Ménage à trois

A ménage à trois (French: [menaʒ a tʁwa]) is a domestic arrangement with three people sharing romantic or sexual relations with one another, and typically dwelling together. The phrase is a loan from French meaning "household of three". A form of polyamory, contemporary arrangements are sometimes identified as a throuple,[1] thruple,[2] or triad.[3]

For a grouping of three people, see Triad (sociology). For a romantic rivalry involving three people, see Love triangle. For sexual activity involving three people at the same time, see Threesome. For other uses, see Ménage à trois (disambiguation).

Postcard, c. 1910

Historical instances

History has a number of examples of ménages à trois relationships.

Speculation exists that, in 1547–48, Queen Catherine Parr, widow of Henry VIII, and her fourth husband Thomas Seymour were involved in a ménage with the future Queen Elizabeth. This is probably exaggerated, although episodes of sexually charged horseplay involving the three were well attested.[4][5]

In his youth, thirteen years her junior, the French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a protégé of the French noblewoman Françoise-Louise de Warens, who would become his first lover. He lived with her at her estate on and off since his teenage years, and in 1732, after he reached the age of 20, she initiated a sexual relationship with him while also being open about her sexual involvement with the steward of her house.[6]

The German intellectual Dorothea von Rodde-Schlözer, her husband Mattheus Rodde and the French philosopher Charles de Villers also had a ménage à trois from 1794 until her husband's death in 1810.[7]

Sir William Hamilton (British ambassador to Naples), his wife Emma Hamilton, and her lover, the naval hero Admiral Horatio Lord Nelson, were in a ménage à trois from 1799 until Nelson's death in 1805.[8]

At the age of 16, in 1813, the future author of Frankenstein, Mary Godwin, eloped with her to-be husband Percy Bysshe Shelley and engaged in a ménage with Claire Clairmont, future lover of Lord Byron, with whom the Shelleys would later have an extensive relationship.[9]

The political philosopher Friedrich Engels lived in a ménage à trois with his mistress Mary Burns and her sister Lizzie.[10]

The Belgian artist/illustrator Félicien Rops (1833-1898) maintained a remarkable ménage à trois with two sisters, Aurélie and Léontine Dulac, who ran a successful fashion house in Paris "Maison Dulac" They each bore a child with him (one died at an early age) and they lived together for over 25 years, until his death.[11][12][13]

The author E. Nesbit lived with her husband Hubert Bland and his mistress Alice Hoatson, and raised their children as her own.[14]

In 1913, psychoanalyst Carl Jung began a relationship with a young patient, Toni Wolff, which lasted for some decades. Deirdre Bair, in her biography of Carl Jung,[15] describes his wife Emma Jung as bearing up nobly as her husband insisted that Toni Wolff become part of their household, saying that Wolff was "his other wife".

The Russian and Soviet poet Vladimir Mayakovsky lived with Lilya Brik, who was considered his muse, and her husband Osip Brik, an avant garde writer and critic.[16][17]

As recounted by Arthur Koestler in The Invisible Writing, a conspicuous fixture of the intellectual life of 1930s Budapest was a threesome - a husband, his wife and the wife's lover - who were writers and literary critics and had the habit of every day spending many hours, the three of them together, at one of the Hungarian capital's well known cafes. As noted by Koestler, their relationship was so open and had lasted so many years that it was no longer the subject of gossip.

The writer Aldous Huxley and his first wife Maria engaged in a ménage with Mary Hutchinson, a friend of Clive Bell.[18]

From 1939, Erwin Schrödinger, his wife Annemarie Bertel, and his mistress Hilde March had a ménage à trois.[19][20]

In 1963 the actress Hattie Jacques lived with her husband John Le Mesurier and her lover John Schofield.[21]

As featured in Professor Marston and the Wonder Women, William Moulton Marston and his legal wife Elizabeth Holloway Marston had a polyamorous life partner, Olive Byrne.[22][23][24][25][26][27]

See also

References
  1. Throuple Relationships vs Threesomes Explained: What It's Like To Be In A Three-Person Romance, HuffPost, 2016 July 28.
  2. "A thruple of a married male couple and their girlfriend want to have kids". PinkNews. 22 November 2017.
  3. "Glossary of poly terms". MoreThanTwo.
  4. Starkey, David (27 April 2000), Elizabeth, Chatto & Windus, ISBN 0-7011-6939-7
  5. Porter, Linda (19 March 2010), Katherine the Queen: The Remarkable Life of Katherine Parr, Macmillan, ISBN 978-0-230-71039-9
  6. Rousseau, Jean-Jacques (1987), Confessions, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-0-521-31500-5
  7. Poulet, Anne L. (12 December 2003), "Dorothea von Rodde-Schlözer (1770–1825)", Jean-Antoine Houdon: Sculptor of the Enlightenment, University of Chicago Press, p. 319, ISBN 0-226-67647-1
  8. Constantine, David (8 March 2001), Fields of Fire: a life of Sir William Hamilton, London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, p. 242 et seq, ISBN 1-84212-581-8
  9. Treasure, Geoffrey Russell Richards (1 January 1998). Who's who in British History: A-H. Taylor & Francis. p. 1115. ISBN 9781884964909.
  10. Hands, Gill (2015). Marx: A complete introduction. London: Hodder & Stoughton Ltd. p. 35. ISBN 9781473608696.
  11. Bade, Patrick (2003). Félicien Rops. New York: Parkstone Press Ltd. p. 95. ISBN 1-85995-890-7.
  12. Revens, Lee (1975). The Graphic Work of Félicien Rops. New York, N. Y.: Léon Amiel Publisher. p. 286.
  13. Félicien Rops Biography. Musée Félicien Rops, Province de Numar. Accessed 12 September 2019 https://www.museerops.be/biographie
  14. Perrin, Noel (1 September 2003). A Child's Delight. University Press of New England. p. 106. ISBN 1-58465-352-3.
  15. Bair, Deirdre (13 November 2003), Jung: A Biography, Boston: Little, Brown, ISBN 0-316-07665-1
  16. Gray, du Plessix Gray (6 June 2006), Them: A Memoir of Parents, New York: Penguin Press, pp. 51–52, ISBN 0-14-303719-6, In 1918, when Mayakovsky and the Briks became inseparable, he simply moved in with them. Throughout the rest of his life, he made his home at a succession of flats that the Briks occupied.
  17. Elena Golovin (June 2000), Караван Историй [Caravan Stories] (in Russian), retrieved 6 September 2013
  18. Mars-Jones, Adam (6 April 2002), "Aldous and His Women", The Observer, retrieved 6 September 2013, Aldous was shy and impractical, not the sort of man who could manage adultery without help from his wife. The correspondence with Mary Hutchinson makes clear that Maria was not merely complicit but actively 'omnifutuent', to borrow her husband's splendid word for bisexuality.
  19. Moore, Walter J. (29 May 1992), Schrödinger: Life and Thought, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0-521-43767-9
  20. Daugherty, Brian. "Brief Chronology". Erwin Schrödinger. Archived from the original on 9 March 2012. Retrieved 10 December 2012.
  21. BBC Four: Hattie
  22. Lamb, Marguerite. "Who Was Wonder Woman? Long-Ago LAW Alumna Elizabeth Marston Was the Muse Who Gave Us a Superheroine", Boston University Alumni Magazine, Fall 2001.
  23. Marston, Christie (20 October 2017). "What 'Professor Marston' Misses About Wonder Woman's Origins (Guest Column)". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 21 October 2017.
  24. "Alumni Spotlight: Elizabeth Holloway Marston (LAW '18)"
  25. Malcolm, Andrew H. "OUR TOWNS; She's Behind the Match For That Man of Steel". The New York Times, 18 February 1992.
  26. Moon, Michael (12 March 2012). Darger's Resources. Duke University Press. ISBN 978-0822351566.
  27. Daniels, Les (2000). Wonder Woman: The complete History. Chronicle Books. ISBN 0-8118-2913-8.

Further reading
  • Birbara Finocster, Michael Foster, Letha Friehakd. Three in Love: Ménages à trois from Ancient to Modern Times. ISBN 0-595-00807-0.
  • Vicki Vantoch. The Threesome Handbook: A Practical Guide to sleeping with three. ISBN 9781568583334.
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