Ménage à trois

{{short description|Romantic relationship with three partners}} {{for multi| a grouping of three people|Triad (sociology)|a romantic rivalry involving three people|Love triangle|sexual activity involving three people at the same time|Threesome|other uses|Ménage à trois (disambiguation)}} {{Italic title|reason=.}} {{Use dmy dates|date=May 2021}} thumb|Postcard, {{circa}} 1910|265x265px {{Polyamory sidebar}}

A '''{{lang|fr|ménage à trois}}''' ({{IPA|fr|menaʒ a tʁwɑ|lang}}) is a domestic arrangement or committed relationship consisting of three people in polyamorous romantic or sexual relations with each other, and often dwelling together.<ref name="Daily 2022">{{cite web | last=Daily | first=Katelyn Grganto The | title=The magic of ménage à trois | website=The Daily of the University of Washington | date=March 8, 2022 | url=https://www.dailyuw.com/arts_and_culture/the-magic-of-m-nage-trois/article_6b46494e-4ba7-11ea-a945-bb73b61cb023.html | access-date=March 9, 2022}}</ref><ref name="Reed 2017">{{cite web | last=Reed | first=Rex | title='Professor Marston' Tells the True Story of a Kinky Threesome | website=Observer | date=October 23, 2017 | url=https://observer.com/2017/10/professor-marston-and-the-wonder-women-movie-review/ | access-date=March 9, 2022}}</ref> The phrase is a loan from French meaning "household of three". Contemporary arrangements are sometimes identified as a '''throuple''',<ref>[https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/throuple-meaning-what-you-do-in-a-three-person-relationship_uk_5798ba5be4b0796a0b611e7a Throuple Relationships vs Threesomes Explained: What It's Like To Be In A Three-Person Romance], ''HuffPost'', 2016 July 28.</ref> '''thruple''',<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2017/11/22/this-thruple-of-two-men-and-a-woman-want-to-adopt-kids/ | title=A thruple of a married male couple and their girlfriend want to have kids | work=PinkNews | date=22 November 2017}}</ref> or '''triad'''.<ref>{{cite web | url=http://blackandpoly.org/dictionary/ | title=Black and Poly Dictionary | website=BlackAndPoly | date=13 November 2017 | access-date=13 November 2022 | archive-date=18 May 2023 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230518073143/http://blackandpoly.org/dictionary/ | url-status=dead }}</ref>

==Terminology== While this relationship type usually involves elements of bisexuality, occasionally at least one participant is homosexual.<ref name="Encyclopedia.com 2022">{{cite web | title=Ménage à Trois | website=Encyclopedia.com | date=February 28, 2022 | url=https://www.encyclopedia.com/social-sciences/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/menage-trois | access-date=March 19, 2022}}</ref> Because this term is sometimes interchangeably used for a threesome, which solely refers to a sexual experience involving three people, it can sometimes be misrepresented as some type of casual encounter.<ref name="Publishing 2009 p. 138">{{cite book | last=Publishing | first=B. | title=Faux Pas?: A No-Nonsense Guide to Words and Phrases from Other Languages | publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing | year=2009 | isbn=978-1-4081-0348-7 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aoSxAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA138 | access-date=March 19, 2022 | page=138}}</ref> Although ''ménage à trois'' is a type of polyamorous relationships with three individuals, polyamory takes many different forms. The topic sometimes overlaps seemingly opposing concepts such as Christian feminism and lesbian feminism.<ref name="Roach 2003 p. 16">{{cite book | last=Roach | first=C.M. | title=Mother / Nature: Popular Culture and Environmental Ethics | publisher=Indiana University Press | year=2003 | isbn=978-0-253-10978-1 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=znCu-JEASj4C&pg=PA16 | access-date=March 19, 2022 | page=16}}</ref><ref name="Roffey 2019">{{cite web | last=Roffey | first=Monique | title=Reinventing the ménage à trois for the feminist age | website=Boundless | date=August 23, 2019 | url=https://unbound.com/boundless/2019/08/23/feminist-possibilities-for-the-menage-a-trois/ | access-date=March 19, 2022}}</ref> These ideas were explored by film maker Angela Robinson in her film ''Professor Marston and the Wonder Women'' through the love story of historical couple William Moulton Marston and Elizabeth Holloway Marston with their research assistant Olive Byrne.<ref name="Berlatsky 2017">{{cite web | last=Berlatsky | first=Noah | title=The crucial thing the new Wonder Woman movie gets right | website=The Verge | date=October 16, 2017 | url=https://www.theverge.com/2017/10/16/16481692/wonder-woman-professor-marston-homophobia-history-sexuality-real-life-vs-fiction | access-date=March 19, 2022}}</ref><ref name="The Comics Journal 2017">{{cite web | title=Professor Marston and the Wonder Women | website=The Comics Journal | date=October 17, 2017 | url=https://www.tcj.com/professor-marston-and-the-wonder-women/ | access-date=March 19, 2022}}</ref><ref name="Ph.D. 2017">{{cite web | last=Ph.D. | first=Travis Langley | title=The "True Story" of Wonder Woman's Marston Ménage à Trois | website=Psychology Today | date=October 9, 2017 | url=https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/beyond-heroes-and-villains/201710/the-true-story-wonder-womans-marston-m-nage-trois | access-date=March 19, 2022}}</ref>

Both the term and way of life are topics of discussion in areas associated with Christendom and Romance languages.<ref name="Gill 2008 p.">{{cite book | last=Gill | first=A.J.M.C. | title=Vera Amicizia : Conjugal Friendship in the Italian Renaissance | publisher=University of California, Berkeley | year=2008 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2yZPAQAAMAAJ | access-date=March 19, 2022 | page=}}</ref>

==Examples== ===Ancient history=== Traditional ideas of the Abrahamic faiths and Christian views on marriage are prevalent in literature and media discussing this topic.<ref name="Williams 2018">{{cite web | last=Williams | first=Holly | title=The art of the ménage à trois | website=BBC Culture | date=November 7, 2018 | url=https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20181107-the-art-of-the-mnage-trois | access-date=March 19, 2022}}</ref> Patriarchs Abraham and Sarah had an arrangement with Sarah's handmaiden Hagar.<ref name="Women's League for Conservative Judaism Engaging, enriching, and empowering Conservative Jewish women 2013">{{cite web | title=November – Infertility, Surrogacy and Adoption | website=Women's League for Conservative Judaism | date=December 4, 2013 | url=https://www.wlcj.org/pastresources/mishpacha/november/ | access-date=March 19, 2022}}</ref> Interpretations of this vary, for example Judaism and Islam treat it much more like a polygamous situation, whereas Christian sources sometimes discuss the love triangle aspect of it, which are not directly analogous with a ménage à trois. Similarly when Jacob married Leah and Rachel, the polygamy and love triangle perspectives are well researched compared to the ménage à trois.<ref name="Frankel 2001 p. 132">{{cite book | last=Frankel | first=J. | title=Jews and Gender: The Challenge to Hierarchy | publisher=Oxford University Press | series=Studies in Contemporary Jewry | year=2001 | isbn=978-0-19-534977-1 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=47F-KDRr3rYC&pg=PA132 | access-date=March 19, 2022 | page=132}}</ref>

Sappho's writings influenced the early Christian church, and the topic of lesbianism within the ménage à trois framework of Christian couples began to be explored in post-Renaissance literature within Christian media.<ref name="Classics">{{cite web | title=A Neoplatonic, Christian Sappho: Reading Synesius' Ninth Hymn – Classics@ Journal | website=Classics@ Journal – Classical scholarship that engages issues of great significance to a wide range of cultural and scholarly concerns | url=https://classics-at.chs.harvard.edu/classics16-cochran/ | access-date=March 19, 2022}}</ref><ref name="Freeman 2016 p. 80">{{cite book | last=Freeman | first=P. | title=Searching for Sappho: The Lost Songs and World of the First Woman Poet | publisher=W. W. Norton | year=2016 | isbn=978-0-393-24224-9 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bPR1CQAAQBAJ&pg=PT80 | access-date=March 19, 2022 | page=80}}</ref><ref name="Probe Ministries 2005">{{cite web | title=Menage A Trois | website=Probe Ministries | date=November 16, 2005 | url=https://probe.org/tag/menage-a-trois/ | access-date=March 19, 2022}}</ref><ref name="Henking 2010">{{cite web | last=Henking | first=Susan | title=Lesbian Panic Reaches Apogee With Kagan Rumors | website=Religion Dispatches | date=May 12, 2010 | url=https://religiondispatches.org/lesbian-panic-reaches-apogee-with-kagan-rumors/ | access-date=March 19, 2022}}</ref><ref name="Gill 2008 p."/>

=== Post-Renaissance history ===  Grand Duchess Anna Leopoldovna, regent of Russia from 1740 to 1741, was involved simultaneously in affairs with the Saxon ambassador Count Moritz zu Lynar and her lady-in-waiting Mengden.{{sfn|Moss|2001|p=254}}<ref name="Troyat2000">{{Cite book |last=Troyat |first=Henri |title=Terrible Tsarinas: Five Russian Women in Power |publisher=Algora Publishing |year=2000 |isbn=978-1-892941-54-1 |location=New York |page=99}}</ref> The regent's relationship with Mengden caused much disgust in Russia, and many believed her preoccupation with her relationships with Lynar and Mengden at the expense of governing made her a danger to the state. She was later overthrown in a coup.<ref name="Moss2001">{{Cite book |last=Moss |first=Walter |title=A History of Russia |publisher=MacGraw-Hill |year=2001 |isbn=978-1-84331-023-5 |volume=I |location=Boston |page=254}}</ref>

In his youth, thirteen years her junior, the French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) 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.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Rousseau |first=Jean-Jacques |url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780521328036 |title=Confessions |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=1987 |isbn=978-0-521-31500-5 |url-access=registration}}</ref>

The German intellectual Dorothea von Rodde-Schlözer (1770–1825), 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.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Poulet |first=Anne L. |title=Jean-Antoine Houdon: Sculptor of the Enlightenment |date=2003-12-12 |publisher=University of Chicago Press |isbn=978-0-226-67647-0 |page=319 |chapter=Dorothea von Rodde-Schlözer (1770–1825) |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EV0BgrzV-fkC&pg=PA319}}</ref>

The British Admiral Horatio Nelson (1758–1805) was in a ''ménage à trois'' with his lover Emma, Lady Hamilton, and her husband William Hamilton, the British ambassador to Naples, from 1799 until Nelson's death in 1805.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Constantine |first=David |title=Fields of Fire: a life of Sir William Hamilton |date=2001-03-08 |publisher=Weidenfeld & Nicolson |isbn=978-1-84212-581-6 |location=London |page=242 et seq |author-link=David Constantine}}</ref>

At the age of 16, in 1813, the future author of ''Frankenstein'', Mary Godwin (1797–1851), 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.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Treasure |first=Geoffrey Russell Richards |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fLeeV-mqlJMC&pg=PA1115 |title=Who's who in British History: A-H |date=1998-01-01 |publisher=Taylor & Francis |isbn=978-1-884964-90-9 |page=1115 |language=en}}</ref>

The Italian composer Luigi Ricci (1805–1859) married Ludmila Stolz, while still maintaining a relationship with her identical twin sister Francesca. He had a child with each.

The political philosopher Friedrich Engels (1820–1895) lived in a ''ménage à trois'' with his mistress Mary Burns and her sister Lizzie.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Hands |first=Gill |title=Marx: A complete introduction |date=2015 |publisher=Hodder & Stoughton Ltd. |isbn=978-1-4736-0869-6 |location=London |page=35}}</ref>

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.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Bade |first=Patrick |title=Félicien Rops |date=2003 |publisher=Parkstone Press Ltd |isbn=978-1-85995-890-2 |location=New York |page=95}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Revens |first=Lee |title=The Graphic Work of Félicien Rops |date=1975 |publisher=Léon Amiel Publisher |location=New York, N. Y. |page=286}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Félicien Rops Biography |url=https://www.museerops.be/biographie |access-date=12 September 2019 |website=Musée Félicien Rops |publisher=Province de Numar |language=fr}}</ref>

The author E. Nesbit (1858–1924) lived with her husband Hubert Bland and his mistress Alice Hoatson, and raised their children as her own.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Perrin |first=Noel |title=A Child's Delight |date=2003-09-01 |publisher=University Press of New England |isbn=978-1-58465-352-3 |page=106 |author-link=Noel Perrin}}</ref>

In 1913, psychoanalyst Carl Jung (1875–1961) began a relationship with a young patient, Toni Wolff, which lasted for some decades. Deirdre Bair, in her biography of Carl Jung,<ref>{{Cite book |last=Bair |first=Deirdre |title=Jung: A Biography |date=2003-11-13 |publisher=Little, Brown |isbn=978-0-316-07665-4 |location=Boston |author-link=Deirdre Bair}}</ref> 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 (1893–1930) lived with Lilya Brik, who was considered his muse, and her husband Osip Brik, an ''avant garde'' writer and critic.<ref>{{Citation |last=Gray |first=du Plessix Gray |title=Them: A Memoir of Parents |date=2006-06-06 |pages=51–52 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QdLMFUEkOJQC |place=New York |publisher=Penguin Press |isbn=978-0-14-303719-4 |quote=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. |author-link=Francine du Plessix Gray}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Elena Golovin |date=June 2000 |script-title=ru:Караван Историй |trans-title=Caravan Stories |url=https://www.peoples.ru/love/mayakovsky-brik/ |access-date=2013-09-06 |language=ru}}</ref>

The English poet, novelist and critic Robert Graves (1895–1985) and his wife Nancy Nicholson for some years attempted a triadic relationship called "The Trinity" with Laura Riding, a woman that Graves met and fell in love with in 1926. This triangle became the "Holy Circle" with the addition of Irish poet Geoffrey Phibbs, who himself was still married to Irish artist Norah McGuinness.<ref>{{cite book |last=Seymour |first=Miranda |date=2003 |orig-date=1995 |title=Robert Graves: Life on the Edge |publisher=Scribner |isbn=978-0-7432-3219-7 |page=163}}</ref>

As recounted by the author and journalist Arthur Koestler (1905–1983) 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 lasted so many years that it became no longer the subject of gossip.

The Italian surrealist artist Leonor Fini (1907–1996) sustained a ''ménage à trois'' until her death with Italian Count Stanislao Lepri and Polish writer Konstanty Jelenski in Paris. The relationship is believed to have impacted Fini's work, as she depicts gender neutral individuals or figures where traditional gender roles are reversed with a passive male and dominant female, such as ''Woman Seated on Naked Man'' (1942).<ref>{{Cite web |last=Rivera |first=Lissa |author-link=Lissa Rivera |title='Leonor Fini: Theatre of Desire' with Lissa Rivera |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCDFuRppSiY |access-date=29 March 2022 |website=YouTube |publisher=ArtStudentsLeagueNY}}</ref>

The writer Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) and his first wife Maria engaged in a ''ménage'' with Mary Hutchinson, a friend of Clive Bell. Huxley coined the term "omnifutuent", referring to bisexuality.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Mars-Jones |first=Adam |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2002/apr/07/biography.highereducation1 |title=Aldous and His Women |date=2002-04-06 |publisher=The Observer |quote=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. |author-link=Adam Mars-Jones |access-date=2013-09-06}}</ref>

From 1939, the Nobel Prize winning German physicist Erwin Schrödinger (1887–1961), his wife, Annemarie Bertel, and his mistress, Hilde March, had a ''ménage à trois''.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Moore |first=Walter J. |title=Schrödinger: Life and Thought |date=1992-05-29 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-43767-7 |location=Cambridge}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Daugherty |first=Brian |title=Brief Chronology |url=http://bdaugherty.tripod.com/berlin/schrodinger.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120309141433/http://bdaugherty.tripod.com/berlin/schrodinger.html |archive-date=9 March 2012 |access-date=10 December 2012 |website=Erwin Schrödinger}}</ref>

Charles Moulton, the creator of Wonder Woman, lived with two women, his wife Elizabeth Holloway Marston, and Olive Byrne, until he died. Charles had two children with each. Elizabeth supported the family financially while Olive stayed home to take care of all four children.<ref name=hrcm/>

In 1963, the actress Hattie Jacques (1922–1980) lived with her husband John Le Mesurier and her lover John Schofield.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Hattie |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00xllyq |website=BBC Four}}</ref>

The French President François Mitterrand, his wife Danielle Mitterrand and her companion Jean Balenci, in a ''ménage à trois'' which constituted Mitterrand's 'official' family (for their close circle) until the start of his presidency in 1981.<ref>{{Cite web |author=Short, Philip |url=https://www.google.fr/books/edition/Mitterrand/_aqtAAAAQBAJ?hl=fr&gbpv=1&dq=danielle+mitterrand+balenci+menage+a+trois+a+study+in+ambiguity&pg=PR10&printsec=frontcover |title=Mitterrand – A Study in Ambiguity |page=X (Acknowledgements) |publisher=Random House |isbn=978-1-4481-9189-5 |date=22 December 2014 }}</ref>

Some 21st-century examples of notable triads include Seven Lions, who lives with his wife Emma and their girlfriend Courtney Simmons; Bella Thorne, who was publicly in a throuple with rapper Mod Sun and influencer Tana Mongeau from 2017 to 2019; Frankie Grande, a gay actor, describes living in a gay triad<ref name="cosmo24">{{Cite web |date=2024-03-05 |title=12 polyamorous celebrities who've opened up about non-monogamy |url=https://www.cosmopolitan.com/uk/love-sex/relationships/g39137546/polyamorous-celebrities/ |access-date=2024-10-14 |website=Cosmopolitan |language=en-GB}}</ref> and ''RuPaul's Drag Race'' contestant Derrick Barry and his partners Nick San Pedro and Mackenzie Clauda, a fellow drag queen better known as Alaska Thunderfuck. <ref>{{Cite magazine|url=https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/1-2-3-why-dont-me-you-he-inside-drag-race_us_5881029fe4b0d96b98c1d9a0|title=Inside 'Drag Race' Star Derrick Barry's 'Trinogomous' Relationship|last=Mar|first=Pollo Del|date=January 19, 2017|magazine=HuffPost|language=en-US|access-date=June 10, 2018}}</ref>

===Cultural influence=== Folie à Deux winery has a popular set of wines labeled as Ménage à Trois.

In the ''Seinfeld'' TV series, season 6, episode 11, titled "The Switch," Jerry and George use this term as they devise a solution to address challenges in their relationships with women.

Wonder Woman is based on two women that were in a real life ménage à trois, as featured in ''Professor Marston and the Wonder Women'', the creator of the comic, William Moulton Marston, and his legal wife, Elizabeth Holloway Marston, had a polyamorous life partner, Olive Byrne.<ref name="bu">Lamb, Marguerite. "[https://web.archive.org/web/20040202224438/http://www.bu.edu/alumni/bostonia/2001/fall/wonderwoman Who Was Wonder Woman? Long-Ago LAW Alumna Elizabeth Marston Was the Muse Who Gave Us a Superheroine]", ''Boston University Alumni Magazine'', Fall 2001.</ref><ref name=hrcm>{{cite web|url=https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/what-professor-marston-misses-wonder-womans-origins-guest-column-1049868|title=What 'Professor Marston' Misses About Wonder Woman's Origins (Guest Column)|access-date=21 October 2017|last=Marston|first=Christie|date=20 October 2017|work=The Hollywood Reporter}}</ref><ref name="spotlight">[https://web.archive.org/web/20070222092804/http://www.bu.edu/law/prospective/jd/spotlight/sp-marston.html "Alumni Spotlight: Elizabeth Holloway Marston (LAW '18)"]</ref><ref name="outtowns">Malcolm, Andrew H. [https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E0CE1DF1539F93BA25751C0A964958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=print "OUR TOWNS; She's Behind the Match For That Man of Steel"]. ''The New York Times'', 18 February 1992.</ref><ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=H3yST26ZUJUC|title=Darger's Resources|last=Moon|first=Michael|date=2012-03-12|publisher=Duke University Press|isbn=978-0-8223-5156-6}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|title=Wonder Woman: The complete History|last=Daniels|first=Les|publisher=Chronicle Books|year=2000|isbn=978-0-8118-2913-7}}</ref>

==References== {{Reflist}}

==Further reading== *{{cite book| first1=Birbara | last1 = Finocster| first2= Michael| last2 = Foster| first3= Letha | last3 = Friehakd| title=Three in Love: Ménages à trois from Ancient to Modern Times | date = October 2000| publisher = iUniverse| isbn = 978-0-595-00807-0}} *{{cite book| first=Vicki | last = Vantoch| title=The Threesome Handbook: A Practical Guide to sleeping with three| date = 31 August 2007| publisher = Hachette Books| isbn =978-1-56858-333-4}}

==External links== * {{Wiktionary-inline|ménage à trois}} * [https://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/brit-wooed-2-gorgeous-women-throuple-article-1.2183501 How this Brit wooed two gorgeous women into his ‘throuple’] ''New York Daily News'' April 2015 * [https://bearworldmagazine.com/david-meets-the-cutest-throuple/ David meets: the cutest throuple] ''Bear World Magazine'' July 2016 {{Portal bar|Human sexuality}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Menage A Trois}} Category:Intimate relationships Category:Group sex Category:3 (number) Category:Polyamory Category:Trios