Chapter 3: Queer Lives and Loves in the Nineteenth Century

A Student's Guide to Essential Primary Sources
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https://doi.org/10.3735/9781961844353.book-part-019

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Abstract

For much of the nineteenth century, same-sex relationships were widely accepted. Indeed, strict gender roles and sex segregation encouraged both women and men to seek intimacy within same-sex relationships. The expectation that people would spend their adult lives in heterosexual marriage coexisted with the celebration of “romantic friendships”: intense, exclusive, and sometimes erotic same-sex relationships. By the end of the nineteenth century—at the same time that women demanded equal rights and men developed a queer subculture—such relationships came under closer scrutiny.

Author(s): Anya Jabour, University of Montana

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