By Syaa Liesch (they/them)

Women’s relationships in the nineteenth century were influenced by the way society was ordered, as women generally only socialised with other women. In fact, the intimacy between women was encouraged and accepted, as it was thought women needed the emotional fulfilment given only by other women. These relationships were assumed to be purely platonic, and some were, but in reality, there were many that were more intimate. Despite the lack of concrete information surrounding the relationships between same-sex desiring women in nineteenth century Europe and America, the romantic friendships between women indicate a deep romantic and often sexual connection that, today, would be known as a lesbian relationship. While these relationships may never truly be understood, and cannot be strictly confirmed or denied, bringing awareness to these relationships rejects the pervasive compulsory heterosexuality of the time and highlights the queerness that was often clandestine.

Romantic friendships began to arise through the increased separation of the sexes, leading some women to find comfort in those around them, finding their soulmates among other women. These relationships started when women were single and continued throughout their marriage. Romantic friendships were seen to enrich and sustain heterosexual marriage; the gendered spheres became so divided that men excluded women in order to foster their ‘rational values’, and as a result, women came together to nurture their ‘heart values’. As these bonds occurred within the paradigm of heterosexuality, they could continue regardless of commitment to marriage.

Romantic friendships describe an intimately loving relationship between people of the same sex, which is, or is perceived to be, non-sexual. This intimate bond can range from purely platonic life-long friendships to romantic and sexual relationships between same-sex desiring women. While these platonic, nonsexual relationships were seen to be favourable, and even idealised by men, fears began to arise surrounding women’s friendships, particularly those who lived together and were not married.

Romantic friendships were romanticised as virtuous and pure, as men did not believe that women could have, let alone desire, a sexual relationship with another woman. Thus, the tension between women’s friendships and lesbian subjectivity made its way into the public-private divide; the way women may have described themselves, and their romantic friendships, without sexual connotations, may have been at odds with the relationships behind closed doors. Indeed, Australian writer Mary Fullerton, living in England, emphasised her asexual stance and promotion of separateness within her published poetry and letters to other writers. Mary’s friendship with Mabel Singleton was referred to in the letters, but never with any sexual undertones. However, unpublished love poems dedicated to Mabel disrupted the official story of a spinster. Describing yearning, longing, separation, joy, and despair, Mary’s poems have an unmistakable passionate, erotic atmosphere, as conveyed in one untitled sonnet:

You know the sweetest word that night it spelt

That clear night in September – I need steal

No fire from other love, nor make appeal

‘Believe I love you’ yet I long to melt

The Teuton in you by my amorous Celt

That loving, love can nevermore conceal.

Aside from the issues of social exclusion from women’s sexual relationships, it is also likely that Mary’s definition of asexual is different from ours today. Her private writings of a passionate and loving relationship are furthered by the subtext in statements regarding her ‘go alone’ nature:

‘Unwomanly’, ‘cold-hearted’, and so forth, are the charges levelled. I have heard these words and their like applied to myself. I have smiled knowing them to be from an entirely false understanding of me.

Here, her perceived lack of sex instinct was most likely defined in relation to the dominant discourse of heterosexuality, one that held no interest for her, rather than aversion towards all sexual acts.

While it is often difficult to provide proof of sexual relationships between women – the necessity of proof being in itself an unfair double-standard compared to heterosexuality, which can be confirmed through social formations rather than just sexual contact – others, such as Anne Lister through her diary entries, have detailed accounts of sexual affairs and self-identification with what would now be called Lesbian. Lister wrote of her passionate experiences with women, stating that she “love[d] and only love[d] the fairer sex and thus, beloved by them in turn [her] heart revolts from any other love but theirs.” However, the necessary camouflage of the time is mirrored in the development of her own lesbian identity, reflected in the network of lovers and ex-lovers. As there was no evidence of subcultures of same-sex desiring women in nineteenth century England, Lister could not have been socialised into the subculture, unlike the pre-established subculture of ‘molly’, or sodomites, with men. Lister’s writing shows that women engaging in romantic friendships could be aware of, and act on, their sexual desires, differing from the social constructionist model that states that sexual identities are shaped by discourses. As reality is socially constructed, biology does not dictate how a person engages in sexual behaviour. Instead, sexuality is created by culture, through the defining of some behaviours and relationships, and the learning of these definitions by members of a society. Therefore, as no notion of a lesbian identity existed in culture, Lister’s sexual desires were exactly that: her own sexual desires that shaped her sexual identity.

Despite the majority of evidence coming from white same-sex desiring women, letters between working-class African-American women have filled the silence surrounding romantic friendships among people of colour. The letters of Addie Brown and Rebecca Primus reflect the emotional intensity and eroticism of other correspondence, despite the intensified restraints on their relationship due to their class and race. Indeed, their relationship cannot truly be categorised as a ‘romantic friendship’, as the term itself privileges wealthy, white women’s relationships, often denying those seen as ‘deviant’. Furthermore, the collection of letters differs from white women’s correspondence, as it documents an erotic, rather than a romantic, friendship. They denounce the term friendship, saying: “… need never name the tie which exist between us. Friendships, this term is not applicable to you. And you even say that you are not worthy of it. Call it anything else … you have been more to me than a friend or a sister.”

When Rebecca learnt of Addie’s new bed partner at work, hearing that “one of them want[ed] to sleep with [her]”, Addie replied that:

If you think that is my bosom that captivated the girl that made her want to sleep with me, she got sadly disappointed injoying it, for I had my back towards all night and my night dress was butten up so she could not get to my bosom. I shall try to keep your f[avored] one always for you. Should in my excitement forget, you will partdon me I know.

In this sense, a bed partner was not just one that shared the bed, but often provided access to her breasts. By preventing this, and so disappointing her aspiring bed partner, Addie implies an exclusive relationship, including ‘bosom sex’, with Rebecca. Her jealous reaction highlights the shared assumption of what would happen between bed partners at night. There is also a lesbian culture foregrounded through the practise of taking bedpartners and touching each other’s bosoms, showing how these practises may have been quite widespread.

The written communication regarding romantic friendships highlights the intense emotions within these relationships, foregrounding the erotic imagery present in written works as evidence of lesbian relationships. The writings of Mary Fullerton, Anne Lister, Addie Brown, and Rebecca Primus foreground same-sex desiring women in these intimate relationships. They open the previously closed doors of Sapphic women in history, highlighting the relationships that, while largely hidden from view, were still very present in society.

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