Free Love Quotes
Notes was the founder of the Utopian Community of Oneida, New York. It was based on a concept of work distribution with an almost communal style of raising children and everyday living. In such a circumstance, the role of the married couple was far more complex that in the typical single family structure which permeated society at the time for the middle and upper classes while the poor had almost no structure that could be maintained. Monogamy rules were discouraged and some critics described the situation as free love. Notes, politically wisely, preferred the term "complex marriage" which did not have all the pejorative baggage that "free love" did. Oneida evolved to a more conventional social structure over time, and the community members developed skills like silver smithing that allowed them to be quite successful economically, and "Oneide Silver" was prized into the 21st century.
This idea which would become seriously considered in the 1960s, was a totally radical one at the beginning of the 19th century. With people living so much longer, the idea is no longer radical but has become another polarizing issue in the political culture wars. See {627925} where Shelley goes even further.
She herself was an advocate for monogamy, but was opposed to the state or society interfering with anyone who chose differently. There was no position she advocated that was opposed and ridiculed more than this one. And her tying the Constitution to sexual freedom was itself considered not only whacky, but obscene and an insult to the Constitution and nation itself. The advocacy of the right of interracial marriage was as shocking as anything could be in those days. What would have surprised all those who derided her the most was that her sexual demands in toto became the law of the land and today, any government action to the contrary would shock and alarm most Americans.
