Gender Roles of a Perfect Society: the Oneida Community
Utopian communities are societies that strive for perfection in different aspects. Some wanted to reform a certain issue, such as slavery and others wanted to achieve perfection in all aspects. These societies usually had few laws because they tried to diminish all evils from them. Oneida was one of the communities that thought their society was best for human kind. They saw men and women as equals and everyone was married to each other. The utopian community of Oneida had a system that saw women and men as equals but oppressed both. Oneida was founded in New York by John Humphrey Noyes in 1848. Oneida was mostly involved in the growing of fruits and vegetables, the production of silk thread, and the manufacturing of animal traps. Oneida’s people believed that they were free from sin because Jesus had already returned. Noyes believed that sex was very spiritual. Oneida believed in “complex marriage” – the practice of keeping sexual encounters in constant circulation throughout the week. Romantic relationships were forbidden. . Oneida began using selective breeding to produce the perfect offspring. Men and women would be matched based on their spiritual and moral qualities. Gender roles were less explicit at the Oneida community because women were seen as equals. Even though it sometimes bent to the American ideologies that were present during the nineteenth century, Oneida was generally more feminist than the rest of the dominant America. Women were always seen as equals to men, unlike the traditional American ideas of the nineteenth century. The common ideologies about women were defied in the society. In the Circular, it states that, “[Noyes] evolved a theory that women were ‘the legitimate critics of men in social life.’ In the ‘slave-holding position of marriage’ men refused to look on women as equals, but in the dispensation of the Community, women were set free to express their own tastes and feelings and their criticism was the proper looking-glass for a
Bibliography: The Circular. 1848-1881. This secondary source was very helpful. It shared the public opinions of the Oneida community. Erasmus, Charles J. In Search of The Common Good. New York: Macmillan Publishing Co, 1977. This secondary source had information about utopian communities in general. It was helpful for my introductory paragraph. Griffin, A.B. "Women 's Rights and Men 's Wrongs." American Socialist, 1878: 386. This primary source had a lot of information about gender roles in Oneida. This was helpful because it was written by someone who lived in the Oneida community. In The Strike of a Sex: A Novel, by George Noyes Miller, 50-56. London, 1891. This primary document had a lot of information about gender roles in Oneida. It was good to have information from the "inside." Noyes, Corinna Ackley. Document 15: The Days of My Youth. Syracuse University Library Oneida Collection This primary document told me about what is was like for an Oneida mother to give up her child to the community. Robertson, Constance Noyes. Oneida Community: An Autobiography, 1851-1876. Syracuse University Press, 1970. This primary source is a whole book about Oneida. It explained gender roles of the society and showed that Oneida was a mostly feminist society. Robertson, Constance Noyes. Oneida Communtity: The Breakup, 1876-1881. Syracruse Unviersity Press, 1972. This primary source didn’t help much. I found a few things that helped but not much.