The term free love has been used since at least the nineteenth century to describe a social movement that rejects marriage, which is seen as a form of social bondage, especially for women. Much of the free-love tradition has a civil libertarian philosophy that seeks freedom from State regulation and Church interference in personal relationships. In addition, some free-love writing has argued that both men and women have the right to sexual pleasure. In the Victorian era, this was a radical notion.
While the phrase free love is often associated with promiscuity in the popular imagination, especially in reference to the counterculture of the 1960s and 1970s, historically the free-love movement has not advocated multiple sexual partners or short-term sexual relationships. Rather, it has argued that love relations that are freely entered into should not be regulated by law. Thus, free-love practice may include long-term monogamous relationships or even celibacy, but would not include institutional forms of polygamy, such as a king and his wives and concubines.
Laws of particular concern to free love movements have included those that prevent an unmarried couple from living together, and those that regulate adultery and divorce, as well as age of consent, birth control, homosexuality, abortion, and prostitution; although not all free lovers agree on these issues. The abrogation of individual rights in marriage is also a concern—for example, some jurisdictions do not recognise spousal rape or treat it less seriously than non-spousal rape. Free-love movements since the 19th century have also defended the right to publicly discuss sexuality and have battled obscenity laws.
In the twentieth century, some free-love proponents extended the critique of marriage to argue that marriage as a social institution encourages emotional possessiveness and psychological enslavement.
Free love became a prominent phrase used by and about the new social movements and counterculture of the 1960s and 1970s, typified by the Summer of Love in 1967 and the slogan “make love not war”. Unrestrained sexuality became a new norm in some of these youth movements, leading certain feminists to critique the 60s/70s “free love” as a way for men to pressure women into sex; women who said “no” could be characterized as prudish and uptight.
In the 1980s, concerns over AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases tempered the promiscuity of the 1970s, but many of the sexual reforms advocated by earlier free-love movements had become mainstream: legalisation of adultery, birth control, and homosexuality; freedom in choosing love, sex, or both; and women’s rights in general. Chastity, virginity, and subservience in marriage had much less power as social ideals for women.
Modern descendants of free love could be seen to include the polyamory and queer movements of the 1990s and contemporary sex radicals like Susie Bright, Patrick Califia, and Annie Sprinkle. Though they don’t often identify as free lovers, modern movements around the world against arranged marriage and forced marriage in South Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and Eastern Europe share many of the same goals as the free-love movement.
