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(#2) The Community's Views On Women Were Pretty Radical
Noyes was personally aware of the toll repeated pregnancies had on a woman's life - his own wife had had multiple difficult pregnancies and miscarriages before Noyes began Oneida. Thus, by giving woman the choice of having children or not, he advocated relatively radical views about gender in the Victorian era. Women, he felt, did not have to be burdened by pregnancy or doomed to a life of domestic labor.
Women also were allowed to cut their hair and dress in bloomers or pants.
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(#11) Oneida Took Perfectionism To A Whole New Level
The Oneida Community was founded for a specific reason: to help men and women realize their perfection. For Noyes, Oneida was a utopian community that attempted to create an idealized, perfect society based on equality, self-control, and productivity.
Oneida was not alone in its obsession with perfection: many 19th-century movements, including transcendentalism, believed that achieving perfection would help an individual become closer to God.
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(#4) Religion Was Central To The Community
Oneida was first and foremost a religious community. Members initially came there because they were in search of a lifestyle that might perfect their souls and bring them closer to God. Noyes himself had a background in religion and had actually studied theology at Yale.
He believed the Second Coming of Christ had already occurred, and that event had made all men and women free from sin. The communalism at the heart of Oneida was meant to be an imitation of God's love - each individual was to love everyone else equally, just as they felt God did.
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(#5) Members Perfected A Particular Method Of Sex
Noyes believed that sex was not just for procreation; it could also cultivate social intimacy. Since he believed sex wasn't exclusively for procreation, he advocated a method of intercourse that aimed to also be a kind of contraception: continence, also known as withdrawal. Noyes believed that this method would prevent unplanned pregnancies and save women from the burden of unwanted labor. At the same time, this meant male sexual energy was supposed to be directed exclusively towards heterosexual intercourse. In other words, no masturbating.
As author Ellen Wayland-Smith put it, "Comparing the sexual act to a boat in a stream above a waterfall, Noyes argues that, through experience and training, the skillful 'boatman' could learn 'the wisdom of confining his excursions to the region of easy rowing, unless he has an object in view that is worth the cost of going over the falls.'"
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(#3) Sexual Education Was A Hands-On Experience
Since the Oneida community allowed free love, they took the act and art of sex very seriously. As such, younger members were initiated in the act of sex by older members in a kind of mentorship program. Post-menopausal women mentored adolescent males, since there was no question of the woman's getting pregnant while the young men learned control.
Disturbingly, Noyes himself often took up the task of mentoring young women at the age of around 12.
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(#7) They Attempted To Create Perfect Humans Through A Breeding Program
Noyes's requirements for sex sought to free women from the physical and the domestic labor of child-rearing. However, to sustain the community, it was still necessary for some babies to be conceived and born.
So Noyes, ever obsessed with perfection, implemented a kind of breeding program - called "stirpiculture" - to match up potential parents that would create healthy, superior babies.
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When it comes to Oneida, most people associate it with exquisite silverware. But few people know that it was born of a radical religious experiment on free love in the 19th century. The Oneida was a community established by Noyce and his disciples near New York State in the 19th century. Members of the Oneida commune insist that free love is the key to eternal life. They believe that there is heaven on earth, and God's energy can be obtained through prayer, communication, and even sex.
The Oneida can be said the most successful commune in American history. More than 200 members live like a big family, they can share works, property, and even their lovers. The random tool introduced 13 facts about life in Oneida.
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