Cenogamous Oneida Community Analysis

One of the many groups that found interesting was the cenogamous Oneida community. I was most surprised to learn that there could be more than one man and more than one woman in the marriage. I had heard of polygamy where there is one man and more than one woman. It was also interesting to learn that in cenogamy not all the spouses know about each other. I believe this was surprising for me because I have never encountered families like these. I have never met anyone who had more than one spouse. I attribute this mostly to my religion. I am Catholic and in the Catholic Church we believe that is one man and one woman form a marriage. Another factor that I believe contributes to my astonishment of these types of communities is my culture. My culture and religion are linked and therefore both suggest that a man should not have more than one wife and that a marriage is made of only two people not multiple people.

First, the more people who make up their family the more help there is emotionally, financially, and domestically. For example, my maternal grandparents had a total of ten children, and although everyone was not married to each other, having so many people allows for more help for the family. Emotionally my mother and her siblings had each other to talk to or get emotional support from. Cenogamist families can lean on each other in time of hardships just like my mother and her siblings did as young children and even know as adults. Financially, my grandfather would take the boys to work to produce more crops to sell so that he could make more money. In a cenogamist family there are more people to work and bring home money to support the family and maintain a stable way of living. Domestically, my mother and her siblings would have daily chores and things around the home they had to do. Cenogamist families would also share the responsibilities of household work among