Free love

Free love is an ideology that love and sexual activities should be shared amongst many, and not be confined to long term relationships. The term is generally not applied to polygamous cultures, such as 19th century Mormons and Islamic cultures, because these still limit sexual activity to within a formalised long-term relationship.

The idea has appeared various times in history such as among the Cathars of Medieval France, the Saint-Simonians in the early 1800s, the Greenwich Village movements of the early 1900s, and among hippies in the 1960s and 1970s.

The movements which support free love tend to be utopian collectivist ones which see the traditional institutions of marriage and family as oppressive. Partly because of these anti-institutional views, free love cultures and those that support traditional, formalised forms of polygamy tend to be quite hostile to each other.

As of the 1980s, concerns over AIDS and other sexual transmitted diseases has greatly diminished the popularity of the free love ideology.

A more general term is sexual freedom, as opposed to sexual oppression.

See also

• Sexual revolution
• New Woman
• Open marriage
• Polyamory