Boston Marriage

From Homolexis Glossary

This nineteenth-century term describes a household shared by two women, independent of male support. It is debated whether such arrangements had a sexual component—probably some did, others did not.

The term came to be used, apparently, after Henry James' 1885 novel The Bostonians, which limned a marriage-like relationship between two women. These were "New Women" in the language of the time, women who were independent, not married, and self-supporting. Imbued with a definite class content, Boston marriages often meant living off inherited wealth or making a living through some professional career. The recent play Boston Marriage by David Mamet depicts such a marriage as having an explicitly sexual component. Less common was the term "Wellesley marriage."

On May 27, 2004 Massachusetts became the first state in the United States to sanction legal same-sex marriages. This advance makes Boston the only major city in the U.S. where a "Boston Marriage" can be a legal marriage as well. The development has given the term a fresh slant, as some people, hearing it for the first time, think it is a new term coined to refer to legal same-sex marriages.