The family in utopia: Celibacy, communal child rearing, and continuity in a religious commune

The Shakers sought to replace the nuclear family with the Shaker family thr ough their unorthodox family practices of celibacy and communal child reari ng. Although these practices may have been beneficial in some respects, the y contributed to the numerical decline of the Shakers. A quantitative analy sis of the children (joined with parents or adopted by the society) in Shak er communities between 1850 and 1870 shows that children with natural famil y ties were more likely than other children to persist in Shaker communitie s, and a significant fall in the proportion of those who were more likely t o persist contributed to the decline in total membership.