{"id":20210,"date":"2022-12-06T16:58:12","date_gmt":"2022-12-06T15:58:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.historyextra.com\/?p=221312"},"modified":"2022-12-06T17:42:11","modified_gmt":"2022-12-06T16:42:11","slug":"how-georgian-and-victorian-same-sex-couples-co-opted-marital-traditions-and-made-them-their-own","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/rss_feed\/how-georgian-and-victorian-same-sex-couples-co-opted-marital-traditions-and-made-them-their-own\/","title":{"rendered":"How Georgian and Victorian same-sex couples co-opted marital traditions and made them their own"},"content":{"rendered":"

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By Elinor Evans\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Tuesday, 06 December 2022 at 12:00 am<\/p>

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When Gabriel Lawrence, a milkman, was apprehended at the notorious Margaret Clap\u2019s molly house in 1725, he was subsequently tried at the Old Bailey for \u201cthe heinous and detestable Sin of Sodomy\u201d. A \u2018molly\u2019 \u2013\u00a0a mostly derogatory term used mainly across the 18th and 19th centuries to describe men who had sex with other men \u2013 could be found at various molly houses. These were something akin to 18th-century gay bars, with the provision of lodging rooms. There, men might meet similar men for drinks, conversation, and, according to one witness, \u201cmarriages\u201d.<\/p>\n

Samuel Stevens, a witness for the prosecution against Lawrence, was called to give evidence and in his damning account he shocked those assembled with what he recalled of his visit to the molly house. Stevens stated that the mollies spent time \u201ctogether kissing and hugging and making love (as they called it) in a very indecent manner\u2026 they used to go out by couples into another room, and when they came back[,] they would tell what they had been doing, which in their dialect they called marrying.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite numerous appeals from friends and family on Lawrence\u2019s behalf, Stevens\u2019 account of the \u2018marriage-making\u2019 at the molly house proved ruinous. In April 1726, the jury found him guilty of sodomy and on 9 May 1726 Gabriel Lawrence was hanged at Tyburn<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Read more | What are the challenges of telling LGBTQ history?<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>
Soon, we will mark 10 years since the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill was introduced to parliament in England and Wales, in January 2013. This went on to provide the legal framework through which same-sex couples could access the benefits, comforts, and marital status already available to others within legally recognised marriages.<\/p>\n
But before this legal framework was extended to include them, people who we might now recognise as gay, lesbian, or bisexual had long been co-opting and adapting the traditions and language of marriage for their own relationships. As shown in the recorded testimony against Lawrence, and others, there are examples of 18th- and 19th-century \u2018marriage-like\u2019 unions that allow us to trace the history of same-sex marriage beyond the 21st century.<\/p>\n
In the same year as Lawrence\u2019s trial, one Edward Courtney provided evidence against another man, George Whittle, who ran the Royal Oak, a molly house at \u201cthe Corner of St. George\u2019s-Square in Pall Mall.\u201d Courtney testified that: \u201cHe [Whittle] had a back room for mollies to drink in private betwixt that and the kitchen. There is a bed in the middle of the room for the use of the company\u2026[to] be married; and for that reason they call that room the Chappel.\u201d<\/p>\n
A threat to Georgian society?<\/h3>\n
The proceedings from the Old Bailey show us that the language of, and certain customs associated with, marriage had been adopted by the mollies at Margaret Clap\u2019s and the Royal Oak, and presumably further afield too, certainly by the 18th century. For many contemporaries \u2013 such as commentator Ned Ward, who published The Secret History of\u00a0<\/em>Clubs<\/i>\u00a0n 1709 \u2013 and for historians since, the molly custom of \u2018marrying\u2019 demonstrated a contempt for the traditional institution, an undermining of customs and values which threatened Georgian society as they knew it.<\/p>\n
However, many mollies, including Lawrence, were married to women. Marriage was an important part of their everyday lives. In this way, while molly-marrying language might have reflected the boundaries that some same-sex attracted men were willing to cross to explore their sexual identities, they were forced to use this language to reflect their experiences of intimacy with men too.<\/p>\n
Intimacy and companionship<\/h3>\n
For other Georgian men, they never married women and performed the significant emotional intimacies of their lives with other men. These relationships may even be known to their closest friends, as was the case for John Chute (1701\u201376) and Francis Whithed (c1719\u201351). Chute had inherited the Vyne in Hampshire (now under the care of the National Trust) in 1754, and the two men had travelled extensively together across Europe. On their return to England, Whithed was warmly welcomed amongst Chute\u2019s wider circle of bachelor friends, and their relationship was embraced with a marriage-like naming ritual.<\/p>\n
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