- Source: Group marriage
Group marriage or conjoint marriage is a marital arrangement where three or more adults enter into sexual, affective, romantic, or otherwise intimate short- or long-term partnerships, and share in any combination of finances, residences, care or kin work. Group marriage is considered a form of polygamy. While academic usage has traditionally treated group marriage as a marital arrangement, more recent usage has expanded the concept to allow for the inclusion of non-conjugal unions. Colloquial usage of group marriage has also been associated with polyamory and polyamorous families.
Classification
Depending on the sexual orientations of the individuals involved, all adults in the group marriage may be sexual partners of all others with whom they are compatible. For instance, if all members are heterosexual, all the women may have sexual relationships with all the men. If members are bisexual or pansexual, they may have evolved sexual relationships with either sex.
Group marriage implies a strong commitment to be "faithful" by having sex only within the group and intending to remain together for an extended period. The group may be open to taking on new partners, but only if all members of the family agree to accept the new person as a partner. The new person then moves into the household and becomes an equal member of the family.
The most common form of group marriage appears to be a triad of two women and one man, or less often two men and one woman.
Legal aspects
In most countries, it is not illegal for three or more people to form and share a sexual relationship (subject sometimes to laws against homosexuality), though such relational forms risk running afoul of state or local ordinances banning unmarried cohabitation. No Western country permits statutory marriage between more than two people. Nor do they give strong and equal legal protection (e.g., of rights relating to children) to non-married partners — the legal regime is not comparable to that applied to married couples. Individuals involved in polyamorous relationships are considered by the law to be no different from people who live together or date under other circumstances.
Non-European cultures
Polygyny is most common in a region known as the "polygamy belt" in West Africa and Central Africa, with the countries estimated to have the highest polygamy prevalence in the world being Burkina Faso, Mali, Gambia, Niger and Nigeria.
Among the Ancient Hawaiians, the relationship of punalua involved "the fact that two or more brothers with their wives, or two or more sisters with their husbands, were inclined to possess each other in common". Friedrich Ratzel in The History of Mankind reported in 1896 that in Hawaii a kind of incipient polyandry arose by the addition to the marriage establishment of a cicisbeo, known as Punalua.
In some parts of Melanesia, there are "sexual relations between a group of men formed by the husband's brothers and a group of women formed by the wife's sisters".
Women of the Nair community, a caste in Kerala, India, used to practice polyandry.
Toda people, who live on the isolated Nilgiri plateau of Southern India practiced adelphic polyandry for centuries, but no longer do so. Adelphic polyandry occurs when brothers share the same wife or wives. Such arrangements have been common in Himalayan tribes until recently.
In Sri Lanka, Sinhalese people practiced adelphic polyandry in the past, but no longer it is common to do so. The main motive behind this is to protect the wealth undivided. If there were seven or fewer brothers in a family, younger brothers get access to the eldest brother's wife. For families with more than seven brothers, the eighth brother will marry a new bride. Younger brothers get access to the eighth brother's wife, but not the elder brothers.
Couple-to-couple marriages were made between the Alaskan Yup'ik until the early twentieth century when Christian missionaries suppressed the practice. Group marriage was not a standard of Yup'ik social order but rather a voluntary romantic arrangement between established couples.
The following instances are cited in Thomas 1906.
In North America there is "group marriage as existing among the Omahas ... adelphic polygyny."
Among the Dieri of Australia exist forms of spouse-sharing known as pirrauru, in two categories "according to whether or not the man has or has not a tippa-malku wife. In the first case it is, taken in combination with the tippa-malku marriage, a case of bilateral dissimilar adelphic (M. and F.) polygamy. In the latter case it is dissimilar adelphic (tribal) polyandry". The pirrauru "relation arises through the exchange by brothers of their wives".
Among the Kurnandaburi of Australia, "a group of men who are own or tribal brothers are united ... in group marriage".
Among the Wakelbura of Australia, there is "adelphic polyandry."
Among the Kurnai of Australia, "unmarried men have access to their brothers' wives."
In modern U.S. practices
Group marriage occasionally occurred in communal societies founded in the 19th and 20th centuries.
A long-lived example was the Oneida Community founded by John Humphrey Noyes in 1848. Noyes taught that he and his followers, having reached 200 in number, had thus undergone sanctification; that is, it was impossible for them to sin, and that for the sanctified, marriage (along with private property) was abolished as an expression of jealousy and exclusiveness. The Oneida commune lived together as a single large group and shared parental responsibilities. Any given male-female combination in the group was free to have sex, usually upon the man's asking the woman, and this was the common practice for many years. The group began to falter about 1879–1881, eventually disbanding after Noyes fled arrest. Several dozen pairs of Oneidans quickly married in traditional fashion.
The Kerista Commune practiced group marriage in San Francisco from 1971 to 1991, calling their version polyfidelity.
It is difficult to estimate the number of people who actually practice group marriage in modern societies, as such a form of marriage is not officially recognized or permitted in any jurisdiction in the U.S., and de jure illegal in many. It is also not always visible when people sharing a residence consider themselves privately to be a group marriage.
Portrayal in media
Group marriage appears in some of the novels of Robert A. Heinlein such as Stranger in a Strange Land (1961), The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress (1966), Time Enough for Love (1973), and Friday (1982). Stranger in a Strange Land describes a communal group much like the Oneida Society. Heinlein created specific types of group marriages for The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress (line marriage) and Friday (S-groups).
In several of her Hainish Cycle stories (the cycle began in 1964) Ursula Le Guin describes a type of four-person marriage known as a sedoretu, practiced on the planet O. In this arrangement, two men and two women are married to each other, but each member of the marriage has a sexual relationship only with one male and one female spouse.
Proposition 31 is a 1968 novel by Robert Rimmer that tells the story of two middle-class, suburban California couples who adopt a relationship structure of polyfidelity to deal with their multiple infidelities, as a rationalistic alternative to divorce. In the book, the solution to the couples' problems with adultery and the impregnation of one couple's wife by the other couple's husband is to commit to a group marriage to raise their five children in a home compound in which the husbands rotate among the wives.
Larry Constantine and his legal wife, at the time, Joan Constantine, researched and practiced group marriage in the 1970s. They created the Family Tree organization to promote healthy non-monogamous families, and collaboratively authored a book on the subject in 1974, Group Marriage: A Study of Contemporary Multilateral Marriage (Collier Books, 1974).
In James Alan Gardner's book Vigilant (1999) the protagonist is part of a group marriage with multiple men and women involved.
In the 2010 television show Caprica, several main characters are portrayed as being in a polyfidelitous-style marriage consisting of multiple men and women, with each member being equal socially and legally. Such marriages co-exist along with monogamous marriages in the show's civilization. When asked about this aspect of the series, co-creator Ronald D. Moore said "In terms of polygamy, it's usually framed in a "Big Love" context – it's one man with many wives. I thought there was something even more intriguing about a true group marriage where all of the partners were married to one another. They have this much bigger definition of what a marriage was and I thought it was a fascinating cultural idea ...".
The fourth episode of the fourth season of the CBS television series, Elementary, an American procedural drama television series that presents a contemporary update of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's character Sherlock Holmes, has a focus on group marriages. In the episode All My Exes Live in Essex, the victim of Sherlock Holmes's latest case was a participant in a group marriage with two men, and was once in another group marriage with five other people.
In the novel series The Expanse, by James S. A. Corey, which began in 2011, a number of different group marriages are portrayed, such as one with main protagonist James Holden's eight parents. Their marriage consists of one straight couple, one gay couple, and one polyamorous group of four. Their octet primarily exists to exploit a loophole in tax code allowing them to own twenty-two acres of farmland. Group marriages are also described as common on Mars and in the Asteroid Belt.
In the novel Europa Strike by Ian Douglas, one of the POV characters mentions a couple of non-traditional marriages, including three men, and one man with two women. These are off-handed mentions although they are an acknowledged part of the book's universe, with the existence of non-traditional marriage practices having been mentioned in earlier books of the Heritage Trilogy.
See also
Cohabitation in the United States
POSSLQ
Proposition 31, a novel by Robert Rimmer
Samenlevingscontract
Types of marriages
References
Bibliography
Constantine, Larry and Joan (1974). Group Marriage: A Study of Contemporary Multilateral Marriage. Collier Books. ISBN 978-0020759102.
Dillard, J.M. (1990). The Lost Years. Pocket Books. p. 440. ISBN 978-0-6717-0795-8.
Emens, Elizabeth F. (2004). "Monogamy's Law: Compulsory Monogamy and Polyamorous Existence". New York University Review of Law & Social Change. 29 (2): 277.
Heinlein, Robert (1996). The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress. Tom Doherty Associates, Inc. ISBN 978-0-3128-6176-6.
Murdock, George P. (1949). Social Structure. New York: The MacMillan Company. ISBN 0-02-922290-7.
Murdock, George P. "Ethnographic Atlas Codebook", derived from Ethnographic Atlas
Westermarck, Edward (1922). The History of Human Marriage. New York: Allerton Book Company.- Source: Group Marriage
Group Marriage is a 1972 sex comedy film directed by Stephanie Rothman. It was the first film she made for Dimension Pictures, a company in which she was a minor shareholder with her husband Charles Swartz along with Larry Woolner.
Plot
Chris (Aimée Eccles) who works at a car rental store alongside her friend Judy, squabbles with boyfriend Sandor (Solomon Sturges), who writes bumper sticker slogans. Chris meets parole officer Dennis (Jeff Pomerantz) when both try to get into the same car and she and Sandor give him a lift. Dennis winds up refereeing an argument between Sandor and Chris, which results in Chris accidentally hitting Dennis. They invite Dennis to spend the night at their place; during the evening, Chris gets into bed with Dennis and sleeps with him.
Sandor discovers Dennis in bed with Chris. Chris says she still loves Sandor but likes Dennis too. Sandor is originally annoyed but eventually calms down. In the interest of fairness, Dennis invites Chris and Sandor to dinner with his ex-girlfriend Jan (Victoria Vetri), an ex-stewardess. Jan and Sandor are clearly attracted to each other and wind up in bed, alongside Chris and Dennis, although Chris has troubles with her jealousy.
At a picnic on the beach, Jan meets lifeguard Phil Kirby (Zack Taylor), who later sleeps with Chris and moves in with the other five. Phil decides to bring in a third girl for the household and invites in Elaine (Claudia Jennings), a lawyer. There is tension between Phil and Elaine when he discovers the latter is representing Phil's ex wife, however they resolve these differences after they realise how much they like each other.
The "group marriage" of the six of them attracts media attention and much criticism. They decide to stay true to the arrangement. Chris announces she is pregnant, although she is unsure who the father is. Their car is firebombed by unknown assailtants. Elaine defiantly suggests they all get married in a group.
Jan chafes at the arrangement and has sex with a man outside the group. She winds up leaving them. However Jan returns at the ending to a wedding between Chris (now heavily pregnant), Elaine, Sander, Phil, Denis and the new member, Judy (Chris' workmate). Their gay friends Rodney and Randy also marry each other.
There is a subplot about parole officer Dennis having to try to find a job for an ex-con, Ramon, who keeps getting in to fights. A running commentary on the group is provided by their gay neighbors, Rodney and Randy.
Cast
Victoria Vetri as Jan
Aimée Eccles as Chris - Rothman said "She had this impish quality and she had this sort of sparkling manner that I thought made her very right for a comedy. I also liked the idea that it was nontraditional casting at that time, having someone whose features were Asian play the leading lady."
Solomon Sturges as Sander - Sturges was the son of Preston Sturges and Rothman said "He was so good. He really had a firm grasp of the character, and he enhanced the role."
Claudia Jennings as Elaine
Zack Taylor as Phil
Jeff Pomerantz as Dennis - Rothman recalled "he kept on trying to suddenly, in a scene, inject business that would.. throw the cameraman" and "try to upstage people by grimacing at a certain time. He was just a problem, a nuisance, and one of the ways I solved that was to use him in fewer scenes."
Norman Bartold as Findley
John McMurtry as Randy
Pepe Serna as Ramon
Bill Striglos as Rodney
Jayne Kennedy Judy
Jack Bernardi as Father
Milt Kamen as Justice of the Peace
Ron Gans as Interviewer
Andrew Rubin as AC-DC
Production
According to Rothman, Larry Woolner, who ran Dimension, "wanted me to make a sexy film, and I tried to think of how I could do that and anchor it in something that said something about sexual mores." She was reading a book Future Shock which included discussion of group marriage and thought that "might be a wonderful framework in which to create a sex comedy that said something about the temperaments of the people involved, their goals, the social pitfalls of trying to do something like this in a society where it’s neither legal nor admired particularly.”
Rothman was determined to handle the topic "in a way that was not sordid and sleazy" but rather "humorous and pithy and imaginative... my intention at least was to make something that was a surprise."
"I was trying to make a bedroom farce," she said. Rothman admired that genre because "I like the fact that it’s very dynamic, things are always happening in it. The humor is fast and furious. The people are put in extreme situations and must devise ways to get out of them." (She had even acted in a production of Georges Feydeau's Hotel Paradiso.)
She gave the characters different jobs because she "wanted a mix of people who... could draw on their work experience in some way that would affect the common life experience that they shared during the time of the story."
The film was announced in January 1972 and filmed later that year. Rothman said "I like comedy best of all and Group Marriage was the first chance I had to do an outright comedy. Unlike The Velvet Vampire, it didn’t go under the guise of being something else."
Rothman later worked with Solomon Sturges on The Working Girls.
Like The Student Nurses the film featured a number of montages. Rothman later said:
The way I was making films at that time, in the amount of days I had to shoot in, it was a shorthand way of showing a certain quality of theirs, without dialogue. Which filled up time, to
be very honest with you, that would make the film long enough to be feature length. Because in the amount of time I had to shoot, dialogue always takes more time to shoot than scenes that you can shoot without synchronized sound, and so I needed a certain number of those in every film. I had to carefully choose where to put thosescenes, so that they did advance the story and tell you something about the character, but at the same time allowed me to not use synchronized sound.
Music
The soung "Darling Companion" which plays over the opening credits was written and performed by John Sebastian.
Reception
According to Rothman the film was received "very positively."
= Critical
=
The Boston Phoenix called it an "extraordinary comedy... this gem of a picture is well worth the search... that true rarity, a sexy comedy. Considering how quite difficult it is to make a sensuous picture to begin with, and noting how few deft comedy directors have emerged over the past twenty years, one would have to admire director Stephanie Rothman for her technical facility alone."
A writer in The Gazette called it "a good example of what enlightened erotica can be like. It features female characters who are professionally and sexually assertive - but not intimidating. They are capable of making decisions for themselves, yet they're still able to love the men in their lives and be loved in return."
Shock Magazine said "at its core the flick doesn’t know what it wants to be. At times it’s a Free Love forum pocked with messages on the “failure to communicate”. Other times it’s your standard, leering sex farce. Then odd, unnecessary subplots intrude, like one guy’s melodramatic job as a probation officer. And though the filmmakers obviously thought they were on the cutting edge, with all four leads in bed together, smoking grass, they never shed the old morality horseshit. Under its mod surface, it’s simple, romantic pabulum, swaddled in the latest trendiness, Ignoring all the comic possibilities in favor of generic, self-serious fodder."
Dannis Peary later wrote:
If Group Marriage has a real weakness, it is that it tries to be daringly topical, even though the subject of “group marriage” seems more unusual than shocking. The violence that ensues when the angry public hears about their living arrangement is a little absurd. If the film has a real strength, it is that all the protagonists are as gentle as they are. It is certainly not typical of movie romances to have so many characters liking each other for an entire film when things are going on that would make everyday people despise one another.
According to Henry Jenkins "This farcical film proposes a radical reconstruction of family relations and traces the process by which the various characters overcome their jealousies and find happiness in communal relations."
See also
List of American films of 1973
References
Notes
Peary, Dannis (1977). "Stephanie Rothman R-rated Feminist". In Kay, Karyn; Peary, Gerald (eds.). Women and the cinema : a critical anthology. p. 179-192.
External links
Group Marriage at IMDb
Group Marriage at AFI
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