On the one extreme were the Shakers, the Harmonists, and the followers of Jemima Wilkinson, who practiced celibacy. On the other were the Perfectionist societies led by Simon Lovett and John Humphrey Noyes, which indulged in free love. Lovett began preaching the doctrine of Spiritual Wifehood in New England in 1835, the same year that heard the first whispers of polygamy among the Mormons.
