Ménage à trois is a French term which originally described a domestic arrangement in which three people having sexual relations occupy the same household – the phrase literally translates as ‘household of three’.
A Kama Sutra depiction of a threesome or ménage à trois
In contemporary usage, the meaning of the term has been extended to mean any living relationship between three people, whether or not sex is involved, but because it has also been extended to refer to the actual sexual act between three people, otherwise known as a threesome, the term retains its suggestive quality.
Some historic examples of a ménage are:
- Sir William Hamilton, who served as British ambassador to Naples, his wife Emma Hamilton, and her lover, the British naval hero Admiral Horatio Lord Nelson, from 1799 until Nelson’s death in 1805.
- The Duke of Devonshire, his wife Georgiana, the Duchess of Devonshire, and Lady Elizabeth Foster.
- Henry Mond, 2nd Baron Melchett his wife, Amy Gwen Wilson, and writer Gilbert Cannan.
- In Sweden in 1775, Count Adolf Fredrik Munck af Fulkila had reputedly been hired by King Gustaf III to assist him in the consummation of his marriage with Queen Sophie Magdalena. The king was to act as sexual instructor for the couple. His aid is alleged to have resulted in the birth of the future King Gustaf IV Adolf in 1778. By further rumours, he was the lover of the king as well as of the queen. These rumours eventually had serious political implications in the end of the House of Holstein-Gottorp’s rule in Sweden.
- The German intellectual Dorothea von Rodde-Schlözer, her husband Mattheus Rodde and the French philosopher Charles de Villers from 1794 until her husband’s death in 1810.
- Poet Ezra Pound, his wife Dorothy Shakespear and his mistress, concert violinist Olga Rudge.
- Surrealist painters Max Ernst, Paul Éluard and his wife Gala, later Gala Dalí.
- The writer Aldous Huxley and his first wife Maria, with Mary Hutchinson a friend of art critic Clive Bell.
- The author E. Nesbit lived with her husband Hubert Bland and his mistress Alice Hoatson, raising their children as her own.
- William Moulton Marston, creator of Wonder Woman, and his wife Elizabeth Holloway Marston lived with and shared a relationship with Olive Byrne.
- Philosophers Friedrich Nietzsche, Paul Rée and their mutual girlfriend Lou Andreas-Salomé lived in a so-called ‘academic commune’ around 1882.
- The actress and stage director Edith Craig who lived with and was in a relationship with the dramatist Christabel Marshall and the artist Clare Atwood from 1916 to 1947.
- The actress Hattie Jacques lived with her husband, the actor John Le Mesurier and her lover John Schofield.
- Speculation that, in 1547–8, Queen Catherine Parr, widow of Henry VIII, and her fourth husband Thomas Seymour were involved in a ménage with the future Queen Elizabeth, is probably exaggerated, although there were well attested episodes of sexually charged horseplay involving the three.
- 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.
- British actress Tilda Swinton lives in Nairn, near to Scottish painter John Byrne and their twin children: a son, Xavier, and a daughter, Honor. She travels with her partner Sandro Kopp, a German/New Zealand painter. She has been with Kopp since 2004 and the relationship has Byrne’s blessing. In an interview, Swinton commented on her domestic situation: “It’s the way we have been for nearly four years. I’m very fortunate. It takes some extraordinary men to make a situation like that work.”
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