Contribution short abstract:

This paper explores the deeply intertwined relation between diverse forms of kinship and marriage, on the one hand, and relations of property and economy, on the other, with a focus on three nineteenth-century utopian societies in the United States--the Shakers, the Oneida, and the Mormons.

Contribution long abstract:

Nineteenth-century evolutionary narratives trace a temporal trajectory in the development of social relations from group to individual (e.g., Maine) and from broad group relations of kinship, marriage, and property to monogamy and narrowed relations of descent and property, and inheritance (e.g., Morgan). Civilized society was thereby envisioned to entail the narrowing of the boundaries of what was to be considered the commons of kinship and familial economic relations. More or less at the same time these narratives were being crafted, numerous utopian societies flourished in the United States that questioned the primacy of individualism, monogamy, and private property. They rejected the restrictions of monogamy and broadened the common ground of gender relations either by placing them outside of marriage (e.g., celibacy) or by placing them within wider forms of marriage (e.g., group marriage, polygamy). Intimately related to this, they called for various forms of communal childcare, property, and economic relations. In this paper, I will examine three prominent nineteenth-century utopian societies in the US—the Shakers, the Oneida, and the Mormons—to consider how they articulated different visions for the commons of kinship, marriage, property, and economic relations—and how their realization of these different visions fared historically. In the end, I suggest that kinship studies and economic anthropology have much to gain from finding common ground in exploring the deeply intertwined relationship between matters having to do with kinship, marriage, property, and economy in contrasting visions of what of constitutes a fully developed and flourishing social life.