Marriage in LGBT History: Timeline
A chronology of references to marriage in U.S. same-sex history
1863, July 25
Finchger's Trades' Review (Philadelphia) headlines a story "A Curious Married Couple", reporting the tale, dating to England, in 1731, of a young woman, Mary East, who took the name James How and lived for 34 years as man and wife with a female friend.[1]
1883, January
Dr. P. M. Wise reports the "case" of Lucy Ann Lobdell Slater who was admitted to the Williard Asylum for the Insane, in Willard, N.Y., on October 12, 1880, and who gave her name as Joseph Lobdell, and was dressed in male attire throughout and declared herself to be a man, saying "she was married and had a wife liviing."[2]
1883, March
One of the "cases" reported by Dr. William Hammond is a 23- or 24-year-old cigar dealer who "formed an association for pederastic purposes" with a young man who was to take the active part: "Articles of agreement were drawn up between them in which each swore eternal fidelity to the other, and in which they were called, respectively, husband and wife."[3]
1891, January 29
A New York Times story about Alice Mitchell's murder of Freda Ward, in Memphis, Tennessee, reports Mitchell's insanity plea: "I killed Freda because I loved her, and she refused to marry me. I asked her three times to marry me, and at last she consented. We were to marry here and go to St. Louis to live. I sent her an engagement ring and she wore it for a time. When she returned it I resolved to kill her."[4]
1894, January 18
The Badger State Banner, published in Black River Falls, Wisconsin, reports the story of Anna Morris (alias Frank Blunt), found guilty of theft, and Gertrude Field who "claimed to have married" Field/Blunt in Eau Claire, and "who fell upon the neck of the prisoner and wept for half an hour."[5]
1907, November 11
The Trinidad [Colorado] Advertiser reports: "Katherine Vosbaugh, who for sixty years posed as a man, wearing male garb, living the rough life of the pioneers in the Soouthwest and who even 'married' another woman, died yesterday morning . . . ."[6]
1921, December 16
A special cable to The New York Times from Boston reports the arraignment of "Ethel Kimball, 29, who has lived as a man, doing a man's daily work, and married a Somerville girl after two years' courtship."[7]
1923, June 30
The New York Times reports the arrest, June 19, in Chicago, of Fred G. Thompson, who had lived for thirteen years as "'Mrs.' Frances Garrick, legal wife of Frank Carrick.".[8]
1924, September 23
Fledgling literary historian and critic F. O. Matthiessen writes to his new and beloved artist partner Russell Cheney: "Marriage is a mere term; only as a dynamic vivid thing does it dominate liffe. That is: you can visualize marriage or you can live it. Now I am living it." He continues: "Marriage! What a strange word to be applied to two men! Can't you hear the hell-hounds of society baying full pursuit behind us. . . . And so we have a marriage that was never seen on land or sea . . . It is a marriage that demands nothing and gives everything. It does not limit the affections of the two parties, it gives their scope greater radiance and depth. Oh it is strange enough. It has no ring, and no vows, and no [wedding presents from your friends], and no children."[9]
1929, January-March
A report by Charles A. Ford, a member of the Ohio Bureau of Juvenile Research, in the Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychiatry, documents same-sex sexual intimacies in a correctional institution for women. He quotes love letters between a black woman and a white woman in which the black woman signs herself "from your love husben" and "love to my wife Gloria." The white woman replies: "My dearest and Only husban. . . ."[10]
1929, April 26
A wireless to The New York Times from London reports the sentencing there of "Mrs. Lillian Arkel-Smith, who masqueraded as 'Colonel Sir Victor Barker' for six years and actually went through a form of marriage with another woman."[11]
2012, February 7
A federal appeals court panel composed of two judges found that a voter-approved ban on same-sex marriage in California, passed in 2008, known as Proposition 8, violated the constitutional rights of gay men and lesbians in that state. The ruling upheld an earlier lower court's ruling. The two judges stated explicitly that they were not deciding whether there was a constitutional right for same-sex couples to marry, instead ruling that the disparate treatment of married couples and domestic partners since the passage of Proposition 8 violated the Constitution's Equal Protection Claude.[12]
2012, February 13
The New Jersey State Senate votes to legalize same-sex marriage. The bill receives 10 more votes than it did two years earlier, when the measure failed.[13]
2012, February 16
The New Jersey Assembly approves a bill legalizing same-sex marriage that Gov. Chris Christie says he will veto. "Democrats supporting the measure urged their colleagues to make history, comparing the fight for legaliziation of same-sex marriage to battles for women's suffrage and against racism." [14]
Notes
- ↑ Jonathan Ned Katz, Gay American History: Lesbians and Gay Men in the U.S.A. (NY: Crowell, 1976), page 225-226.
- ↑ Jonathan Ned Katz, Gay American History: Lesbians and Gay Men in the U.S.A. (NY: Crowell, 1976), page 221-222.
- ↑ Jonathan Ned Katz, Gay/Lesbian Almanac (NY: Harper & Row, 1983), page 185. Also see Jonathan Ned Katz, Gay American History: Lesbians and Gay Men in the U.S.A. (NY: Crowell, 1976), page 55.
- ↑ {{GLA}, page 224.
- ↑ Jonathan Ned Katz, Gay American History: Lesbians and Gay Men in the U.S.A. (NY: Crowell, 1976), pages 231-232.
- ↑ Jonathan Ned Katz, Gay/Lesbian Almanac (NY: Harper & Row, 1983), page 323
- ↑ Jonathan Ned Katz, Gay/Lesbian Almanac (NY: Harper & Row, 1983), page 404.
- ↑ Jonathan Ned Katz, Gay/Lesbian Almanac (NY: Harper & Row, 1983), page 467.
- ↑ Jonathan Ned Katz, Gay/Lesbian Almanac (NY: Harper & Row, 1983), page 413.
- ↑ Jonathan Ned Katz, Gay American History: Lesbians and Gay Men in the U.S.A. (NY: Crowell, 1976), pages 71-73.
- ↑ Jonathan Ned Katz, Gay/Lesbian Almanac (NY: Harper & Row, 1983), page 452.
- ↑ Adam Nagourney, "California Ban on Gay Unions Is Struck Down. Proposition 8 Violated rights, Judges Rule". New York Times, February 8, 2012, page 1.
- ↑ New York Times, "New Jersey Senate Votes to Leagalize Same-Sex Marriage," February 14, 2012, page A1, A19.
- ↑ Kate Zernike, "Gay Marriage, Passed, Awaits Veto by Chisti", New York TImes, February 17, 2012, page A1.
