon her weakness a task which man with all the advantages of superior strength and superior position shrinks from assuming. The world is certainly upside down on this point. Licentiousness is gigantic foe, carrying havoc through the length and breath of the land. Society places woman, the weaker member, in the front of the army and requires her to fight the battle, at her own cost and for both sexes. She has the enemy in front and all sides and ruin stress her in the face if she yields and inch. Man on the contrary. Free and easy, has little responsibility, and fears no social degradation if he secretly or even openly goes over to the enemy. What but defeat and ruin, widespread and hopeless, can come from such an unequal fight? What but just the state that actually exists in society? Women fall by thousand and tens of thousands into social ruin, disease breaks up the camp, and dismay at the enormity of the social evil seizes the stoutest hear.

But let the responsibility be shifted Let man assume that chastity is preeminently a masculine virtue, that his honor and courage are both at stake in this matter (Noyes Robertson, pp. 283- 284)

In The Circular, c 14 April 1859, Charles Noyes had said in comparison the Oneida community "women were to be free, free from the possessiveness of men; from compulsory sex; free from compulsory child-bearing" (DeMaria, 1978). He later had reflected in the American Socialist c. 20 Feb 1879 on women's oppression in mainstream America:

A woman in the world of this day had no more freedom than would a slave; the prisoner of marriage which was often loveless, she was expected to submit to the sexual demands of her husband regardless of personal feelings or moods. She was condemned to life of household drudgery, with no opportunity to develop her talents and vocations. Although her health was often destroyed by repeated childbearing, she was never given the right to refuse this task (DeMaria, 1978, p.158-159).

Cochran Higgins (2004) that John Locke has set a precedent for the American family to follow. Women were supposed to tame the wild impulses of men, keeping the foundation of morality in the family. She also instilled domestic values into the females in the family. It was more important in a woman to be virtuous and stand back, than move forward with independent, freethinking thought. One reflection from the Atlantic Monthly that:

"The truth is that the unit of society is not the individual, but the family". Since the family was considered both the cornerstone of society and the natural domain of women, it made sense that women were ultimately responsible for maintaining the social structure.

Oneida community women were affirmed to have more rights and options than mainstream women in the United States. They were open to a lot of civic duties, and were expected to develop their capabilities to sustain the community. However women were to look on to men as their inspirers, which made sense because the person who had the final say in the Oneida Community was male, and so was his heir (DeMaria, 1975). Blum, McFeely, Morgan, Schelsinger, Stampp, & Woodward (1993) stated that it was considered �â'¬Å"promiscuous�â'¬ï¿½ of women to mingle with men in mainstream America. It was written, in a colloquial manner as a community member addressing a visitor, that:

We believe that women should be secure in their rights of their own persons. We believe that the age of scientific propagation is coming for men as well as for animals; and we believe that a true union of the sexes, such as God created them for, is a power that will finally pull Satan's kingdom down�â'¬ï¿½ (The Circular, 1865).

Women and men were joined together in all social gatherings in this community. They watched meticulously over their own actions to assure sexual integration, and correct their faults. This stayed true to Noyes's wishes (DeMaria, 1978).
Circular Press, c 26 May 1859, one of the Oneida community's press names, had asserted that women were encouraged to develop their industrial skills among their male colleagues in the Oneida Community. They gave account that gender integration was achieved in the community's industries. In the same press, c 14 Jan 1867, it reported women exceeded expectations and were comparable to their male counterparts in talent and physical stamina, accomplishing much in the goals in their community. DeMaria (1978) also notes that women were editors of this press. The Circular, c. 8 Oct 1853, reprinted by Noyes Robertson (1970), said this:

We find inspiration working particularly nowadays, in reference to business. At the same time, we feel roused to new earnestness to favor the mingling of sexes in labor. We find that the spirit of the world is deadly opposed to this innovation, and would make it very easy to slop back into the old routine of separate employments for men and women. But the leaven of heavenly principles about labor, resists, from time to time, this backward tendency, and brings forth a new endorsement of the truths contained in the Bible argument on this subject. We believe health; social equilibriums is contain in the proposition, �â'¬Å"loving companionship and labor, and especially the mingling of the sexes, makes labor attractive" (p. 58).

As for the sexual practices, it was not representative of the marriage establishment in America in the nineteenth century. The complex marriage system allowed for men and women to engage in sexual relations from a large pool in that community, anyone else it that did not't adhere to their social theory if they pursued sex with would be considered adultery. Noyes wanted to distinguish the differences of sexual act for amative and propagative purposes. To have sex for expression of love was acceptable. He said "amativeness is distinct from reproduction and that it is the glory of man as above the brute to observe this distinction" (The Circular, 1866, p. 10).
The social institution of free love was a misnomer. Being apart of the Oneida Community meant you have to get approval first to express your sexuality. However, if the formality of requesting sexual access to someone else already happened, the formality was usually bypassed. Sharing bedrooms with the opposite sex was forbidden. Also vulgar imprudent behavior was abhorred. Male continence, or coitus reservatus, must be adhered to unless you get permission to reproduce. The only exception to the rule was when the female partner was post menopausal. Because of the nature of increased access to sexual activity, birth control was vital to the success of the community. To ensure the technique, younger males were paired up with the older females. Females were selected to fulfill a eugenics plan to ensure the purity of the patrilineal blood lines (Noyes made stirpiculture stronger years later). Out of over two hundred adults, only fifty-three children were born. This effectiveness was remarkable considering birth control to be primitive (Gordon, 2002, Hillerbran, 2004, & Schweiter 2000). It was said in the Circular, c 21 March 1870, that:

It was the theory of equal rights of women and men, and the freedom of both from habitual and legal obligations to personal fellowship. It is the theory of that love after marriage and always and forever, should be what it is before marriage --- a glowing attraction on both sides, and not the odious obligation of party and the sensual recklessness of the other.

Later in the article it said:

So far as the matter is concerned, Free Love, in the Oneida sense of the term, is much less free, in the gross, sensual way, than marriage (p. 283).
Verheyen (2003), through collaboration of the Syracuse special collection, reprinted The Circular (1866). Noyes had made three points of sexual reservatus:

It does not seek to prevent the congress of the sexes, but rather gives them more freedom by removing danger of undesired consequences.
It does not seek to prevent the natural effects of the propagative act, but to prevent the propagative act itself, except when it is intended to be effectual.
Of course it does not seek to destroy the living results of the propagative act, but provides that impregnation and child-bearing shall be voluntary, and of course desired" (The Circular Magazine, 1866) courtesy of Syracuse University Library Special Collection .

This granted women to express their sexuality, without worry of pregnancy for each act. This broke the standards in 19th century American society, which every sexual act had to be an act of reproduction. Women were allowed to enjoy sex. However, women were not in control over their bodies for their reproduction needs. That responsibility relied on the men. Nevertheless, it was rare thing at that time for men to take into consideration the needs of the women when they were engaging in sexual acts with them. In The Circular, c February 6, 1865, stated that:

Marriage makes the man responsible for the consequences of his acts of love to a woman. In whoredom a man imposes on a woman heavy burdens [sic] of maternity, ruining perhaps her reputation and her health, and then goes his way without responsibility (Noyes Robertson, p. 282).

Also, a male was making the decision whether or not they can experience motherhood. Women had no control over the ultimate decision of Noyes whether or not they could be parents. They also had little choice on how they were going to raise their children. Motherhood was only purposeful to ensure the stirpiculture. This is the nature of a man being a leader of a communist pact ensuring his bloodlines (Gordan, 2002).
To further explore if there were more choices or just a different choice at the Oneida community, the following could be considered: they could not choose monogamous relationships. Secondly, the males usually initiated the sexual activity, however the women can complain if their sexual needs were not't satisfied during their interaction. On the other hand, if women did not't comply, they could also be mutually criticized. Mutual criticism was constantly used as a tactic to reinforce moral and spiritual fibers for individuals to remain intact for the purposes of the community at large. This left little room if one could not't just perform well for whatever reason, however accounted each individual for his or her actions. Women were allowed to speak freely of their consciences to mutually criticize men, as well as themselves, just as the men could (Gordon, 2002 & Noyes Robertson, 1978).
The study of the Oneida Community remains paramount to sociological, anthropological, and political studies. Their ability to remain cohesive for thirty years holds true to when people come together, they can bring about powerful change. Even though the Oneida community experiment may not be the benchmark for all communal living, there are powerful lessons that can be learned from their example. The excessive criticism brought on the community proves that people were concerned that it was too successful, and therefore was dangerous to their platforms. John Noyes knew that on a large scale basis all of society would not conform to the small community's principles. Nevertheless, the intent was to catalyze the rest of the world to reconsider their actions to continually degrade the relations between the sexes. The Yankee Experiment dissertation claims that one could not simply build a community such as John Noyes has done, without careful leadership and experience (Foster, 1981).
In respect to the improvements of women's condition, one must decide if one is liberated because of more choices, whether the community or individuals have the freedom. If one decided if liberation meant within the set of rules defined by a community, people have the same opportunity to excel in these guidelines, for an ethical purpose of sustaining themselves, may produce a different picture. The Oneida community was supported by both liberal and conservative politics in the burned over district (Foster, 1981). True consideration for all individuals, no matter how it was done, was definitely progressive in that time. If a definition of liberation gave women the chance to lead meaningful, sustainable, efficacy supportive lives, even with strict guidelines, the Oneida Community has done well in a historical context of 19th century America.

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