Posted on 08/27/2007 1:22:56 PM PDT by Hi Heels
Gay Unions Sanctioned in Medieval Europe Jeanna Bryner LiveScience Staff Writer LiveScience.com Mon Aug 27, 12:00 PM ET
Civil unions between male couples existed around 600 years ago in medieval Europe, a historian now says.
Historical evidence, including legal documents and gravesites, can be interpreted as supporting the prevalence of homosexual relationships hundreds of years ago, said Allan Tulchin of Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania.
If accurate, the results indicate socially sanctioned same-sex unions are nothing new, nor were they taboo in the past.
“Western family structures have been much more varied than many people today seem to realize," Tulchin writes in the September issue of the Journal of Modern History. "And Western legal systems have in the past made provisions for a variety of household structures.”
For example, he found legal contracts from late medieval France that referred to the term "affrèrement," roughly translated as brotherment. Similar contracts existed elsewhere in Mediterranean Europe, Tulchin said.
In the contract, the "brothers" pledged to live together sharing "un pain, un vin, et une bourse," (that's French for one bread, one wine and one purse). The "one purse" referred to the idea that all of the couple's goods became joint property. Like marriage contracts, the "brotherments" had to be sworn before a notary and witnesses, Tulchin explained.
The same type of legal contract of the time also could provide the foundation for a variety of non-nuclear households, including arrangements in which two or more biological brothers inherited the family home from their parents and would continue to live together, Tulchin said.
But non-relatives also used the contracts. In cases that involved single, unrelated men, Tulchin argues, these contracts provide “considerable evidence that the affrèrés were using affrèrements to formalize same-sex loving relationships."
The ins-and-outs of the medieval relationships are tricky at best to figure out.
"I suspect that some of these relationships were sexual, while others may not have been," Tulchin said. "It is impossible to prove either way and probably also somewhat irrelevant to understanding their way of thinking. They loved each other, and the community accepted that.”
The Sex Quiz: Myths, Taboos and Bizarre Facts 10 Things You Didn't Know About You A Brief History of Human Sex Original Story: Gay Unions Sanctioned in Medieval Europe
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Well, I wouldn’t say he didn’t hold a grudge. He killed her lover (his regent) and put her in prison.
I think of it from a purely evolutionary point of view. Male-female sex is necessary for the natural propagation of the species in higher animals. Exclusive MM and FF "sex" does not propagate the species, therefore it is not beneficial for our species, not what it needs to continue, and not a preferred trait. I believe it does pop up occasionally in the wild too, but I consider that to be a freak accident just like any mutation.
The Royal Navy used to hang folks for mutiny and homosexuality.
Keelhauling was survivable (barely).
They were sanctioned long before that, Sodom and Gomorrah, I think. Lot of good that did them!!
Not likely if that hull was an inch thick with barnacles. Them things is sharp!
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Sheesh....EVERYTHING is GAY....Too bad their lives are not.
What else can I say,
Everyone is gay
It may be that propagation is not the only value of sex. It has been said that sex is also a means of "pair bonding" which makes a marriage more permanent. However, a marriage of likes is not what that is about.
Did you ever hear how that same son (Edward II) died by the hand of his wife and her boyfriend?
Oh my.
So, I guess the author thinks that we should revert to medieval social structure? I know the Democrats would like to treat us like serfs, but that is really going too far.
“...can be interpreted as supporting...”
Well, yes, of course. If that is what you want to find, then chances are pretty good that you can ‘interpret’ them that way. :)
My family has found out that we are directly related to Longshanks. This was fine as far as everyone was concerned except one family friend.....
Jon Wallis.
I think this is true. Not only is there evidence of meticulously planned weddings from that period, but Europe of the time was full of antiques.
All I have to see is that the guy lives in Takoma Park to know that, if he is heterosexual, he’s probably only mildly so. His wife having a different last name suggest he’s at least half limp. But, the fact that all these “documents” that “can be” interpreted to show queer marriage-type arrangements are in French, well, what’s new with that?
You know, this author should have thought a little deeper before he published his findings. He is really making our argument even stronger by suggesting that if you ok “brotherment”, you are opening the door to all types of legal unions, including multiple partners, incestual unions and what about two old maid sisters who want to escape the death tax.
You know how to get 4 queers on a bar stool?
Turn it over.
This is rubbish.
The rite of adelphopoesis ‘the making of brothers’ still exists in the Christian East, though it is rarely used any more. I have had correspondence on an Orthodox discussion board with someone who knew a pair of ‘made brothers’: one was a monk, the other a layman living in the world, who devoted part of his earnings to the support of his new brother, the monk.
It is interesting to learn that it existed in the Patriarchate of Rome as well.
While we Orthodox have a rite for making brothers, we also have penitential canons that prescribe the same penance for male-male anal sodomy as for murder (and witchcraft and incest with one’s child or sibling): excommunication with communion of the Holy Mysteries on the deathbed only. (Admittedly this, and other canonical penances, such as 20 years excommunication for adultery, 10 for fornication, 3 for killing in war are usually applied any more only in the case of recalicitrant sinners.)
Any attempt to make the rite of making brothers, Eastern or Western, out to be a medieval version of ‘gay marriage’ or as indicating an approval by the ancient or medieval Church of acts explicitly condemned as abhominations in Holy Scripture is at best naive scholarship, at worst, lying propaganda.
Escaping the death tax is a *good* thing.
You’re taxed when you earn the money. Taxed on every purchase you make to support yourself while earning the money. If you manage to save money you’re taxed on the interest you earn. Then after you die, the turds in D.C. want to tax what is left over from the small amount that you (as a Clinton appointee said) “were allowed to keep”.
G. Gordon Liddy said, years ago on his radio show, that we should be allowed to write a check to pay our taxes each month. “By the end of the second month, people would be putting down their pens and picking up their rifles.”
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