Lesbian and Gay Marriage
through History and Culture

With or without the law, same-sex couples have been going ahead and celebrating public ceremonies of commitment for many years now, although the number of such ceremonies seems to be have been increasing recently.

Such legal moves, as well as the efforts by lesbian and gay couples to be recognized as such, face denunciation from some conservative voices who assert that by nature and divine will only relationships between men and women can be considered "natural". And, to be honest, there is also an unease expressed by some lesbian and gay activists who, recalling the critique of patriarchy made by 1970's feminism, see "marriage" as an irretrievably heterosexual institution.

This paper seeks not to establish that same-sex marriages were universally common in the past or in other non-Western cultures - such is plainly not true - but that same sex marriages did occur in sufficiently diverse historical and cultural contexts as to refute the assertion that "marriage" is irretrievably or "naturally" heterosexual. In other words, this paper shows that same-sex marital relationships, far from being recent effusions of American gay politics, have been and are conceivable to people in a wide range of periods and cultures. And the implication drawn is if that they are conceivable they are possible.

Definitions

No one denies either that committed, and even long term, same-sex relationships have occurred in many diverse cultures. But such private relationships are not what we consider as "marriage", any more than we would consider all long-term romantic relationships between a man and woman as "marriages". When we do try to separate marriage from other union relationships, though, we face a problem - there are no simple lines of demarcation.

In past societies, and sticking with heterosexual examples, relationships called by the words we would translate as "marriage" have in fact comprised wildly divergent arrangements:

• relationships between one man and many women. [polygyny - in many societies, for example Islam, ancient Israel]
• relationships between one man with a chief wife and subordinate wives and/or concubines. [China]
• relationships between one woman and many men. [polyandry - in Tibet]
• age dissonant relationships between one man and one woman where the man was usually an adult of about 30 and the woman a fifteen year old [e.g. Classical Athens, Renaissance Italy]
• relationships in which one man and one woman marry at roughly the same age, but without ever having met before. [Among some Orthodox Jews, in many Indian and Chinese societies.]
• relationships in which one man and one woman marry because they love each other. [so-called "companionate marriage" - the modern norm, and often traced back to the Protestant Reformers views on marriage.

What such "marriage relationships" seem to have in common are these factors:

• Domestic cohabitation
• Communal recognition
• Customary rules of conduct
• Some sort of ceremonial inception
• Some extension in time

• Legal recognition - marriage exists in societies without legal functions, or non-legal marriage is recognized even in "legally-minded" societies [e.g. in modern Scotland it is still possible to be married by "habit and repute".
• Love relationships.
• Child-rearing - children are often desired, but are not required.
• Monogamy.
• Permanence - divorce or permanent separation is allowed is most societies.

• Emotional commitment
• Legal recognition
• Monogamy

In looking at marriages - same-sex and mixed-sex - in the past, I suggest that we can take the word "marriage" to have a meaning. When certain criteria are met, it is legitimate for us to consider specific relationships as assimilable to what we consider "marriage". It may be that such relationships were not described by the word usually translated as "marriage" in the culture under discussion, or might not fit modern notions of "marriage" . However, where the following aspects are found, I consider that there is evidence of "marriage" - same-sex or otherwise:

• Domestic cohabitation
• Public, or semi public, ceremonies of union
• Communal recognition
• Extension in time

To make this discussion concrete, let us take, for example, the Romans. Rome had a sophisticated legal culture in which "marriage" - conubium - could only be contracted between citizens: slaves could not marry, nor could citizens marry non-citizens. It is, in fact, quite possible that there were areas in which most people were legally incapable of "marriage". (One implication here is that very many early Christians - slaves and freedpeople - in domestic "marital" relationships were not "married" according to Roman Law.) But, where we come across a couple, living together and raising children, acknowledged by all as a couple, I think we can consider the relationship "marital". A classic case is that of St. Augustine of Hippo. He never legally married, yet he lived with a women for many years, raised a child with her, and, when he eventually separated from her, took care to make sure that she did not go to another man. This was not a Roman conubium, and does not seem to have had a ceremonial inception, but would fulfill, I think, what any external observer, informed of the variety of world marital customs, would see as a "marriage". Certainly Augustine would have been "married' in Scotland. Where we find similar indications for same-sex couples - domestic cohabitation, public recognition of he relationship, extension in time, customary regulation - then I propose we also have evidence of "marriage".

Tranhistorical and Cross-cultural Evidence

Egypt

Of significance for this inquiry though is The Tomb of Niankhkhanum and Khanumhotep which was discovered in 1964 in the necropolis of Saqqara. According to the Internet site which mounts an exhibition on the couple, the tomb was found when archaeologists under the direction of Mounir Basta and Ahmed Mousa conducted a series of probes into the escarpment on the southern side of the causeway of Unas, where a series of rock-cut chambers were then discovered. When archaeologists began restoration work on the causeway it was discovered that certain of the blocks that were incorporated in its original construction had been appropriated in ancient times from a Mastaba that had been connected to the rock-cut chambers. The archaeologists reconstructed the mastaba using blocks found in the substructure of the causeway. It was revealed that this tomb had been built for two men to co-habit and that both shared identical titles in the palace of King Niusere of the Fifth Dynasty: "OVERSEER OF THE MANICURISTS IN THE PALACE OF THE KING." It is possible To take a tour of the tomb and to see some of the remarkable representations of these two men

For more on the Tomb of Niankhkhanum and Khanumhotep see "United For Eternity," KMT: A Modern Journal of Ancient Egypt , vol.4 no1 Spring,1993, p22. See also followup letters in KMT, vol.4 no2 Summer,1993 and KMT, vol.4 no3 Fall,1993.

For the complete photographic record of the tomb see Ahmed M. Moussa und Hartwig Altenmüller; Das Grab des Nianchchnum und Chnumhotep, (Mainz am Rhein, 1977)

Leaving aside the rather stereotypical occupation of the two men [which might give social constructionists pause for though!], this is one of the most dramatic, and probably the oldest, indication we have of a publicly acknowledged homosexual couple. Was it a "marriage"? Frankly I do not know, but their relationship certainly seems beyond any simple private affaire.

Ancient Greece

In fact there has long been ample evidence of long term relationships, recognized by contemporaries. For instance Plato's Symposium contains one long-term couple - Agathon and Pausanias, [Symposium 193C] and Aristotle discusses another couple, Philolaus and Diocles [Politics bk.2. 1274A] who capped a lifetime commitment by being buried together. The long term existence of male brothels in Athens should also give pause to anyone who wishes to claim that homosexuality only involved upper class men at the gymnasia.

It is somewhat difficult to establish, for Athens, that even these long term relationships were comparable to marriage. Outside Athens, however, there is rather strong evidence of public ceremonial couplings of same-sex lovers.

Cretan Boys' Ceremonial Partnerships

Sparta

The Sacred Band of Thebes

There were then in ancient Greece public same-sex relationships, formalized by public ceremonial, and intended to be of long duration. In some cases the "kin" relationship created was recognised. What such relationships do not seem to have involve were property rights and transactions, a major aspect of heterosexual marriages.

Ancient Rome

Long Term Homosexual Relationships

Although later Romans sometimes asserted that homosexuality was imported from Greece, by the close of the 6th century BCE, Polybius reported, there was widespread acceptance of homosexuality [Polybius, Histories, xxxii, ii].

Some homosexual relationships are documented as long term:
The sometime Consul, Lucius Quintius, a senator, and his long time lover were discussed by Plutarch in his Marcus Cato, [with another version of the story in his Flamininus]. The story is not very pleasant, but I will give it in full:
Cato named, as chief of the senate, his friend and colleague Lucius Valerius Flaccus,and expelled, among many others, Lucius Quintius, who had been consul seven years before, and (which was greater honor to him than the consulship) brother to that Titus Flaminius who overthrew King Philip. The reason he had for his expulsion was this. Lucius, it seems, took along with him in all his commands a youth whom he had kept as his companion from the flower of his age, and to whom he gave as much power and respect as to the chiefest of his friends and relations.

Now it happened that Lucius being consular governor of one of the provinces, the youth setting himself down by him, as he used to do, among other flatteries with which he played upon him, when he was in his cups, told him he loved him so dearly that, "though there was a show of gladiators to be seen at Rome, and I," he said, "had never beheld one in my life; and though I, as it were, longed to see a man killed, yet I made all possible haste to come to you." Upon this Lucius, returning his fondness, replied, "Do not be melancholy on that account; I can remedy that." Ordering therefore, forthwith, one of those condemned to die to be brought to the feast, together with the headsman and axe, he asked the youth if he wished to see him executed. The boy answering that he did, Lucius commanded the executioner to cut off his neck; and this several historians mention; and Cicero, indeed, in his dialogue de Senectute, introduces Cato relating it himself. But Livy says that he that was killed was a Gaulish deserter, and that Lucius did not execute him by the stroke of the executioner, but with his own hand; and that it is so stated in Cato's speech.

Lucius being thus expelled out of the senate by Cato, his brother took it very ill, and appealing to the people, desired that Cato should declare his reasons; and when he began to relate this transaction of the feast, Lucius endeavoured to deny it; but Cato challenging him to a formal investigation, he fell off and refused it, so that he was then acknowledged to suffer deservedly. Afterwards, however, when there was some show at the theatre, he passed by the seats where those who had been consuls used to be placed, and taking his seat a great way off, excited the compassion of the common people, who presently with a great noise made him go forward, and as much as they could tried to set right and salve over what had happened. Manilius, also, who, according to the public expectation, would have been next consul, he threw out of the senate, because, in the presence of his daughter, and in open day, he had kissed his wife. He said that, as for himself, his wife never came into his arms except when there was great thunder; so that it was for jest with him, that it was a pleasure for him, when Jupiter thundered.

Lucius Quintius seems to have been a odious character, but what is of note is that his relationship was long term - indeed he gave as much power and respect as to the chiefest of his friends and relations to his lover. He was expelled from the Senate not for this relationship, but because of his use of power to murder for entertainment. I have kept the story of Manilius as it highlights the cultural variability of what is acceptable conduct. I am not here asserting that Lucius Quintius was "married", just that homosexual relationships could indeed by public, involve cohabitation, and be long term.

In his Second Philippic Against Anthony [sect. 18], Cicero recounts that Mark Anthony, at first a high paid prostitute, had been "promoted to wifely status" and united as if in a "stable and permanent marriage (matrimonium)" by Curio, the son of Curio the elder. The relationship had been opposed by the father, and by Cicero. What is interesting though, as John Boswell points out [Boswell 80] is that Curio had contracted debts because of his relationship with Anthony and Cicero persuaded Curio the Elder to honor them. It is doubtful that Cicero saw the relationship as a legal marriage, but this is another case [and they could be multiplied] where a long-term homosexual relationship was understood, even by a person as straight-laced as Cicero as in some sense congruent with a heterosexual union.

Homosexual Marriage in Literature

In his account of the emperor Nero, Suetonius reports that Nero married two men. The first was the boy Sporus, who Nero had castrated and then he went through a wedding ceremony with him - dowry, bridal veil and all - took him to his palace..., and treated him as his wife {Suetonius, Nero 28]. Later on Nero was married by his freedman. Doryphorus now married him - just as he himself had married Sporus - and on his wedding night he imitated the screams and moans of a girl being deflowered [Suetonius, Nero 29].

What exactly these accounts mean is an interesting issue. Suetonius was a gossipmonger and a moralist. He checked his facts [the story is repeated in Tacitus, Annals 15.370, and Dio Cassius, Epitome, 62.28] , but meant his stories to be scandalously amusing. Nero's activities are no indication of customary practice, and it is noteworthy that in both his marriages he emulated male-female roles. But it is also true that, in the context of all the other "homosexual marriages" we find around the world, that in Rome also, the idea was conceivable.

This is perhaps better illustrated in Juvenal's Second Satire Against Hypocritical Queens [Humphries translation]. The Second Satire is a vicious attack on Roman homosexuals, replete with references to their mincing walk and so forth. Then there is this passage:
Gracchus has given a dowry, substance and sum, twenty thousand
To a cornettist, or maybe a type who plays the white flute.
Sealed, delivered and signed. Happy Days. There's a crowd at the dinner
The bride, almost in a swoon, reclines in the arms of her husband
O ye nobles of Rome, is our need for a seer or a censor?
Would you be startled more, be more aghast at the portent
If a woman bore a calf, or a cow dropped a ewe lamb?
Her is an ancient house, long privileged, long under tradition
To carry Mars' nodding shields along in holy procession
Sweating under their weight, the hand through the things of the leather
Yet here is a son of that house, a Gracchus, given in marriage
All tricked out in veil, in a bridal train, and in flounces!
Romulus, father - whence came disgrace like this on your shepherds?
Whence father mars, such and itch to fasten itself onto your grandsons?
Here is man renowned for wealth, distinguished in breeding,
Being wed to a man, and you do nothing about it.

Martial [12.42] also recounted a similar event:
The bearded Callistratus married the rugged Afer
Under the same law by which a woman takes a husband
Torches were carried before him, a bridal veil covered his face
Nor was the hymn to you, O God of marriage, omitted
A dowry was even agreed on. Does this not, Rome, seem
Enough? Do you expect him also to bear a child??

Passages such as these have led a number of scholars, such as John Boswell [Boswell, 80ff] and Edward Westermarck to conclude that formal marriages between men were introduced with all the solemnities of ordinary nuptials [Westermarck 106]. Other scholars, for instance Brent Shaw, attempt to dismiss such passages, noting that "Juvenal's lines would lack the wit and mordant punch that were obviously intended by their author" if homosexual marriages were commonplace [Shaw 40]. This is a duck and, I think, a failure to grasp the nature of satire. Juvenal also writes against women, and against Greek immigrants. His satire would not work if some women had not been doing the things they were accused of, or at least something like them, nor that Greek immigrants were not numerous. It does mean that as a satirist Juvenal was taking grumpy and one-sided observations from hostile witnesses and turning them into poetry. The point is that satire is based on exaggeration of observation, not invention.

Some upper-class homosexual men in the imperial period do seem to have established long-term relationships, and also celebrated these relationships in the form of public marriage ceremonies. Many others attended the rites.

It was not only among the upper class that we come across same-sex marital relationships. In Petronius Arbiter's Satyricon, the central couple are the homosexual lovers Giton and Encolpius. [They are, by the way, about the same age]. There relationship is referred to not as a conubium but as a contubernium [Satyricon 11, ref. Boswell]. This is interesting because it is the precise term given to slave "marital unions". Slaves, as unfree persons, could not contract a marriage in Roman law, but their long term relationships were recognized as forming a contubernium, perhaps best understood as "customary cohabitation". This would have been the only form of "marriage" available to many early Christians. In other words, in the Satyricon at least, a long term homosexual couple is understood in the same terms as heterosexual couplings. At one point Encolpius specifically states that his relationship with Giton "was like a bond of blood, unbreakable" [Satyricon 80]. It is worth noting that, for the incontrovertibly sexual couple, Petronius uses the word "brothers" repeatedly. Again and again we find that the relationship between two male lovers can be understood as creating an artifical kin relationship [like heterosexual marriage], and that in groping for words, culture after culture ends up with "brothers".

China

Li Yu [1611-1679/80], a widely read writer of his time, is one major source, addressing the topic in a number of his works. In one story - the Qing qi ji [Chronicle of Extraordinary Love]. Li Yu sets the story in Fujian and says it concerns two men who become "husband and wife" (fufu). Jifang, the hero, falls in love with Ruiji and decides he wants to marry him, - using the word qu (which refers to marriage) to describe the intended marital relationship. Assuming that the custom of homosexual marriage would be unfamiliar to his [non-Fujianese] readers, Li Yu provides an explanation:
In Fujian the southern custom is the same as that for women. One tries to discern a youth from whom this is the first marriage. If he is a virgin, men are willing to pay a large bride-price. They do not skip the three cups of tea, or the six wedding rituals - it is just like a proper marriage with a formal wedding. [Hinsch 127]
It was expected that at some time such an arrangement would come to an end as both men would later marry a woman, since the patrilineality of the Chinese family demanded male heirs. The plot of the Qing qi ji concerns how this is avoided by Ruiji essentially transforming himself into a woman. As Hinsch notes, Li Yu sees the devotion of homosexual marriage in the most idealistic terms: the change in gender is merely plot device.

Li Yu is not the only witness to this custom of homosexual marriage. The scholar Shen Defu (1578-1642) also wrote about it, and provides some interesting details. Of special interest is that two "united" men would often use sibling based terms - the older referred to as "adoptive older brother" (qixiong) and the younger as "adoptive younger brother" (qidi). Note that Shen Defu is quite explicit that these terms apply to sexual relationships. [Hinsch 131].

Other western scholars note that Shen Defu was quite clear that the male marriages in Fujian meant that the couples lived conventionally in households, and that the couple were supported by parents using money laid aside for their sons' marriage portion. The locals even created a special ideographic character to express these unions - substituting the component meaning "female" for the component signifying "physical strength" in the ideograph conventionally used for "male". [Spence 227]

It is to be emphasized that the male marriage ceremony went beyond sworn friendship ceremonies. There is a description of the friendship ceremony from Li Yu. Two men sacrifice a carp, a rooster and a duck. The they exchange the exact times of birth, smear each other mouths with the blood of the victims, and swear eternal loyalty to each other. The ceremony concludes with a feast on the victims. [Hinsch 131-32]. In male marriage, though, the younger would move into the elder's house, and would be treated as a son-in-law by parents. The marriages often lasted 20 or so years. At the end, the older partner might pay the bride-price for his husband to acquire a bride, to fulfill procreation duties.

As well as male homosexual marriages, there are also references in Chinese literature to "Golden Orchid Associations" - lesbian marriages, which seem to have been not uncommon in the Guangzhou area. The relationships were marked with ceremonies and long term co-habitation. The married lesbian couples could inherit from their families and adopt female children. [Hinsch 177-78]

The complexity of ritually created kinship is also shown in China, which at various periods also saw customs of artificially adopted kin with no erotic overtones. [Pruitt, passim]

There may still be remnants of this tradition in China, it seems. The Boston Globe (March 4, 1989, p.6) reported that two men - Ye Xing, 26, a People's Liberation Army Veteran, and Li Linxing [30], married in traditional ceremony. Local officials were hostile. [ref in Hinsch, 194.n46]. At the very least, such an event is witness that desire of homosexuals to marry is not a result of recent American sexual politics, but represents a widespread desire by gay people.

The Chinese same-sex unions fulfill all the factors identified as central to marriage - domestic cohabitation, communal recognition, customary rules, ceremonial inception, and extension in time. There can be no doubt that here we have one of the best examples from history of same sex marriages.

Japan

In the 17th century, since homosexual love was accepted as a completely normal aspect of male sexuality, it was governed by expected ethical standards. The beginning of a relationship between an adult and younger male [not a "child" by the way] was accompanied by the formal exchange of written and spoken vows, "giving the relationship a marriage like status", [Schalow 27]. The relationships were not purely about sex: the nenja - the older lover - was supposed to provide social backing, emotional support and a model of manliness, and the boy was supposed to be a good student of samurai manhood.

In the towns there was expected to be a substantial age difference. In the countryside, however, the age difference might be rather small [Schalow 28]. In these situations the vocabulary of brotherhood was used - one taking the role of the elder brother ani-bun], the other the role of younger brother [ototo-ban]. Hierarchy was essential to all aspects of Japanese homosexual relations, as also heterosexual relations.

Whether or not we can qualify these Japanese relationships as marital remains problematic. They certainly involved, communal recognition, customary rules, and a ceremonial inception, but the issue of cohabitation does not seem central and extension in time was limited. There are certainly marriage like elements, but also distinct differences.

South East Asia

Australia

India

In December 1987 two policewomen - Lila Namdeo and Urmila Srivastava, members of the 23rd Battalionbased near Bhopal, got married to each other. The ceremony consisted of an exchange of garlands - a gandharva vivah - conducted by a Brahmin in a Hindu temple at Sagar. Their parents had given their consent and were present at the ceremony.

The marriage caused an uproar. The women lost their jobs and were kept in solitary confinement for two days. Press coverage was immense, and raised the topic of sexuality in India as one for public discussion. Since official public discourse in India denied anything other than heterosexual existence until very recently, all sorts of media efforts were made to deny what the two women had done: it was said the relationship was not sexual; that Lila was a widow and Urmila a child bride who had rejected her husband; that there actions were determined by a cruel society. Overlooked was that they were both competent women employed in responsible adult work. Interviews with the women themselves showed that they did see themselves as a couple, and had got married, and got photographed getting married, to protest the harassment they received. They also suggested there were other same-sex couples in the Bhopal battalion. [for all the above, Anu and Giti, 81-84]

India is a nation hardly touched by modern lesbian and gay politics, but here again we see that a same-sex marriage is both conceived and desired by same-sex couples.

The Americas

This custom has been known to scholars for some time.
In America homosexual customs have been observed among a great number of native tribes. In nearly every part of the continent there seem to have been, since ancient times, men dressing themselves in the clothes and performing the functions of women, and living with other men as their concubines or wives. [Westermarck 101]
This was in addition to homosexual liaisons between young warriors, which do not seem to have taken a marital form. Westermarck notes evidence of berdache-type marriages among the Chukchi of the Kodiak peninsula [102], the Koriaks [102-103] and the Kamchadale [103]. The Kodiak same-sex marriages were especially widely noted [Burton 235].

Same-sex marriages, or concubinage, were also noted in New Mexico [Burton 235], and as very widespread in Peru at the time of the conquistadores [Burton 238-239]. Without reference Paolo Mantegazza reports that "in certain northern parts of Mexico marriages were performed between men who, clad like women, were forbidden to bear arms" [Mantegazza 258].

Occasionally the obverse of the berdache is found. Among some Brazilian groups, there were women who adopted masculine dress and habits. "Each of these women has a woman who serves as her and with whom she says she is married: they live together as husband and wife", [Westermarck 107, citing Magalhanes de Gandavo, Histoire de la Province de Sancta-Cruz, 116]

Medieval Eastern Orthodoxy and Catholicism

There have been a huge number of criticisms of Boswell, of his overall argumentation, of his footnotes and of his honesty. But some points have now been accepted by all, while others are still open to serious dispute:

• In rural societies, where agriculture, farm work, and non-monetized property are the norm, heterosexual marriage will always predominate. With some exceptions, homoerotic unions are likely to flourish in only in areas in which there a significant concentrations of people not immediately dependent on the rural rhythms of life - it cities, in the military, and among clerics and scholars. No one knows the extent of homosexual activity or relationships.
• From the time of Justinian, perhaps earlier, sodomy was illegal in Roman, and hence Byzantine, law.
  What is disputed is:
  • The extent to which Law Codes impacted on behavior, or even judicial practice in later centuries. Some scholars see the law as determinative of later possibilities, others, taking note of limited legal education and direct violation of law in other areas of judicial practice, see this as unimportant. [Divorce for instance is forbidden by Orthodox canon law, as expressed in the Quinisext Council, but allowed in judicial practice, and evin in civil law divorce by consent was forbidden in Justinian's code, but seems to have taken place for centuries afterwards.]
  • Was the law directed at anal sex, or did was it applicable to all forms of homosexual intimacy. Many scholars now hold that there was no concept of "homosexuality" in earlier times, only of certain acts. So, just as heterosexual oral intercourse was forbidden, or even heterosexual sex with the woman on top, the extent to which sodomy law would have been generalized is not determinable.
  • The extent to which a law against anal sex would prohibit all legal, and/or customary recognition of homosexual cohabitation relationships.
• There was without a doubt a ceremony - called adelphopoiia in Greek, but also known to have parallels in Slavic countries, and among Greek-speaking Catholics in Italy, which celebrated the "uniting" of two men as brothers. This ceremony was usually conducted in Church as a blessing. Most surviving texts seem to envision it as taking place between two men, although there are indications that it could occasionally involve two women, or more than two people. In Slavic countries it might also have been used between men and women. Most commentators, even those hostile to Boswell, acknowledge that the ceremony may have been used by homosexual couples, but without Church sanction
  What is disputed is"
  • The signification of the word "brother". Although the cross- an intra-cultural evidence is rather strong that sibling language and eroticism are frequently combined, some scholars still insist that there ceremonies are either some sort of fraternal adoption [for which there seems to be little evidence], or some sort of friendship ceremony.
  • The nature of the Church. Some commentators will only see ecclesiastical approval if central Church authorities clearly approved of such ceremonial "same sex unions". There is no evidence yet demonstrated for this. Other commentators, take the view that if such ceremonies took place in a a customary form among local Christian communities, and such communities knew what was occurring, then these ceremonies do have place in the Christian history of homoeroticism.
  • The extent to which such unions can be seen as marriages. For those scholars who define marriage in legal terms, the issue is not completely closed, but by and large they would reject these unions as marriages. [The problem of a complete rejection, even for the legalistically minded, is that some later Eastern texts show that a discussion was going as to whether such unions created inheritance rights of a clearly familial nature.] Other scholars would be willing to say that if the same-sex couples were cohabiting in public after a ceremonial commitment ceremony, we have a clear example of a marriage-type relationship.

The general consensus, despite the viciousness of some of the attacks on Boswell, is that he did not prove the strongest version of his case. In other words the evidence has not been brought forward which demonstrates unequivocally that same-sex marriages, understood by all as exactly equivalent to heterosexual marriages, were endorsed by central Church authorities in Eastern or Western Christendom.

But this does not mean that Boswell's work can be dismissed. He has penetrated the barrier of suppression and silence surrounding a set of ceremonies which do in fact seem to have been used by homosexual couples as a way of obtaining some Church sanction for their relationships. It also seems certain that in some areas and at some times, such unions were understood as such by the communities involved.

Since the point here is rather distinct from Boswell's - to establish that marital relationships between homosexual couples have been conceivable across time and culture - what might seem the weaker aspect of his work is enough.

Early Modern Europe

It is quite certain that in the later middle ages, from the 13th century on, a wide array of official secular and ecclesiastical decrees were issued against homosexual conduct: some of these decrees led to serious repression. This same period also sees a number of major developments in the area of a marriage. First it comes to be a much more frequently a Church ceremony, and begins to be discussed as a "sacrament". [In fact the whole area of sacramental theology was rather new in the 12th-13th centuries and the current list of seven sacraments only surfaces at this time - before then, although the number seven was important, exactly which ceremonies were included varied]. Because of this the Latin Church came to define its official view of marriage in fairly rigorous terms, both in theology and canon law. Following the definitions of the ancient Roman jurist Herrenius Modestinus marriage was defined as the "union of a man and a woman", and laws about the validity, licitness and so forth were elaborated. It is these developments which are reflected in the secular law of modern states.

From a consideration of such activity and definition by ecclesiastical elites, it might then seem that the very idea of same sex marriage would not be conceivable in western societies. Indeed the importance of clear legal distinctions, as well as a tendency to think about everything in either/or terms, is often taken as a defining attribute of modern western culture. Even against this background, however, there are occasional indications that same-sex marriage remained conceivable to some.

Italy
One of the most interesting passages relating to the widespread conceivability of gay marriage comes from France's premier essayist Montaigne. The story here is confirmed by other sources - records of a Venetian diplomat for instance, and so seems to refer to an actual event - a gay marriage, understood as such, in late 16th century Rome:

On my return from Saint Peter's I met a man who informed me ... that on this same day [March 18, 1581] the [Holy Week] station was at San Giovanni Porta Latina, in which church a few years before certain Portuguese had entered into a strange brotherhood. They married one another, male to male, at Mass, with the same ceremonies with which we perform our marriages, read the same marriage gospel service, and then went to bed and lived together. The Roman wits ["esperis" - the word might also mean "experts"] said that because in the other conjunction, of male and female, this circumstance of marriage alone makes it legitimate, it had seemed to these sharp folk that this other action would become equally legitimate if they authorized it with ceremonies and mysteries of the Church. Eight or nine Portuguese of this fine sect were burned. -- Travel Journals of Montaigne, Donald M. Frame, trans., Montaigne [Stanford: Stanford UP, 1948], pp. 954-55.

One simply aches to know more details about this: I make these observations:

1. If Montaigne's informant was correct then a number of men [why Portuguese I cannot even think] took part in Catholic marriage ceremonies in Rome, with the argument that sexual intercourse and domestic partnership are what constitutes as marriage.
2. Unless the ceremony was a sham, it also seem to indicate the desire of at least one "homosexual" [in parentheses out of deference to constructionist sensibilities] couple to live in long term relationship.
3. At some point this was tolerated by the authorities of at least one Roman church. It is not clear how long before "a few years" was: it is conceivable that the events took during the reign of a "homosexual" pope, for instance Julius III [d. 1555]. That is a stretch though.
4. At some later date this group was considered a "sect" and some members were burnt. Does anyone know of any corroborative information on this? Surely a distinctive Portuguese sect operating in Rome would have left some other traces? Inquisition records perhaps?

England
Early modern England had quite distinct male and female homosexual subcultures. There is some evidence for both, however, that same sex marriages were conceivable, at least for the men and women involved, and took place.

in his Mother Clap's Molly House: The Gay Subculture in England 1700-1830, Rictor Norton notes that getting "married" could amount to queer slang for having sex. But he also note (100-102) that in the late 1720s fairly elaborate homosexual weddings took place and while some of these may have been mockeries others were ceremonies between couples described as being "deeply in love" and who lived together as couples. These couples were not reported to have any "gender" dissonance involved. About a century later - 1n 1810 - the Rev. John Church, a Church of England priest and a homosexual who wrote about the value of homosexual love performed a number of weddings at the Swan in Vere St. in London [ch 13., esp. 205]. Again there is a possibility of mockery going on, but given Church's writings on the subject, Norton thinks that Church was consciously performing specifically religious ceremonies.

As well as his English evidence, the focus of his book, Norton, citing other modern historians, also notes other examples of gay marriage contracts, sealed in blood, in Holland in the 1730s [254] along with male convicts in 1840's Australia who claimed that they were married to each other [260].

Norton also has a chapter on Lesbian marriages [236-234], but Even more remarkable, because of the multiplicity of examples, are the cases of marriage between two women recorded by Emma Donahue in her recent Passions Between Women: British Lesbian Culture 1668-1801. Donahue's second chapter on "Female Husbands" includes discussions on a variety of cases of women marrying other women. Sometimes these were cases where one woman dressed as a man, and the marriage may have been undertaken for fraudulent reasons, but there a number of cases [ 65-73] where parish registers simply recorded that two women were married by the local clergyman, or that both partners had entered such a marriage willingly. For instance the Parish Marriage Register of Taxal in Cheshire recorded the following marriages [see also Norton 237]:

Hannah Wright and Anne Gaskill, Parish of Prestbury, 4th September 1707
Ane Norton and Alice Pickford, Parish of Prestbury, 3rd June, 1708

The Netherlands
The Netherlands possess among the best documented and most researched early modern gay subcultures. See above for a brief discussion by Rictor Norton. Dick Jaap Noordam's article "Sodomy in the Dutch Republic" surveys the rise of a homosexual sub-culture in early modern Holland, and notes a number of cases of exclusive marital contracts between men in The Hague and in Leeuwarden [217-218]. Theo Van der Meer, writing about a later period in "The Persecution of Sodomites in Eighteenth-Century Amsterdam: Changing Perceptions of Sodomy", notes the same phenomenon: Lourens Hosponjon and Hermanus Moljon, both executed in 1730, had a contact which they called a "contract of marriage"; in 1802 Jan van Weert had a letter read out in court which displayed similar marital awareness - he wrote "Dear Jan, write me if your heart is still worthy of mine" and "Thou art faithful to me until death: who will separate us, nobody but the will of the Heavenly Father and we are tied in love forever." [289]. It was not only men who thought of themselves as married: there are records of Dutch lesbians approaching the authorities for approval of marriage [Noordam 212-13].

Pirates
The odd sexuality of pirates has been the subject of a study by B.R. Burg, Sodomy and the Pirate Tradition: English Sea Rivers in the Seventeenth Century Caribbean. Pirates are hardly part of normal society, but it is of some interest that they had a formal, and sexual, male bonding relationship called matelotage [128-30]. This may have originated as a simple master-servant relationship, but Burg leaves no doubt that it came to be seen as a formal and inviolable relationship which gave both parties access and possession of each other's property. Not quite "marriage", but a relationship with clear parallels.

In all the cases here, the most complete information is derived by modern historians from trial and court records. In other words we only here of same sex marriages where the couple are caught, and where the record of the trial survives. It is fairly certain that as this subject is explored by historians, more cases, and in other European countries, will be discovered of both same sex couples who wanted to get married, and at least some clergy and/or other officials who did not prevent them. The cases here, however, do give some indication that even against an apparently clear background of defined marriage laws and theologies, the concept and occasional practice of same sex marriage was not entirely suppressed in western culture..

Modern Europe

From the beginning of the 19th century until the 1950s, there was an ongoing campaign against homosexual activity, first on legal grounds, then medical, throughout the Western world. Although there is some evidence of women's romantic friendships being accepted in some circles, for most gay and lesbian people any public acknowledgment of relationships was simply dangerous. In remote areas of the Balkans it is certain that the old Orthodox adelphopoiia ceremonies were celebrated in some areas [a later version of this document will contain more on this], but in the "civilized" world gay marriage was impossible. Even France, where the ideal of the French Revolution that the state should criminalize private sexual behavior was string enough to prevent criminalization, homosexuality was condemned and denigrated by the medical profession.

Since the late 1960s, however, throughout Europe homosexuality has become much more accepted. One result is that gay marriage is now acceptable in Denmark, Norway and Sweden, with Finland, Slovenia and the Netherlands, and possibly Iceland and the Czech Republic, expected to follow suit soon. Gay common law marriage has also been recognized by the courts in Hungary. Typically the legal relationships created by such laws are not exactly the same as heterosexual marriages: in particular for the most part gay couples, unlike straight couples, have to be citizens of the country in questions, and do not gain adoption rights or the right to marry in Church [an odd "right" for Americans to consider, but one granted to straight couples in countries with state churches] . All the laws, unlike various US cities' domestic partnership registries, do, however, create legal obligations. Since there are different laws governing same-sex and different-sex unions, some American lawyers [Evan Wolfson of Lambda Legal Defense] have argued that "gay marriage" is not the same as "marriage". Politically he is correct. But anthropologically he is wrong: the legal recognition of gay unions in European states is a clear example of recognition of gays being "married".

Various collations have been made of current developments in Europe - many by the American gay journalist Rex Wockner whose work is available on the vast Internet archive known as the Queer Resources Directory [the WWW URL is http://www.qrd.org]. What follows is a summary drawn from information collected by Wockner and others.

Gay Marriage/Same-Sex Unions in Modern European States

1989: Denmark

1993: Norway

A newspaper report prior to the actual legislative activity, gives some indication of the scope of the laws

"Norway Second Country in the World with a Partnership Law for Homosexuals"
Norway Times September 3, 1992

OSLO- The Norwegian government has proposed a partnership law for couples of the same sex, as briefly noted in a previous issue of Norway Times. The law proposal, which is not fully formulated, will not give homosexuals the opportunity to marry.

The issue is controversial, but a majority in the Parliament is expected to support the proposal. If it passes in the Parliment, Norway will become the second country in the world, after Denmark, to sanction homosexual partnerships by law.

The Labor and Socialist Left parties are expected to back the law, while the staunchest opposition will come from the Christian Party. A key argument for the partnership law is that the practical consequences of homosexual partnerships are largely the same as for marriage. These include matters such as national insurance benefits, pensions, inheritance, and the mutual duty to support each other financially.

Regardless of the accepted attitude towards the institution of marriage as a bearing element in society, it should be possible to regulate the practical sides of a homosexual relationship without thereby putting marriage and homosexual partnerships on an equal footing, says the Ministry of Children and Family Affairs.

1994: Iceland

1995: Sweden

An American newspaper report indicates clearly that these unions are being conceived of as "marriages".

"Two Swedish Men Marry under New Gay Law"
San Jose Mercury News, Tuesday, 1/3/95, p. 1D

Stockholm, Sweden (AP) -- Hans Jonsson and Sven-Olov Jansson exchanged wedding vows Monday, becoming the first Swedish couple to marry under a new law allowing gay marriages.

"We have lived together for five years, but we feel it is important to be recognized by the society the same way heterosexual couples are," Jansson said.

Sweden became the third Nordic country--after Denmark and Norway--to allow gays to register partnerships with all the rights and obligations of marriage except adopting children or having a church wedding.

Johnsson, 42, and Jansson, 58, participated in a brief civil ceremony at the Ostersund town hall, 370 miles northwest of Stockholm.

Jorn Svensson, a former parliament member from Sweden's left party, presided over the ceremony. He wished the men, "happiness in your partnership and your home."

In five years, Denmark has registered the partnerships of 2,810 men and women. Norway allowed its first gay marriages in 1993.

1995: Czech Republic

1995: Spain

1995: Hungary

1995: Slovenia

1995: Netherlands

1995: Britain