File:Polyamory Throughout the Ages.jpg

English: Adamites:

Early Christian movement who chose to live without the shame and prudism they blamed on "Original Sin", they eschewed legal marriage, authority in general, and clothing, living in cooperative communities.

Mazdakism: Mazdakists were Zoroastrians who believed in abandonment of authority in preference for voluntary mate relationships, pacifism, communal living, and vegetarianism

Free Spirits: The Free Spirits were much as their name implies, believed in free love and other abandonment of the strict rules of medieval Christianity, finding their salvation and enlightenment in their own experiences.

Rebels of Romance: The godmother of feminism, Mary (and some of her fellow Romantic era writers) spoke out strongly against the arbitrary rules of marriage in their time, and she actually acted on it, forming non-monogamous relationships with a number of both men and women.

Utopian Socialism: Before Marx in 1850, the utopian socialist movement believed in free market reform of the economy, and more importantly (in this context) freedom from the social repression of imposed by marriage and other conventions often reinforced by the political class. Leaders like Charles Fourier and Henri Saint-Simon said that men and women are equal sexually and socially, and healthier social order would arise naturally from people being free to choose.

The Oneida Community: John Humphrey Noves founded a Christian perfectionist community in 1848, based on the belief that they could transcend "original sin" through their good behavior. Their community practiced complex marriage (more than two unrelated people) as well as voluntary communal organization. They became greatly successful, a major employer in the local area, and in fact the modern Oneida silverware company was founded by that community.

First Wave Feminism: During the first part of the 20th century, there was a renewed interest in freeing people from the repression of state-mandated social norms. This was especially strong among the feminist movement. Women like Olive Schreiner and and Lily Braun separated themselves from the male-dominated Marxist/socialist movements that rejected the ideas of breaking away from state-mandated conventional marriage, to achieve "emancipated femaleness" and "moral maleness". Emma Goldman and Madeleine Pelletier helped lead their own versions of feminist-driven free love in the US and France.

The Sixties: This one, we all know about. Spurred both by the Beat movement they admired and the modeling of poly family ideas by thinkers like Robert Heinlein in Stranger in a Strange Land and The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, plus their own ample intellectual rebellion, the hippie movement adopted "Free Love" as their own brand, setting up the modern trend that would lead to the modern Polyamory community.

www.dhushara.com/book/consum/free.htm www.iisg.nl/womhist/polder.pdf www.academia.edu/17812335/Heresy_and_the_Free_Spirit_Begh...

www.princeton.edu/~pswpc/pdfs/scheidel/010903.pdf