"Boston marriage" meaning in English

See Boston marriage in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Forms: Boston marriages [plural]
Etymology: Unknown, first used in late 19th century New England, and sometimes connected to The Bostonians (1885) by Henry James, which describes such a relationship. Etymology templates: {{unk|en}} Unknown Head templates: {{en-noun}} Boston marriage (plural Boston marriages)
  1. (historical) A long-term monogamous relationship between two unmarried women, especially in New England between the 18th and early 20th centuries. Wikipedia link: Henry James, The Bostonians Tags: historical Categories (topical): Female

Inflected forms

Download JSON data for Boston marriage meaning in English (3.6kB)

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          "ref": "[1894 May 3, “Vanity Fair”, in The Argonaut, page 9",
          "text": "Two women, as well known as Susan Channing and Edna D. Cheney, have made separate appeals for this new departure of female habit. A Boston marriage is described to be a sympathetic union of two women who have not been able to make good and agreeable matches with members of the opposite sex.]",
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          "ref": "[1952, John Horne Burns, Cry of the Children",
          "text": "[…] several times I was within an inch of coming down here and asking you out for a ride in my red convertible, but the Weird Sisters (indicating Meg and Louisa) told me not to disturb you. But I'm big enough to understand; I wasn't born yesterday. I understand this sort of menage, you know; it's called a Boston Marriage.]",
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          "ref": "2002, Marilyn Yalom, Laura L. Carstensen, Inside the American Couple: New Thinking, New Challenges, University of California Press, page 81",
          "text": "Often, in marked contrast to Boston marriages in previous times, these lesbians keep their asexuality hidden from the community.",
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          "ref": "2006, Laura Castañeda, Shannon B. Campbell, News and Sexuality: Media Portraits of Diversity, SAGE, page 217",
          "text": "Thus, unlike in contemporary relationships, participants in a Boston marriage may or may not have considered genital activity to be an important element in their relationship.",
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          "text": "Two women, as well known as Susan Channing and Edna D. Cheney, have made separate appeals for this new departure of female habit. A Boston marriage is described to be a sympathetic union of two women who have not been able to make good and agreeable matches with members of the opposite sex.]",
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This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-03 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 and c9440ce). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

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