Talk:Boston marriage

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 27 January 2020 and 22 May 2020. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Wrimagine.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 16:08, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Planned Additions
I have done research and plan to make notable additions to this article. I hope that, being a stub, the administrators won't delete it in the mean time. I will address both Boston marriages in Utah and Jewett/Fields. Thanks! --Chuchunezumi 21:20, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Wellesley marriage
does this synonym comes from the Wellesley College by any chance? Does anyone knows?--Dia^ (talk) 15:30, 2 April 2008 (UTC)


 * You know, I'm not sure, but that's really worth investigating. It wouldn't surprise me.-Wafulz (talk) 15:52, 2 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I found this article. I can't access it, but since "Wellesley marriage" was a keyword that brought it up, I would say the term probably originated from Wellesley College. Of course, this is piecing together information I don't have access to, so I may be wrong.-Wafulz (talk) 15:58, 2 April 2008 (UTC)


 * From the link I get "page cannot be displayed". But thanks to your suggestion I search a bit myself and I found this: . It seems that the connection is that Wellesley was one of the first women's colleges. --Dia^ (talk) 16:52, 2 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I edited the article to address this issue, and added links and photos of a famous Wellesley couple.AnaSoc (talk) 00:41, 8 July 2018 (UTC)

Greater selection from documents needed
My understanding was that this term related to women living together in a romantic context, and that the term mainly had a Victorian era origin. And hence, it should be cross-referenced to domestic partnership. Does anyone have any references that would support the more romantic interpretation? Arbol25 (talk) 21:20, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Generally, Boston Marriages were considered non-sexual, or at most Don't ask, don't tell.


 * --UnicornTapestry (talk) 01:51, 21 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Well, that's pretty hard to say as we know pretty much nothing about the term, it's origin, use, or pretty much else. In fact, after stating this in the introduction, the remainder of the article is nothing but smokescreen and handwaving. 24.16.164.87 (talk) 10:07, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

POV
This article's POV is seriously flawed. Where it does quote references, it's usually Lillian Faderman's book, which has an agenda of her own. Indeed, the article sounds so much like Faderman, it could be a promo for her book.


 * "Some women did not marry because men feared educated women during the 19th century and did not wish to have them as wives. Other women did not marry because they felt they had a better connection to women than to men. Some of these women ended up living together in a same-sex household. Therefore, same-sex relationships were preferred and more practical than heterosexual relationships for many women. Women who decided to be in these relationships were usually feminists…"

--UnicornTapestry (talk) 01:49, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree, UnicornTapestry. The article is skewed towards one point of view without appropriately addressing other ideas. It also includes irrelevant statements that indicate a lack of neutrality. --68.19.112.14 (talk) 20:00, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

And isn't "men feared educated women during the 19th century and did not wish to have them as wives" a sexist stereotype? &mdash;141.150.23.83 (talk) 09:24, 5 December 2010 (UTC)
 * yes, but if its identified as a commonly held belief from the time by a reliable source, it can be included. we arent politically correct here, but it shouldnt be included in the article without sourcing.12.125.80.214 (talk) 22:17, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Could it be that many (most?) of the Boston Marriages were not started by any of the reasons given on this page or the Wikipedia article? An entire generation of men from age 15 to 45 were nearly wiped out in the Civil War, even in the northern states. Many women wanting to be in a relationship had no choice but to turn to those of their same gender. By Bruce Stores, author of "Christian Science: Its Encounter with Lesbian/Gay America" (iUniverse 2004). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 189.169.69.53 (talk) 18:37, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

References to Faderman's book
Should be accompanied by page numbers. An important principle of Wikipedia is verificability (or something like that). It's unreasonable to expect someone checking the validity of a claim in the article to carefully read through nearly 500 pages several times before finding that the book does not support the statement. Nevard (talk) 09:29, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

H== Possible correction to article ==

I hope I'm doing this right ... I'm new to this. Anyway, the article states that the term "Boston marriage" appears in Henry James' THE BOSTONIANS. I cannot find it there. Is it perhaps in some other edition? I'm using the Project Gutenberg edition. Thanks! Tomfren (talk) 22:03, 24 May 2012 (UTC)
 * I agree that there's a problem here - the phrase doesn't appear in that edition, at least, and the Gardner citation seems to be the main/only source for the claim that he actually used the term in the novel. Other sources suggest that the term was inspired by the novel, rather than James himself coining it, but handling this in the article will be difficult thanks to that one citation. AV3000 (talk) 23:32, 25 May 2012 (UTC)
 * A Google Books search for the term turns up nothing at all in the period 1880 to 1940, except for false positives such as "Boston marriage records" and such. In fact, I can't find clear evidence for it on Google Books before about 1975. Of course, it's possible that the term existed in speech before then but didn't make its way into print. 206.208.105.129 (talk) 18:56, 8 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I agree. I just searched Google Books and The Bostonians. The earliest reference I found was from 1993: Boston Marriages: Romantic But Asexual Relationships Among Contemporary Lesbians by Esther D. Rothblum. (The first pages are not available in Google Books' preview, so I don't know what the author claims is the origin.) Another was a use in an autobio from a 91-year-old woman but that was in a 1997 self-published e-book. I'm starting to think that the term wasn't even invented until the late 1980s. --Tysto (talk) 06:47, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

The OED quotes the first date of use as : 1893  Open Court 5 Jan. 3517/2   I do not propose that we should formally adopt the Boston Marriage into our civil code.

And 1965  H. Howe Gentle Amer. v. 83  Such an alliance I was brought up to hear called a 'Boston marriage'.

So the term is clearly older than the 1980s.

The real 'problem' is that, as the OED points out, it's American English and is not a universal English Language expression. Cassandra. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.105.247.50 (talk) 15:38, 2 June 2019 (UTC)

Ladies of Llangollen
is is it really plausible to describe the Ladies of Llangollen as living in a Boston marriage, when the term clearly predates them, and is also an American term, rather than European? I doubt either of them had ever even heard the name. There must surely be better examples of women living under such a description. Giano   (talk) 20:31, 12 July 2019 (UTC)