Unwin, J D
Entry updated 14 July 2025. Tagged: Author.
(1895-1936) UK ethnologist, anthropologist and author, in active service during World War One, whose Hopousia: Or, the Sexual and Economic Foundations of a New Society (written 1935-1936; 1940) is a non-narrative Utopia where Sex is described as being made available through two forms of marriage: the monogamous alpha form, which requires equality between the sexes, entitles its adherents to accept responsibility for running the world; the polygamous beta form, which if universally taken up would dissolve the constraints that make nations work, welcomes free love. Citizens can change from one marriage formula to the other. The rulers of the world are made free by this structure to focus on the maintenance of a sustainable state, where energy flows where needed, and returns. From this balance and restraint, Unwin argues, equity will flow, but his death before the book was finished abruptly truncated any summary argument. In his long introduction, Aldous Huxley recognizes this deficit while recognizing the importance of Unwin's "formulation of the sexual and economic conditions of social energy." [JC]
Joseph Daniel Unwin
born Haverhill, Suffolk: 6 December 1895
died London: August 1936
works (selected)
- Sex and Culture (London: Oxford University Press, 1934) [nonfiction: hb/]
- Hopousia: Or, the Sexual and Economic Foundations of a New Society (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1940) [nonfiction: written 1935-1936: introduction by Aldous Huxley: hb/nonpictorial]
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