ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author argues that one of the most important factors that contributed to the commune's stability and to its longevity was the abolishment of the monogamous family and the subordination of the relationships between the sexes to communal principles. The deliberations on the position of the family in the commune are not arbitrary or groundless. A contemporary sociologist Rosabeth Moss Kanter deals with the unbridgeable polarity between family and commune. In Oneida, where the complex marriage system had been adopted, there occurred the most radical change in women's status. At the same time men constituted a vast majority in farming and industrial jobs, and even if women worked in those branches they did secondary and easier jobs. The contribution of the communes to the equality of women and change in the status of the monogamous family was not in its direct influence on the general society but rather in the internal modifications that took place there.
