Boston Marriages in Literature and Life (episode 136)

A new form of relationship arose between 19th century women, which had all the emotional trappings of romantic love, but was long considered to be merely an intense form of friendship. More recently, however, critics have wondered whether Victorian assumptions about the inherent chasteness of womankind allowed couples who would consider themselves lesbians today to hide in plain sight. These relationships came to be known as “Boston marriages,” both because a number of high profile Bostonians engaged in them, and because Henry James popularized the concept in his novel The Bostonians. As the story of the name indicates, real relationships between women were influenced by contemporary literature by James, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and Oliver Wendall Holmes, but these authors also drew inspiration from the apparently romantic relationships they saw between women in their lives. Show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/136 Support us: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory