Lectures on the Marriages of the Priesthood of the Old Immoral World, Delivered in the Year 1835, Before the Passing of the New Marriage Act (Leeds: J. Hobson [1835] 1840), 3–14

[Delivered in 1835 and later compiled in pamphlet form, these lectures became the most notorious of Robert Owen’s writings on the question of marriage, and were reprinted at least four times over the next few years (Taylor 1983, 173–174). The text expanded upon earlier publications on the same topic, such as the Oration Containing a Declaration of Mental Independence (1826). Since the mid-1820s, Owen had become increasingly critical of marriage, most likely due to the unravelling of his own relationship with his wife Anne Caroline. Using arguments seemingly borrowed from Godwin’s Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (1793), he claimed that except in rare instances of genuine affection, the prevalence of arranged unions reduced women to the legal property of their husbands, thus locking them into a state of near-serfdom (Kolmerten 1998, 18). While not going as far as calling for the abolition of marriage itself, he recommended that both parties be equal in wealth, condition and education, and bound by true feelings of love (Durieux 2005, 96). Owen’s critique became much more radical over the following decade, in part due to a growing demand for marriage reform. Since the mid-eighteenth century, only the unions blessed by the Church of England were granted legal status, to the dismay of Nonconformists and freethinkers (Taylor 1983, 54). However, in supporting non-denominational marriages and the right to divorce, Owen was also attacking the ideal of the nuclear family, in direct opposition to Christian teachings, Anglican or otherwise. As a priesthood-sanctioned institution, the family unit not only perpetuated religious superstition and the lie of unnatural, arranged unions. With the transmission of private property at its heart, it also fostered selfish interests to the detriment of community feelings, thereby constituting a vehicle of social inequality and an obstacle to true progress. By contrast, natural unions based on shared 415feelings of love and affection would flourish within the communities of the “New Moral World”, thus uniting all human beings into one family (Taylor 1983, 55).]