Boston Marriage
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

A "Boston marriage" was, historically, the
cohabitation Cohabitation is an arrangement where people who are not married, usually couples, live together. They are often involved in a romantic or sexually intimate relationship on a long-term or permanent basis. Such arrangements have become increas ...
of two wealthy women, independent of financial support from a man. The term is said to have been in use in
New England New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York to the west and by the Canadian provinces ...
in the late 19th/early 20th century. Some of these relationships were romantic in nature and might now be considered a
lesbian A lesbian is a Homosexuality, homosexual woman.Zimmerman, p. 453. The word is also used for women in relation to their sexual identity or sexual behavior, regardless of sexual orientation, or as an adjective to characterize or associate n ...
relationship; others were not.


Etymology

The fact of relatively formalized
romantic friendship A romantic friendship, passionate friendship, or affectionate friendship is a very close but typically non-sexual relationship between friends, often involving a degree of physical closeness beyond that which is common in contemporary Western ...
s or
life partner The term significant other (SO) has different uses in psychology and in colloquial language. Colloquially, "significant other" is used as a gender-neutral term for a person's partner in an intimate relationship without disclosing or presuming ...
ships between women predates the term ''Boston marriage'' and there is a long record of it in England and other European countries.Elizabeth Mavor, ''The Ladies of Llangollen'' (London: Penguin, 1971) The term ''Boston marriage'' became associated with
Henry James Henry James ( – ) was an American-British author. He is regarded as a key transitional figure between literary realism and literary modernism, and is considered by many to be among the greatest novelists in the English language. He was the ...
's ''
The Bostonians ''The Bostonians'' is a novel by Henry James, first published as a serial in '' The Century Magazine'' in 1885–1886 and then as a book in 1886. This bittersweet tragicomedy centres on an odd triangle of characters: Basil Ransom, a political c ...
'' (1886), a novel involving a long-term co-habiting relationship between two unmarried women, "
new women ''New Women'' () is a 1935 Chinese silent drama film produced by the United Photoplay Service. It is sometimes translated as ''New Woman''. The film starred Ruan Lingyu (in her penultimate film) and was directed by Cai Chusheng. This film became ...
", although James himself never used the term. James' sister Alice lived in such a relationship with Katherine Loring and was among his sources for the novel. Some examples of women in "Boston marriages" were well known. In the late 1700s, for example, Anglo-Irish upper-class women Eleanor Butler and Sarah Ponsonby were identified as a couple and nicknamed the
Ladies of Llangollen The "Ladies of Llangollen", Eleanor Butler (1739–1829) and Sarah Ponsonby (1755–1831), were two upper-class Irish women whose relationship scandalised and fascinated their contemporaries. The pair moved to a Gothic house in Llangollen, No ...
. Elizabeth Mavor suggests that the institution of romantic friendships between women reached a zenith in eighteenth-century England. In the U.S., a prominent example is that of novelist
Sarah Orne Jewett Theodora Sarah Orne Jewett (September 3, 1849 – June 24, 1909) was an American novelist, short story writer and poet, best known for her local color works set along or near the southern coast of Maine. Jewett is recognized as an important ...
and her companion
Annie Adams Fields Annie Adams Fields (June 6, 1834 – January 5, 1915) was an American writer. Among her writings are collections of poetry and essays as well as several memoirs and biographies of her literary acquaintances. She was also interested in philanthrop ...
, widow of the editor of ''
The Atlantic Monthly ''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher. It features articles in the fields of politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science. It was founded in 1857 in Boston, ...
,'' during the late 1800s.Rita K. Gollin, ''Annie Adams Fields'' (Amherst: University of Massachusetts, 2011)
Lillian Faderman Lillian Faderman (born July 18, 1940) is an American historian whose books on lesbian history and LGBT history have earned critical praise and awards. ''The New York Times'' named three of her books on its "Notable Books of the Year" list. In addi ...
provided one of the most comprehensive studies of Boston marriages in ''Surpassing the Love of Men'' (1981).Faderman, Lillian. (1981.) ''Surpassing the Love of Men''. New York: William Morrow and Company. . Twentieth-century film reviewers used the term to describe the Jewett-Fields relationship depicted in the 1998 documentary film ''Out of the Past''.
David Mamet David Alan Mamet (; born November 30, 1947) is an American playwright, filmmaker, and author. He won a Pulitzer Prize and received Tony Award, Tony nominations for his plays ''Glengarry Glen Ross'' (1984) and ''Speed-the-Plow'' (1988). He first ...
's play ''Boston Marriage'' premiered in 2000 and helped popularize the term.


Sociology

Some women in Boston marriages did so because they felt they had a better connection to women than to men.D'Emilio, John, and Estelle Freedman. (2012). ''Intimate matters: A history of sexuality in America'' (third edition). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. . Some of these women lived together out of necessity; such women were generally financially independent due to family inheritance or career earnings. Women who chose to have a career (doctor, scientist, professor) created a new group of women, known as
new women ''New Women'' () is a 1935 Chinese silent drama film produced by the United Photoplay Service. It is sometimes translated as ''New Woman''. The film starred Ruan Lingyu (in her penultimate film) and was directed by Cai Chusheng. This film became ...
,Ponder, Melinda M. (2017). ''Katharine Lee Bates: From Sea to Shining Sea''. Chicago, IL: Windy City Publishers. who were not financially dependent upon men. Educated women with careers who wanted to live with other women were allowed a measure of social acceptance and freedom to arrange their own lives.Faderman, Lillian ''To Believe in Women: What Lesbians Have Done For America - A History'' (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1999) They were usually feminists with shared values, involved in social and cultural causes. Such women were generally self-sufficient in their own lives, but gravitated to each other for support in an often disapproving, sexist, and sometimes hostile society. Until the 1920s, these arrangements were widely regarded as natural and respectable. After the 1920s, women in such relationships were increasingly suspected of being in lesbian sexual relationships, so fewer single women chose to live together.


Wellesley marriage

Boston marriages were so common at
Wellesley College Wellesley College is a private women's liberal arts college in Wellesley, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1870 by Henry and Pauline Durant as a female seminary, it is a member of the original Seven Sisters Colleges, an unofficial g ...
in the late 19th and early 20th centuries that the term Wellesley marriage became a popular description. Typically, the relationship involved two academic women. This was common from about 1870 until 1920. Until the later part of the 20th century, women were expected to resign from their academic posts upon marriage, so any woman who wanted to keep her academic career had to make housing arrangements other than a home with a husband and children, such as sharing a home with another like-minded single female professor. Additionally, as Lillian Faderman points out, college educated women commonly found more independence, support, and like-mindedness by partnering with other women. Further, these alternative relationships freed women from the burdens of child-rearing, tending to husbands, and other domestic duties, thus allowing professional women like college faculty to focus on their research. There are many examples of Wellesley marriages in the historical record. Faderman documented that in the late 19th century, of the 53 women faculty at Wellesley, only one woman was conventionally married to a man; most of the others lived with a female companion. One of the most famous pairs were
Katharine Lee Bates Katharine Lee Bates (August 12, 1859 – March 28, 1929) was an American author and poet, chiefly remembered for her anthem "America the Beautiful", but also for her many books and articles on social reform, on which she was a noted speaker. Bat ...
and Katharine Ellis Coman. Bates was a professor of poetry and the author of the words to "
America the Beautiful "America the Beautiful" is a patriotic American song. Its lyrics were written by Katharine Lee Bates and its music was composed by church organist and choirmaster Samuel A. Ward at Grace Episcopal Church in Newark, New Jersey. The two never m ...
", while Coman was an
economic historian Economic history is the academic learning of economies or economic events of the past. Research is conducted using a combination of historical methods, statistical methods and the application of economic theory to historical situations and inst ...
who is credited with writing the first industrial history of the US.Vaughn, Gerald F. (2004). "Katharine Coman: America's first woman institutional economist and a champion of education for citizenship". ''Journal of Economic Issues'' 38(4): 989–1002. .


See also

*
Marriage in the United States Marriage in the United States is a legal, social, and religious institution. The marriage age in the United States is set by each state and territory, either by statute or the common law applies. An individual may marry in the United States as of ...
*
Queerplatonic relationship Queerplatonic relationships (QPR) and queerplatonic partnerships (QPP) are committed intimate relationships which are not romantic in nature. They may differ from usual close friendships by having more explicit commitment, validation, status, str ...
– non-romantic intimate partnerships *
Romantic friendship A romantic friendship, passionate friendship, or affectionate friendship is a very close but typically non-sexual relationship between friends, often involving a degree of physical closeness beyond that which is common in contemporary Western ...
– a close, non-sexual friendship *
Roommate A roommate is a person with whom one shares a living facility such as a room or dormitory ''except'' when being family or romantically involved. Similar terms include dormmate, suitemate, housemate, or flatmate ("flat": the usual term in Britis ...
*
Same-sex marriage in Massachusetts Same-sex marriage in Massachusetts has been legally recognized since May 17, 2004, as a result of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) ruling in ''Goodridge v. Department of Public Health'' that it was unconstitutional under the Massa ...
*
Womance A womance is a close but non-sexual, non-romantic relationship between two or more women. It is an exceptionally tight affectional, homosocial female bonding relationship exceeding that of usual friendship, and is distinguished by a particularly ...


References


Bibliography

* Katherine B. Davis, ''Factors in the sex life of twenty-two hundred women'' (NY: Harper Brothers, 1929) * Lillian Faderman, ''Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers: A History of Lesbian Life in Twentieth-Century America'' (Columbia University Press, 1991) * Lillian Faderman, ''Surpassing the Love of Men: Romantic Friendship and Love Between Women from the Renaissance to the Present'' (NY: Morrow, 1981) * Carol Brooks Gardner, "Boston marriages", in Jodi O'Brien, ed., ''Encyclopedia of Gender and Society'', vol. 1 (SAGE Publications, 2009), pp. 87–88
available online
(mistakenly says Henry James used the term) * Rita K. Gollin, ''Annie Adams Fields: Woman of Letters'' (University of Massachusetts, Amherst, 2011) * Elizabeth Mavor, ''The Ladies of Llangollen: A Study of Romantic Friendship'' (London: Penguin, 1971) * Esther D. Rothblum and Kathleen A. Brehony, eds., ''Boston Marriages: Romantic but Asexual Relationships Among Contemporary Lesbians'' (University of Massachusetts Press, 1993) * Carroll Smith-Rosenberg, ''Disorderly Conduct: Visions of Gender in Victorian America'' (Oxford University Press, 1986)


External links



€”''
Ms. Ms. (American English) or Ms (British English; normally , but also , or when unstressed)''Oxford English Dictionary'' online, Ms, ''n.2''. Etymology: "An orthographic and phonetic blend of Mrs ''n.1'' and miss ''n.2'' Compare mizz ''n.'' The pr ...
'' magazine, essay by
Pagan Kennedy Pagan Kennedy (born c. 1963) is an American citizen, American columnist and author, and pioneer of the 1990s zine movement. She has written ten books in a variety of genres, was a regular contributor to the ''Boston Globe'', and has published ar ...
.
"Boston Marriage"
€”list of relevant articles on
About.com Dotdash Meredith (formerly About.com) is an American digital media company based in New York City. The company publishes online articles and videos about various subjects across categories including health, home, food, finance, tech, beauty, ...
{{DEFAULTSORT:Boston Marriage History of women in the United States 19th century in LGBT history 20th century in LGBT history Same-sex relationship Lesbian history in the United States Cultural history of Boston