Fourier and computer dating - Joan Roelofs

The spirit of computer dating, lacking only the technology, was one of a number of schemes by which Charles Fourier wanted to radically transform human sexual relations. Early 19th century socialist thought, socialist movements and experiments were concerned with the entire catalog of miseries afflicting humankind. Monogamy and all its woes figured far more prominently than surplus value, which (according to pharmacists’ records) was rarely the cause of suicidal depression. The Marxist tradition, while paving lip service to the ‘‘utopian” critique of bourgeois society, repressed most of the “cultural’’ concerns of early socialism.

The utopians did not ignore or accept capitalism; it was a major evil, but not necessarily the source of all the other evils. Therefore, they did not imagine that the abolition of capitalism would automatically produce a brave new world. Rather, they very practically attempted to transform dehumanizing institutions. In contrast, the messianic overtone of much of the Marxist tradition makes it appear to be the “utopian” one.

Fourier is of particular interest for two reasons. The first was an event in the scholarly world. Certain of Fourier’s works, considered too wild and woolly, had been suppressed by his followers. They were first published in France in 1967, under the title: Le nouveau monde amoureux (The New Amorous World — Vol. VII of the Oeuvres completes de Charles Fourier, Anthropos Edition). This material is outrageous and hilarious, manic and prophetic.

Even without this newly discovered material, Fourier is relevant. He was chiefly recognized by Marx and Engels for his feminism, but his doctrine is also the quintessence of “Small is Beautiful” and “Make Love, Not War.” He was intensely concerned with the degradation of the environment; poverty amidst plenty; the unhealthy, immoral and/or boring nature of most work; problems of loneliness, especially among the aged; the repression of women, both sexually and intellectually; the failure of marriage to achieve any of its supposed purposes; and violence, whether of the individual (which he believed the result of repression) or militaristic nationalism. He opposed both violent revolution and imperialism. He did not equate economic development with progress. What is more, he had creative solutions to all of these problems. His hedonistic utopia, a steady state economy, was liberally graced with gastronomy, flowers, sex and music - highly renewable resources.

Fourier was an important influence in 19th and 20th century socialism in Russia; feminism as well as the ideal of communal living were basic premises in the revolutionary movement.1 The Bolsheviks, however, had by the early 1930s purged the utopian aspects of socialism, basing their policies on centralization, economic growth and the traditional family.2 Today, these values are deeply embedded in Soviet society.

At this point, a brief look at Fourier’s doctrine is in order. Fourier believed that people were born with certain personality types, based on their dominant passions. There were twelve basic passions: the five sensual appetites; four appetites of the soul: friendship, love, family and ambition; and three distributive passions: the cabalist (love of intrigues), butterfly (love of change and contrast) and composite (desire to combine pleasure of sense and soul). The superior individuals were the ones with the greatest complexity, and the largest number of dominant passions. Fourier believed that all passions, manias and desires were good (otherwise God wouldn’t have created them). With the proper organization of society, no repression would be necessary. All tastes could be made socially useful or at least innocuous. The basic unit of Fourier’s utopian world, “Harmony” was to be the Phalanx, a community of about 1600 people. This would result in the inclusion of all the basic personality types, useful for the proper arrangements of work and love.

Fourier allowed for considerable inequality in his phalanx. Conspicuous consumption was also a pleasure that should not be denied: “Lucullus is the captain of the group of red cherry-growers, and Scaurus heads the group of maroon cherry-growers. Competition encourages these two rivals to spend as much on their groups as a prince would spend on his country villa. They provide their groups with wagons and sheds that are more splendid than those we see on stage at the opera. Each of them has a magnificent pavillion constructed in the cherry-orchard at his own expense to replace the modest shed furnished by the regency.”3 Fourier thought there would be three classes of dining room, catering to those with greater or lesser refinement of taste. However, everyone was guaranteed an adequate minimum of food, lodging, clothing, medical care, education, entertainment and sex; no one starved amidst luxury, as in “Civilization” (Fourier’s name for the current world). Even the third-class dining room had excellent quality and great variety of food, and improvement in gastronomic discernment was projected. In Harmony, Spartan surroundings would be available only for those who had a passion for that sort of thing. “The poorest wretch in Harmony, a man who doesn’t have a penny to his name, has a well-heated and enclosed portico at his disposal when he gets into a carriage; he goes from the Palace to the stables by means of paved and graveled underground passage-ways; he gets from his lodgings to the public halls and workshops by means of street-galleries which are heated in winter and ventilated in summer.”4 The phalanx was to be generally self-sufficient, but not self-contained. There would be trade, partying, and joint enterprises with the rest of the world. Freedom and pleasure would dominate life; yet work would get done, and a high degree of organization would prevail.

How was this possible? Work would be pleasant and constantly varied. People would be drawn to those types of work which satisfied their particular combination of passions. Much drudgery would be eliminated through communal living, and “surplus value” eliminated by ending the need to support middlemen, idlers, bureaucrats - twelve classes of parasites in all, including armies and navies: “The apparatus of men and machines which is called an army spends its time producing nothing and waiting to be used for destructive purposes ...”5 Work would be full of enticements and allurements: competition, sex and pageantry might be part of the job.

A major occupation in Harmony would be horticulture, which along with domestic animal raising. gamekeeping, and fishfarming, would supply a large part of the diet. Fourier was not much interested in the growing of grain, (perhaps because he couldn’t digest bread), and Harmony thereby avoided the superstructure of a grain based diet, which tends to be centralized and hierarchical, if not imperialistic. Gardening allows for the maximum control and participation by the eaters.

Manufacturing would be limited; Fourier did not feel that it could be made very attractive work. Besides: “According to this science [political economy) all industries are useful as long as they create legions of starving men to sell themselves at bargain prices to conquerors and shop bosses. Excessive competition always reduces the populace to the lowest wages when there is work and to indigence during periods of economic stagnation.”6 He desired to achieve “1) The greatest possible consumption of different kinds of foods; 2) The smallest possible consumption of different kinds of clothing and furniture ...” This would be possible by producing goods of extremely high quality: “. . . furniture and clothing will last an extremely long time. They will become eternal.”7

Fourier’s educational system, centering on opera and gastronomy, introduced children to the combination of work, study and pleasure. For example, in regard to the shelling and sorting of peas: “This work which with us would occupy the hands of people of thirty, will be consigned to children of two, three, four years of age: the hall is provided with inclined tables containing a number of hollows; two little ones are seated at the raised side; they take the peas out of the shell, the inclination of the table causes the grains to roll toward the lower side where three tots are placed of twenty- five, thirty, thirty-five months, charged with the task of sorting, and furnished with special implements.

The thing to be done is to separate the smallest peas for the sweetened ragout, the medium ones for the bacon ragout, and the largest for the soup . . . . If civilized education developed in every child its natural inclinations, we should see nearly all rich children enamoured of various very plebeian occupations, such as that of the mason, the carpenter, the smith, the saddler.”8 Some of the disgusting work which needed to be done would be the province of the “Little Hordes,” composed of children who have a penchant for filth (Fourier estimated that 2/3 of the boys 1/3 of the girls would enroll themselves in this corps).

Except for sleeping (and he thought one wouldn’t need much of that), Fourier believed that no occupation should be pursued for more than two hours at a time. Necessary dangerous work, as in chemical plants and glass works, would be rotated so that one person might spend only two or three hours a week in those places. Regular rotation among jobs would not only make work less taxing and more interesting, it would also build solidarity and promote equality. One day Simone and Pierre would be in competitive pear-growing groups, but the next day they would have to pull together in a wine-making brigade, or on a laundry line. Each person would experience close work relations with hundreds of people in the Phalanx, as well as with outsiders in joint projects and in “industrial” armies (actually, conservation armies, or peace corps, as they undertook reforestation, building embankments, etc., and were very friendly to the ”natives”). Furthermore, the leader of one group might be a novice in several others; authority and subordination would be rotated. Note that Fourier did not abolish expertise or leadership, or adopt consensus as a procedure. He rather proposed a method close to the Aristotelian ideal of participation - ruling and being ruled in turn.

Variety in work and play was not to be achieved by chance. Every evening: “[E]very individual must go to the Exchange to arrange his work and pleasure sessions for the following days. It is there that he makes plans concerning his gastronomic and amorous meetings and, especially, for his work sessions in the shops and fields. Everyone has at least twenty sessions to arrange, since he makes definite plans for the following day and tentative ones for the day after.

Assuming that 1200 individuals are present, and that each one has twenty sessions to arrange, this means that in the meeting as a whole there are 24,000 transactions to be concluded. Each of these transactions can involve 20, 40, or 100 individuals who must be consulted and intrigued with or against.”9 While Fourier insisted he had a system worked out for processing all this, the place cries out for a computer. Such are the bare bones of Fourier’s society; let us get on to the flesh.

His approach to love-life was also radical and likewise in need of a computer. Unlike other early socialists (e.g., Owenite) who traced the source of misery to marriage, religion, private property and the state, Fourier actually devised some creative substitutes for marriage. His schemes are worth examining as his perspective was unusual - he was a feminist and a sexually deprived person (never married, or much of anything else).

Fourier’s views contrast with the usual socialist (Owenite or Marxian) position on this issue: the advocacy of “free love” or serial monogamy. For the latter, relations (among socialists before, and everyone after, the revolution) should be based on romantic love. Engels’ view is typical: “If only marriages that are based on love are moral, then, also, only those are moral in which love continues. The duration of the urge of individual sex love differs very much according to the individual, particularly among men; and a definite cessation of affection, or its displacement by a new passionate love, makes separation a blessing for both parties as well as for society. People will only be spared the experience of wading through the useless mire of divorce proceedings.”10 All socialists assumed that maintenance for children and mothers would be provided in some way independent of a current liaison. This is very useful for men who have a tendency to seduce and abandon; an occurrence not unknown on the left. The problem with the laissez-faire view of love is that it is no more a guarantee of general happiness than is the corresponding economic doctrine. In both realms, those who are in a strong market position will benefit. In the love market, these tend to be older high status males (radical or otherwise) and young beautiful women, especially if they are compliant. The socialist advocacy of “free love” retains most of the disadvantages of legalized monogamy, without any of its advantages.

Feminists of the early 19th century in the Owenite movement were not thrilled by the prevailing free love theories and practices. On the one hand, they were sometimes treated as playthings. On the other hand, “serious” relationships carried special risks for women: “Loving men, women became hostages to their own hearts, incapable even of willing their freedom - ‘sentimental slaves,’ ...”11 One hundred years later, this was echoed by Alexandra Kollontai, the left-wing Bolshevik, who with her fellow revolutionaries had long since been liberated from legal marriage. It was the “love” part of “free love” which she found oppressive to women: “Love with its many disappointments, with its tragedies and eternal demands for perfect happiness still played a very great role in my life. An all-too-great role! It was an expenditure of precious time and energy, fruitless and, in the final analysis, utterly worthless . . . . Our mistake was that each time we succumbed to the belief that we had finally found the one and only in the man we loved, the person with whom we believed we could blend our soul, one who was ready fully to recognize us as a spiritual-physical force.

But over and over again things turned out differently, since the man always tried to impose his ego upon us and adapt us fully to his purposes.”12

Kollontai had hopes that in the future women would be able to avoid these traps and engage in truly equal relationships, where love would not diminish them and their work. However, the experience of women revolutionaries with “free love” has been frequently unhappy, e.g., the case of Rosa Luxemburg.13 The Bohemian women of Greenwich Village in the 1900-1914 period found their status was often totally dependent on their being pleasing to men.14 Without institutional support of any kind, the “love bond” had to bear enormous weight. As it happened, many of the “liberated” men had ego needs which required an association with a beautiful, intelligent, radical and totally subordinate woman.15 The New Left saw the story repeated: “As in the 1920s, sexual revolution became a license for male promiscuity and female accessibility.”16 Many radical feminists have come to believe that love is impossible for a liberated woman, given the social and psychological framework of male domination - female subordination which surrounds that social artifact.17

A frequent criticism of marriage and family is that it weakens or makes impossible the bonds of true community. Preliminary study of evidence from the utopian settlements of 19th century America has shown this to be the case; monogamy tended to disrupt communities. Those societies which practiced either celibacy or organized group marriage avoided such disruptions.18 Similarly in 20th century communes, uncoupling and recoupling frequently led to the withdrawal of some of the parties from the community.

There are also the usual indictments of the family as an institution for raising children. As Fourier saw it: “In the family system children spend all their time crying, quarreling, breaking things and refusing to work.”19 For socialists and feminists there is the additional problem of the family’s role in the transmission of sexist, classist, authoritarian attitudes from one generation to the next. These negative inheritances are all the more likely in “happy” families with “well-adjusted” spouses.

Fourier shared many of these attitudes and delighted in compiling catalogs on the evils of monogamy. The wastefulness of individual households was compounded by the oppression of women which they entail: “Are not women destined to exhibit in literature and the arts the same capacity they have exhibited on the throne, when, from the days of Semiramis to Catherine, there have been seven great queens to one of inferior capacity, while among kings, seven have been incapable, to one that has been great? The same rule would hold good in literature and the arts; the female sex will carry off the palm in these departments, when, in the combined order, education shall have restored woman to the use of her facilities, smothered by a social system which engrosses her in the complicated functions of our isolated households.”20

Monogamy was oppressive to men as well as to women. Fourier drew up a scale of misfortunes in married life: “K Widowerhood. 1. Chance of unhappiness. 2. Disparity of tastes. 3. Complications. 4. Expense. 5. Vigilance. 6. Monotony. Y Sterility. KK Compound Orphanhood. 7. Discord in education. 8. Jobs and dowries. 9. Departure of children. 10. Disappointing in-laws. 11. Incorrect information. 12. Adultery or cuckoldry. YY False Paternity.”21 Unhappy as the married are, those who are not also suffer deprivation. Fourier was especially concerned for the unmarried young and old, and those of any age who were unattached for any reason (including unattractiveness or unusual tastes). He did not consider prostitution an acceptable alternative; its cash nexus precluded the refinements he sought in relationships. What Fourier proposed was a new amorous order, in which marriage would be abolished, child care and housework collectivized, and a “sexual minimum” the right of all.

Fourier believed that there were many different kinds of love: sentimental, long term lust, short term lust, bisexual attractions, group arrangements (including “quadrille”) and all were worthy of expression. Complexity was the perfection of individuals; it could also create bonds of love forming a worldwide network and leading to universal peace. There would be no jealousy in Harmony and no hard feelings. All past and present lovers would retain affectionate ties. World unity would be promoted by conclaves of those from the ends of the earth who shared some exotic and rare mania (or unusual tastes in food).

Redistribution of wealth would be fostered. Fourier describes the imaginary case of a wealthy woman, Artemise, whose personality type - omnigyne - gives her a tendency to carry on eight affairs simultaneously: “Consequently at the age of eighty she will have loved. . . about 1200 men and 600 women. ... In making her will Artemise leaves a sum of three million to her lovers ...”22 There were plentiful opportunities for choice of pleasure and partner in Harmony, but there would also be a good deal of organization, so that no one would be left out or miss out on an unobvious but appropriate match. Fourier believed that when the need for sexual gratification was not fulfilled, social disorders resulted, just as they might from the denial of subsistence. Once physical gratification was assured, love could develop in all its nobility and refinement.

How was the minimum to be assured? To some extent, Fourier expected his society to produce conditions in which everyone would get into the act. “First love is said to leave a lasting impression. Thus the free play of this passion is particularly important in Harmony. Since the choice is free, there will be relatively few lads who become passionately attached to lasses of their own age. Nature loves contrasts and readily links people of disparate ages. Furthermore, so many friendly relations are established in Harmony between people of widely divergent ages that it will become commonplace for a young lad to begin his amorous career with an elderly woman and for a young girl to begin with a mature man. Of course there is nothing predetermined about the matter since everyone’s choice will be free ...”23 More persuasive aids to assortment would be provided by the rules of love and the “courts” which enforced them. Young people voluntarily enrolled in the “Damselate” were expected to practice fidelity “until they have finished their education.”24 But: “. . . [No one is expelled from the Damselate until he or she has committed three infidelities and one inconsistancy. . . . Only half an infidelity is counted if a Damsel has an affair with one of the priests or priestesses who, in view of their age, are given special advantages . . . . A homosexual affair is only counted as half an infidelity. . . . Any Damsel may redeem an infidelity by spending two nights with an elderly priest or priestess.”25 “Angelic couples” - exceptionally handsome and beautiful lovers - would gain glory by sharing themselves with twenty admirers each. “We will see how a pure, refined and transcendent sentimental relationship will not reach physical consummation until the two lovers have had physical relations with all who ardently desire them. We will see how by this act of amorous philanthropy they will obtain the same glory that civilization gives to a Decius or a Regulus and other such martyrs for religious or political principles.”26

Industrial armies (for reforestation, building embankments, etc.) are mustered with expectations of great festivities. A group of virgins (male and female members of the Vestalate) provide a special attraction, for it is on these campaigns that they choose their first lovers, thereupon entering into the Damselate. Another group, Bacchants and Bacchantes, are charged with “recovering the wounded,” i.e., spending a few days taking care of the rejected suitors. Enrollment in any of these orders is voluntary, but once enrolled certain rules must be obeyed or punishments are imposed, which turn out to be acts of sexual “philanthropy.”

The use of computers could increase productivity in Fourier’s world. One of his scenarios has a thousand adventurers and adventuresses visiting a Phalanx in Cnidos. Upon arrival, each visitor hands over to the high priests and priestesses a written “confession” containing information on his or her particular passions, tastes and recent encounters. A light snack follows, while the “confessors” calculate five or six likely matches for each adventurer. “Sympathetic matching takes everything into account, and the final choices made are those which seem most likely to complement previous encounters either through contrast or identity.”27 There follows a preliminary” skirmish,” a general physical encounter of the whole crew. Some will settle down at that time; they are “monogynes” dominated by the passion of touch. “But such relationships, which are no more than simple amorous ties, deriving from purely physical affinities, will satisfy no more than a twentieth of the lovers in Harmony... . For the goal of Harmony is to establish compound amorous relationships based on both physical and spiritual affinities.”28 Most will then proceed to the reconnoitering room: “The individual has been given a list with precise information concerning the spiritual affinities and temporary inclinations of each of his potential partners. He is also able to determine their physical attraction since they are right before his eyes and since he has perhaps already gotten acquainted with them during the introductory bacchanalia ...”29 Conflicts will be minimized and resolvable in various satisfactory ways: “The whole point of the operations of the court of love is to determine these spiritual sympathies at the very outset in order to minimize competition for the most physically attractive individuals. Such competition leaves some people with throngs of admirers and leaves a great many other people in a state of abandonment.”30 “No final decisions will be made until everyone has had a chance to converse with all his or her candidates. Everyone must have a chance to present himself to those he desires and to inspect the information recorded on their escutcheons concerning their personalities, their habits, current caprices, most recent passions, and their need of alternating and contrasting pleasures.”31 Along the way elaborate precautions are taken to make sure no one’s feelings are hurt. Often the Confessors and Confessoresses (who are generally older people) will have to intervene directly to assist clients with special needs. Although Fourier assumes effective contraception is no problem there is one shadow to darken the general merriment: “I cannot repeat too often, however, that customs so alien to ours cannot be established during the first years of Harmony. It will first be necessary to purge the globe of syphilis and other skin diseases. Until this is accomplished. Harmony will be more circumspect about love than civilization now is.”32

Fourier has tempered liberty with equality. His precise schemes, complete with Chief Fairies, Pontiffs, Fakirs, Confessoresses, etc., are certainly outlandish, but the spirit of devising alternatives to monogamy or “free love” would be a reasonable project. On the one hand, either marriage or the lack of it is a major source of misery in “civilization.” One is not here advocating the abolition of marriage; in our existing society marriage as well as property is already done away with for nine tenths of the population. This is possibly a result of the “flight from commitment” fostered perhaps by the increasing ratio of women to men.33 In any case, the disintegration of marriage seems to be a phenomenon of advanced countries. Yet marriage and the family are such central institutions that their gradual disintegration is bound to have serious consequences for a society - as well as for the individuals concerned. Fourier contrived institutions to replace marriage, with the added advantage that they provided an ideal diversion for a steady state economy, being based on renewable resources.

But what of love, it might be asked? Many may believe in it, but along with Santa Claus and God, evidence supposedly supporting the phenomenon may be explained in other ways. The concept would appear to provide more costs than benefits. An incredible amount of time, energy, and capital is spent in the largely haphazard process of mate selection (both for short term and long term undertakings). The results of this “system” are not impressive. The divorce rate understates the general level of misery, to say nothing of those whose search has been fruitless. One might rejoinder that an externality of this process is “fun.” So it might be for prom kings and queens, but what about the indubitably larger group that never saw the inside of a prom, or did so only by dint of a deus ex machine in the form of a cousin? Some resort to commercial computer services or traditional shadchonim, but such a system cries out for universality. These stopgap measures are as irrational as the thousands of employment agencies operating in the same market. Furthermore, many people (even intelligent ones) would rather settle for what comes around the corner than apply rationality to this quest.

Some may regard the rational creation of new institutions as a folly or tyranny. However, the use of social science to promote the happiness of humankind was the original objective of socialism as well as that of political science itself since Plato. Increasing rationality and predictability can enhance both freedom and equality; it is the strong who chiefly benefit from laissez-faire conditions. Furthermore, the creation of new institutions - which can always be modified by experience - can prefigure the values of the good society.

Appendix: Urgèle et Valère
Harold is twenty, Maude is eighty. Loving Harold, she discovers he has a natural aversion to responding. Let us see how the ties of circumstances can triumph over this repugnance, by opposing it with four affectionate ties: two amicable ties (A) and two federative ties (F).

Al-Harold is a member of forty groups, in several of which he is in a very close relationship with Maude. Since he was five, he has been in the blue hyacinth group, and he has excelled in it. He owes his talent to Maude, president of the group. She has been his devoted instructor and has taught him all the refinements of the art.

A2-Harold is learning engraving; his efforts have been highly praised. Again, it is to Maude that he owes his glory. Dean of the group, she has been happy to instruct him as she has recognized his potential at an early age.

F3-Harold has a penchant for a science totally unknown in Civilization, the algebra of love or the calculus of fortuitous sympathies in love. It is the art of matching, by their passions, a mass of men and women who have never seen each other, so that each of the 100 men will identify right away which of the 100 women he will love, perfectly suit in mind and spirit, and match in character and even idiosyncratic fantasies. This science requires long practice along with theory. Maude, who is the most skilled “sympathist” in the country, teaches Harold. It is on Maude that he pins his hopes for success in this science, which carries great rewards in fame and fortune.

A4-Harold wants to join an industrial army (about 300,000 people, of whom 100,000 are women) which is going to campaign on the Rhine during the lush springtime to construct bridges and embankments. There will be magnificent parties every evening. To be admitted, Harold needs to have been on eight campaigns; he has been on only two. He is ineligible, unless an exception is made.

Maude is the High Matron (or Chief Fairy) of the Rhine army, heading the Department of Fortuituous Sympathies for the 300,000 men and women. She states that Harold would help her in this work. An exception is made for him; he will be admitted to this lovely army, although his prerequisites are lacking. He leaves as attaché in the Office of Chief Fairy.

There are these four bonds between Harold and Maude, which tend to deflect any natural repugnance: two affectionate bonds for past services and two federative bonds for future services. The result will be to stir up in Harold, not direct love for Maude, but an outpouring of gratitude, indirect affinity, neutral links, which take the place of love, and will lead to the same result. Maude will get Harold by pure affection. The eighty years will not be a barrier for Harold; he has been used to being with Maude since he was young. Youth is intrepid in love with enough stimulation, and Harold tells Maude right away that he would be happy to make tribute for everything that he owes to her. He will not become her constant lover, just her cake from time to time. It will be for Maude a conquest without selfish or sordid motives, very different from those made today by eighty year old women, who can only have young men by paying for it (freely translated from Fourier).”34

SOURCE; Telos, no. 65, Fall 1985.

• 1Martin Malia, Alexander Herzen and the Birth of Russian Socialism (New York: Grosset and Dunlap, 1961), p. 321.
• 2NA. Miliutin, Sotsgorod: The Problem of Building Socialist Cities (Cambridge: MIT Press. 1974).
• 3Charles Fourier, The Utopian Vision of Charles Fourier: Selected Texts on Work, Love and Passionate Attractions, trans, and ed. J. Beecher and R. Bienvenu (Boston: Beacon, 1971), p. 294.
• 4Ibid., p. 243.
• 5Ibid., p. 132.
• 6Ibid., p. 289.
• 7Ibid., p. 288.
• 8Charles Fourier, Design for Utopia: Selected Writings of Charles Fourier (New York: Schocken, 1971), p. 72.
• 9Utopian Vision, op. cit., p. 253.
• 10F. Engels, Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, in Marx and Engels, Selected Works, Vol. II (Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1951), p. 218.
• 11Barbara Taylor, Eve and the New Jerusalem (New York: Pantheon), 1983, p. 48.
• 12Alexandra Kollontai, The Autobiography of a Sexually Emancipated Communist Woman (New York: Schocken, 1975), pp. 6-7.
• 13Elzhieta Ettinger, Comrade and Lover: Rosa Luxemburg’s Letters to Leo Jogiches (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1979).
• 14Ann Snitow, Christine Stansell and Sharon Thompson, ed., Powers of Desire: The Politics of Sexuality (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1983), p. 17.
• 15E.K. Trimberger, “Feminism, Men and Modern Love: Greenwich Village 1900-1925,” Ibid.
• 16Snitow et. al, op. cit., p. 20.
• 17Elizabeth Rapaport “On the Future tsf Love: Rousseau and the Radical Feminists,” in Carol Gould and Marx Wartofsky, eds., Women and Philosophy: Toward a Theory of Liberation (New York: Putnam, 1980).
• 18R. Muncy, Sex and Marriage in Utopian Communities: 19th Century America (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1973).
• 19Utopian Vision, op. cit., p. 99.
• 20Charles Fourier, Harmonian Man: Selected Writings of Charles Fourier, ed. Mark Poster (Garden City: Anchor, 197 l), p. 210.
• 21Utopian Vision, op. cit., p. 179.
• 22Harmonian Man, op. cit., p. 228.
• 23Utopian Vision, op. cit., p. 365.
• 24[i[Ibid.[/i], p. 366.
• 25Ibid., p. 367.
• 26Ibid., p. 376.
• 27Ibid., p. 388.
• 28Ibid., p. 390.
• 29Ibid., p. 391.
• 30Ibid.
• 31Ibid., p. 393.
• 32Ibid., p. 395.
• 33Barbara Ehrenreich, ‘The Male Revolt: After the Breadwinner Vanishes,” Nation, Feb. 26, 1983, pp. 239-242; Marcia Guttentag and Paul Secord, Too Many Women: The Sex Ratio Question (Beverly Hills: Sage, 1983).
• 34Vers La Liberté en amour, ed. Daniel Guérin (Paris: Gallimard, l975), pp. 230-232.