SAME-SEX UNIONS WORLD-WIDE:
A HISTORY IGNORED BY OPPONENTS OF GAY MARRIAGE
Preliminary Survey (2004) by
D. Michael Quinn
Beinecke Senior Fellow
Yale University, 2002-03
About 1600 B.C. (by the
most conservative dating) in Iraq, an unknown poet began the Sumerian epic poem
of Gilgamesh, which indicated a homoerotic dimension of his union with male
friend, Enkidu.
Gilgamesh had a dream of his embracing a shooting star, a term in the original
language which could be a play-on-words for a male wearing a woman's headdress.
His mother, a priestess, said the dream predicted meeting a man, and "you
will love him as a woman" or "like a wife." After they met, the
two men were inseparable and declined to have relationships with females. When
Enkidu died, Gilgamesh prepared his friend's body for burial "as one veils
the bride."
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Although ancient Greek society preferred that male-male sexual activities should
be between married men and teenage boys, there were also examples of permanent
unions between adult males:
For example in 514 B.C., two warrior-lovers died in battle to make Athens a
democracy. Plato later wrote:
"Our own tyrants learned this lesson through bitter experience when the
love between [the warriors] Aristogiton and Harmodius grew so strong that it
shattered their power. Wherever therefore, it has been established that it is
shameful to be involved in sexual relationships [of men] with men, this is due
to evil on the part of legislators, to despotism on the part of the rulers,
and to cowardice on the part of the governed."
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About 378 B.C., historian Xenophon noted that in several parts of Greece (including
militant Sparta) "man and boy live together, like married people."
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338 B.C. in Greece, the battle deaths of the entire army of Thebes, known as
the "Theban Band," who went to war as 150 couples of warrior-lovers.
Earlier generations of this "army of lovers" had defended their city
for forty years.
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Sometime during the 900-years of China's Zhou period, which ended in 256 B.C.,
a writer described male lovers Pan Zhang and Wang Zhongxian:
"They fell in love at first sight and were as affectionate as husband and
wife, sharing the same coverlet and pillow with unbounded intimacy for one another.
"Afterwards they died together and everyone mourned them. When they were
buried together at Lofu Mountain..."
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About 85 A.D. in Italy, the poet Martial wrote:
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.
Martial also added this comment about male-male unions:
"Then, whomsoever you may love,
Be his friend too."
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110 A.D.. in Italy, Juvenal wrote that it was "nothing special" in
Rome when "a friend is marrying another man and a small group attending."
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263 A.D.. in China, death of 53-year-old poet Ruan Ji, whose male lover Xi Kang
had died a year earlier at age 39. Their union was later memorialized with stone
portraits showing them sitting side-by-side.
Before his death, the poet composed a tribute to centuries-earlier male couples
he called "blossom boys," which concluded:
Hand in hand they shared love's rapture,
Sharing coverlets and bedclothes.
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During the sixth century A.D.. in Japan, "two adult, aristocratic males"
were buried in the same coffin. This is consistent with medieval stories that
in some cases, after the death of a Samurai warrior, his male lover killed himself
in order to remain at his companion's side.
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776 A.D.. in Italy, a written pact between two Christian lovers:
"Be it known that I, Rachifrid, a cleric,...do by this document establish,
confirm and appoint you, Magniprand, a cleric,...to share my dwelling all the
days of our lives... [and that] you should therein be my partner."
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About 1100 in Greece, this is the beginning of the Eastern Orthodox Christian
ceremony of "The Order for Uniting Two Men," as follows:
"Placing them before the altar, the deacon shall say these decanal prayers:
"In peace, we pray to the Lord.
"For heavenly [peace],
"For the peace of all,
"For the joining together in union of love and life, we pray to the Lord."
The text of this ceremony
is several printed pages, and similar documents were written in Greece and Serbia
until the 1600s. Same-sex ceremonies continued in Balkan Christian churches
until the late-1800s.
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Before his 1476 death in Italy, Catholic priest Giacomo della Marca (who became
a saint) counseled with a young man in a rural town who "had been married
`like a woman' to another man, and produced the ring that was the symbol of
their union."
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1482 in Japan, writer Ijiri Chusuke praised the tradition of sexual unions between
Samurai warriors:
"...lovers would swear perfect and eternal love, relying on no more than
their mutual goodwill."
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When their relationship was discovered in Florence, Italy, 22-year-old Carlo
and his older male lover said that several years earlier they had "ritually
solemnized their union by swearing an oath over a Bible on an altar [in the
chapel], and even the officials who condemned them in 1497 appear to have considered
the two married....regardless of the illicit nature of their sexual union."
Although the death penalty was possible, the Florentine court fined the older
man and punished the younger man with a fine and two-year exile.
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1542 in Japan, 22-year-old Samurai warrior Takeda signed a contract with his
16-year-old Samurai boyfriend Kasuga, pledging sexual monogamy. Each agreed:
"If I should ever break these promises, may I receive the divine punishment..."
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In 1542 Spanish priest Bartolome de Las Casas (who defended the Indians against
false accusations) also acknowledged that the Maya parents of southern Mexico
commonly acquired young men as lovers for their sons. Conquistador Juan de Torquemada
later observed that this relationship was honored the same as "the condition
of marriage."
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1581 in Italy, after recording the Pope's meeting with Portugal's ambassador,
Montaigne's travel diary noted that he was informed that in Rome's cathedral
of St. John Lateran, "a few years before [now,] 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."
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1609 in Florida, Spanish explorer Juan de Torquemada wrote that effeminate male
Indians entered into marriages with men.
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1623 in England, twelve years after the publication of the English bible he
had authorized, 57-year-old King James I wrote to 30-year-old George Villiers,
Duke of Buckingham:
"...praying God that I may have a joyful and comfortable meeting with you
and that we may make at this Christmas a new marriage ever to be kept hereafter;
for, God so love me, as I desire only to live in this world for your sake, and
that I had rather live banished in any part of the earth with you than I live
a sorrowful widow's life without you. And so God bless you, my sweet child and
wife, and grant that you may ever be a comfort to your dear dad and husband."
Villiers was 21-years-old when they began their relationship as lovers nine
years before this letter referred to the "marriage" of the two men.
He was described as "well-built and athletic," with "startling...good
looks."
Although the king had a wife and seven children, he slept in his own bedroom
and officially appointed Villiers as "Gentleman of the Bedchamber."
King James told his royal council: "Christ had his John and I have my George."
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1687 in Japan, the book Great Mirror of Male Love described several unions,
including two long-time lovers, now in their sixties:
"Mondo was sixteen, Han'emon nineteen when they made their bond of love...
***
"Mondo was now 63 and Han'emon 66. Their love for each other had not changed
since the days of their youth; neither of them had gazed at a woman's face in
his life.
"Han'emon still thought of Mondo as a boy of sixteen. Though his hair was
thinning and had turned completely white..."
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1707 in England, an Anglican minister in Cheshire County began performing same-sex
marriages for female couples and recorded the ceremonies in the parish record.
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1711 in Quebec, Canada, Frenchman Joseph Lafitau described the "special
friendships among young men" in native tribes which "admit no suspicion
of apparent vice, albeit there is, or may be, much real vice."
Nevertheless, he said that "the parents are the first to encourage them
and to respect their rights." He said that these male friendships "are
instituted in almost the same manner from one end of [French] America to the
other."
Decades before and after this statement, other French observers identified the
"real vice" in these male friendships among the Indians:
"most of them are addicted to sodomy."
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By 1728 in London, England, same-sex marriages for male couples were being performed
by non-ministers in what we would call "gay bars," after which the
male couples called each other "special Sweetheart" or "Husband."
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1730 in Holland, two lovers were arrested (apparently after a neighbor reported
them to the police). During the separate trials of Lourens and Hermanus, these
young men testified that they had made "a written agreement which they
called `contract of marriage,' which promised that they would have sex with
[someone else] only when they had each other's consent." The Dutch authorities
executed them both, and that same year also killed male couples who testified
that their sexual relationships were "based on strict monogamy."
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1798 in Tahiti, ship's captain James Wilson wrote that young men called Mahus
dressed as women "and seek the courtship of men the same as women do, nay,
are more jealous of the men who cohabit with them, and always refuse to sleep
with women."
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1800 in Holland, while talking with his friends, "a man matter-of-factly
alternated between calling his lover `his husband' and `his wife.'"
Two years later, his Dutch boyfriend wrote to Jan van Weert:
"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."
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In 1804 Russian explorer Gavriel Davydov ended a year of residence in the Aleutian
Islands:
"There are here, on Kodiak, men with tatooed chins, who perform only female
work, live with women, and like them, often have two men [in marriage]. Such
men are known as akhutschik. They are not despised but rather enjoy honor in
the communities and are mostly magicians [i.e., shamans]. The Koniag who has
an akhutschik instead of a wife is even considered as being lucky."
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1804, during the Louis and Clark expedition, Nicholas Biddle observed that among
the Indians near the Mississippi River, "if a boy shows any symptoms of
effeminacy or girlish inclinations[,] he is put among the girls, dressed in
their way, brought up with them, & sometimes married to men...I have seen
them--the French call them Birdashes."
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1810 in England, Reverend John Church began performing marriages for male couples
in London. The ceremonies occurred in what we would now call a "gay bar."
This continued until 1816, when he was imprisoned for attempted "buggery."
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1817 in Iraq, during his visit to Baghdad, James S. Buckingham was astonished
to discover that his guide Ismael had a male lover, whose father regarded him
as a son-in-law. Ismael gave a lengthy explanation of their union, after which
Buckingham concluded:
"I could no longer doubt the existence in the East of an affection for
male youths, of as pure and honourable a kind as that which is felt in Europe
for those of the other sex."
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1824 in England, Anne Lister wrote that she and her female companion Marianna
Lawton established their relationship with "no priest but love."
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Shortly after 1826 in California, Catholic priest Geronimo Boscana wrote about
his experiences at Mission San Juan Capistrano:
"One of the many singularities that prevailed among these Indians was that
of marrying males with males...and on the day of the wedding a grand feast was
given."
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1835 in Russia, 36-year-old Alexander Pushkin wrote:
Sweet boy, gentle boy,
Don't be ashamed. You are mine forever:
The same rebellious fire is in both of us,
We are living one life.
I am not afraid of mockery:
Between us, the two have become one.
We are precisely like a double nut
Under a single shell.
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1846 in Australia, a convict wrote a letter to "Dear Jack," who had
apparently been released from prison:
"The only thing that grieves me[,] love[,] is when i think of the pleasant
nights we have had together. I hope you wont fall in love with no other man
when i am dead[.] I remain your True and loving[,] affectionate Lover."
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1846 in Wyoming, Francis Parkman described the friendship of two Sioux Indian
males, a 16-year-old named Hail-Storm "with a handsome face, and light,
active proportions," and his older companion, named The Rabbit:
Although the teenager joined with the women in cooking meals, he was also a
hunter, and "wore his red blanket dashingly over his left shoulder, painted
his cheeks every day with vermilion, and hung pendants of shells in his ears."
He and his older friend "were inseparable; they ate, slept, and hunted
together, and shared with one another almost all that they possessed. If there
be anything that deserves to be called romantic in the Indian character, it
is to be sought for in friendships such as this, which are common among many
of the prairie tribes."
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In 1853 anthropologist Johann Georg von Hahn published his observation of male-male
unions among Orthodox Christians in Albania. The male-couples took the eucharist
together at church. These teenage "pacts of brotherhood" involved
discreet sexual relations prior to heterosexual marriage, if they chose to marry.
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1879 in Australia, 21-year-old ex-convict Jim Nesbit was killed during a shoot-out
between his gang and the rancher they were robbing. According to a witness,
the gang's 34-year-old leader Andrew Scott "wept over him like a child,
laid his head upon his breast, and kissed him passionately."
The two men had met before their release from prison and lived together several
years before this failed robbery. Now on death-row without his friend, Scott
wore "a ring made of Nesbit's hair" and referred to their love in
numerous letters he wrote, including these statements: "Nesbit and I were
united by every tie which could bind human friendship" and "my fondest
hope is to be with him in Eternity." Before his execution, Scott arranged
to be buried in the same grave with Nesbit. He paid for a single gravestone
to list their names, with the word "separated," followed by the date
of Nesbit's death, and the word "united," followed by the date of
Scott's execution.
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1882 in Arizona, ethnologist Washington Matthews observed Navajo men performing
"The Mountain Chant." Dressed as a hunter and his wife, two males
discussed their relationship and the hunter's suspicions that his male wife
was having sex with another man.
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Beginning 1889 in Australia, various anthropologists reported that the Aborigines
practiced man-boy marriage "until the older man marries" a wife.
This prehistoric, traditional practice continued for another hundred years.
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In the 1890s Russian anthropologist Vladimir Bogoraz observed same-sex marriages
among those known as "soft men" in Siberia:
"Thus he has all the young men he could wish for striving to obtain his
favor. From these he chooses his lover, and after a time takes a husband. The
marriage is performed with the usual rites, and I must say that it forms quite
a solid union, which often lasts till the death of one of the parties."
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In 1904 George Steindorff published his observations about a Berber-speaking
tribe occupying the town of Siwa in the Libyan desert of western Egypt:
"The feast of [a man] marrying a boy was celebrated with great pomp, and
the money paid [as a dowry] for a boy sometimes amounted to fifteen pounds,
while the money paid for a woman was a little over one pound..."
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In 1904 anthropologist Guenther Tessmann wrote about long-term unions between
males in Cameroon, West Africa:
"Among the Pangwe, it is called, for instance, `wealth medicine'... [because]
it is believed that the two partners become rich."
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1907 in South Africa, an official report observed that it was common for the
black men who worked in the country's mines to enter into marriages with teenage
mine workers.
These "mine marriages" continued until the boys were in their mid-twenties,
when they took teenage boys as "wives." Anthropologists found that
these relationships were "taken for granted by women (including wives)
and [by the tribal] elders at home." This practice continued to the end
of the twentieth century.
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In 1912 Swiss Presbyterian missionary Henri Junod described same-sex marriage
among the miners of Mozambique, Africa. The "boy-wife...received a wedding
feast, and his elder brother received brideprice [i.e., a dowry]." Junod
added that some of the "boy-wives" were older than twenty.
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1919 in Rhode Island, although he was trying to avoid punishment by a Navy court
martial, a sailor named Rogers volunteered that he "developed a steady
relationship with another man" he had met at the YMCA. Rogers called him
"husband."
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1924, shortly after 22-year-old Harvard professor F.O. Matthiessen and 42-year-old
painter Russell Cheney began their twenty-one-year relationship, the younger
man wrote:
"Marriage! What a strange word to be applied to two men! Can't you hear
the hell-hounds of society baying in full pursuit behind us? But that's just
the point. We are beyond society....
"And so we have a marriage that was never seen on land or sea--and surely
not in Tennyson's poet's dream. It is a marriage that demands nothing and gives
everything. It does not limit the affections of the two parties, it gives their
scope greater radiance and depth."
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1926 in Central Africa, E.E. Evans-Pritchard began a three-year study of the
Azande tribe in southern Sudan. He described the same-sex marriages among its
warriors:
One boy-wife told him that the "relatives of a boy escorted him (when he
was married) in the same way they escorted a bride (on her marriage) to her
husband." The anthropologist noted that this "relationship was, for
so long as it lasted, a legal union on the model of a normal marriage."
These boy-wives were "between about twelve and twenty years of age. When
they ceased to be boys they joined the companies of warriors to which their
at-one-time husbands belonged and took boys to wives on their own account."
For the next fifty years, "woman-woman marriage--in which one woman pays
brideprice to acquire a husband's rights to another woman" were "documented
in more than thirty African populations, including at least nine Bantu-speaking
groups in present-day southern Africa and Botswana."
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In 1934 anthropologist A. Bernard Deacon described the male-male marriages in
New Hebrides (now Vanuatu) in the South Pacific:
As each boy reached puberty, his father selected a male adult as a "guardian"
who became the boy's "husband" and had "complete sexual rights
over his boy." Until the boy became old enough to be a husband in his own
marriage, the man and boy were inseparable. If one died, the other went into
formal mourning.
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1938 in California, adolescent Reid Rasmussen met same-aged Calvin Cottam in
the deacons quorum of their LDS ward:
"The moment we met each other, we both knew that there was a chemistry
between us that no twelve-year-old could explain." They soon became lovers,
and sixty-one years later Calvin died in the arms of his companion. Reid commented:
"Throughout our years together, we always made a commitment that not only
would we share our lives together here on Earth, but we would also spend an
eternity in the hereafter and be reunited there forever."
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In 1943 anthropologists Eileen Jensen Krige and Jacob Daniel Krige described
the Lovandu tribe of Lesotho in South Africa where the queen "had wives,
indeed, a harem" of wives.
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1953 in Los Angeles, California, a cover story of the "homophile"
publication One Magazine promoted "Homosexual Marriage."
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