ABSTRACT
In 1870, John Humphrey Noyes wrote a comprehensive book, History of American Socialism, the first history of the communes in the United States. The author stated affirmatively that one of the most important factors that contributed to the commune’s stability and to its longevity was the abolishment of the monogamous family and the subordination of the relationships between the sexes to communal principles. He reinforced his argument by naming a number of long-living communes which had practiced celibacy and by relating the case of Oneida, where the “complex marriage” had substituted the monogamous system. Noyes claimed that any communal experiment that maintained the family unit was doomed because of the inherent dichotomy that divides these social nuclei: “The highest ideal of a successful community requires that it should be a complete nursery of human beings, doing for them all that the old family-home has done, and a great deal more.” 1
