To use our price comparison to get the cheapest price, please click on the "Find the Cheapest Price" button located above for Same-Sex Unions in Premodern Europe by John Boswell (ISBN-10: 0679751645, ISBN-13: 9780679751649).
At this time we have not yet written a review for Same-Sex Unions in Premodern Europe by John Boswell (ISBN-10: 0679751645, ISBN-13: 9780679751649). Please continue to keep checking back to this page as we are constantly adding reviews.
Summaries and Customer Reviews are supplied by Amazon.com
Both highly praised and intensely controversial, this brilliant book produces dramatic evidence that at one time the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches not only sanctioned unions between partners of the same sex, but sanctified them--in ceremonies strikingly similar to heterosexual marriage ceremonies.
People just don't want to consider that what they believe to be true might not be.
| Customer Rating:  | In reviewing other reviews of this book, it's apparent that those approving of it / objecting to it are mostly people who approve of / object to same-sex marriage. Which tells us little about the book's veracity or validity.
There are no truly neutral observers, simply variations in the degree to which one is prejudiced toward or against a particular position. This book is so heavily footnoted and appendixed, and Boswell seems to be at such pains to clarify exactly what he is and is not claiming, and why, that it is hard to believe he is not being intellectually honest, despite the fact he had a vested interest in promoting same-sex marriage. In short, Boswell gives at least the illusion of objectivity. This is enhanced by the fact that he builds his argument over many chapters, showing the social context into which church-authorized same-sex unions fit, rather than presenting documentation on just the unions -- a point which most of his detractors conveniently overlook.
The bias -- and carelessnes -- of some reviewers is blatant. Kevin Davis states "...Boswell argues that rituals for the binding of two males (in Eastern Christendom) between the 12th and 16th centuries is evidence of the support for same-sex marriages in earlier Christianity. This is yet another example of a scholar misinterpreting historical facts in order to serve an agenda."
Anyone who paid attention knows that the preceding statement is mostly untrue. (For example, the rituals existed for over 1000 years, and were in use in other parts of Cristendom.) Boswell explicitly states, over and over again, that these same-sex unions were not, as far as the ceremony itself went, marriage ceremonies (which is why the book has the title it does), and he repeatedly shows how they differ (though the difference is not huge). He does, however, draw a distinction between what is written in a ceremony, and how people perceive the ceremony, suggesting that "the populace" viewed the union as a marriage (though not necessarily with a sexual element).
"matt" states "I would suggest that we all need to be careful in reading into texts and history what would make us feel better about ourselves." Agreed. But what about reading text and history based on what we currently perceive as true or false, right or wrong? matt conveniently forgets that "the church" systematically persecuted homosexual men and women for a thousand years -- and he's surprised when some of them are happy to find a bit of history that indicates the church at one time supported (if probably only unintentionally) their affectional preferences?
Which brings us to the issue of the essentialist / constructivist argument. Throughout the book, Boswell (it seems to me) leans in the constructivist direction, by attempting to interpret everything in the context of how the people of the time would have seen or valued it. This is far from trying to force a "modern" homo / hetero perspective on the analysis, which many critics seem to accuse Boswell of doing. (They, of course, do the same thing, but from "the other side".)
Those disagreeing with Boswell do so primarily by grossly misreading him, by taking his arguments out of context, or out of simple prejudice. They don't want to believe his interpretation might be correct.
There is another set of "facts" not discussed (or even mentioned) in this book. One is that homosexual practice between consenting adult males (I'm deliberately omitting paederasty, the love of young men, violation of slaves & prisoners, etc) is not unheard-of historically (qv, the pagan Celts). A berdache was often married to a man of the tribe (see Ruth Benedict), who presumably enjoyed sodomizing another man.
I do not believe people stir up a hornet's nest that refuses to quiet down by means of bad scholarship or specious reasoning. Boswell does not seem to be indulging in either.
As (the non-gay) friendly Professor Peter Schickele likes to say... "Truth is truth. You can't have opinions about truth." Boswell's interpretation of the historical evidence is almost certainly correct. |
Great Book for Same-sex couples planning a ceremony!
| Customer Rating: | | This book disputes the assertion that marriage is only meant to be between a man and a woman. Originally, heterosexual marriage was mostly arranged by families for money and power and it was same-sex marriage (sanctioned by the church) that was considered for the true love of the other person. Ancient texts of same-sex unions are included and are a great addition to any modern ceremony! |
In search of a word
| Customer Rating:  | This book illustrates the importance of proper words for the proper functioning of society. It also brings to mind the raging modern debate about the word "marriage:" Those who want to define it to also mean the sanction of homosexual unions and those who oppose that particular use of the word.
Past linguistic history suggests a possible end to this debate (presently in an impasse) by creating a neologism for same-sex unions. I propose, for whatever it is worth, the word "parriage." It is remarkably close to "marriage" and it strongly suggests pairing. It may well satisfy those who seek social change without antagonizing the feelings of those who want to continue to use the word "marriage" in its traditional sense. After all, while the past has certainly a claim on the present and even the future, it cannot prevent social progress. |
Of Boswell, Timidity and Denial anent History,
| Customer Rating: | | Messrs.: Some reviewers' titles, when combined with their texts, are remarkably suggestive of Freudian slips with regard to what is seemingly in their respective minds, and reveal where their thoughts and inhibitions lie. Part of this is exposed by an attendant desire to promote whatever they define as a sort of self-supposed or imagined world standard for an amorphous mythical "tradition," which is to be supposedly found by all a higher authority to the numerous and irrefutable historical facts presented by Boswell. First of all, to-day's concept of Romantic Love was simply unrefined before three hundred or so years ago, and the evolving nature of various associated rituals come down to us from that point. Second, before that evolution (or devolution, depending on your perspective), the so-called traditions of friendship, brotherhood (and all related terms and practices), abduction, and marriage as then and also formally practiced, I would emphasize, together with the near universal association of the masculine or masculinity with male same-sex personages (most often heroes, gods and demi-gods), practices, acts and interests, were all firmly homosexual. Practitioners were unabashedly presentated worldwide as homosexual to a predominant audience for many tens of centuries. Third, homosexual relationships and not heterosexual ones were considered the more natural, ascendant, as well as the norm, and certainly the position actively and overtly promoted by the early and later Church. Most churchmen (and members of their flock), of yester-day and to-day, were exceedingly avid practitioners of homosexual desire, love and friendships. Read for yourself what they reduced to writing, in whatever language you read, for proofs. Why then the anguished surprise, unfounded denials and the sense of disgust, for lack of other expressions, publicly expressed concerning the long, historical, widely known, and accepted practice of marriage between same-sex partners, either as performed and thus sanctified by the Church or via the equally acceptable alternative vehicle, which also bestowed the appellation of marriage on the same-sex relationship, of simply living together as a couple and being recognized as married by your neighbors? This is what Boswell has written in both of his monumental works, as I comprehend him. Some have missed these essentials altogether. This reality, as conveyed and constructed of fact after fact by Boswell, is the complete obverse, quite obviously, of what many uninformed or head-in-the-sand people believe, or are determined to believe, as traditional because of what they have been taught erroneously or might prefer to think for various reasons. But Boswell's revelations and relentless enumeration of historical facts and their elucidation is nonetheless well researched and undeniably true, and his work stands appropriately at the polar opposite to the watered-down and factually ignorant fabrications written by others, which non-facts and mis-apprehensions are further carelessly bandied about by the majority of heterosexualists (or non-Uranians), whether due to willful ignorance, nervous denial, or homophobic hysteria. To compound this egregious situation, during the mid-Nineteenth Century, as Boswell also informs the reader, we began to define individuals in terms of which of two genders they loved, which is itself an absurd shrinking of the spectrum of human practice, something not previously thought remotely to be necessary, or yet considered and conceptualized before then. Homosexualists were first categorized as Uranians until the term homosexual became the standard adjective (it is not properly used as a noun), although the word Gay had been used previously for centuries, for those having similar natural interests. Do not confuse the heterosexual family unit of to-day with the preferred arrangement from antiquity to present because indeed it was not the relational preference until quite recently along the timeline. As well, heterosexual marriage, when and if selected, was almost always performed for dynastic reasons (usually under terms of a contract), but not for love as is asserted to be the cause to-day. There was also a real need to address familial concerns related to procreation and rights of inheritance, which actively drove the contractual parties (the parents or guardians) to ensure that the husband would be the most likely father of any resultant progeny. These particulars are clearly demonstrated by what Boswell (and other historians and intellectuals of current and past note) presents again and again in his book(s). To the ancients and those living up to the Modern Era's fringe, the female was a drone and a minor property item, and mostly recognized as an object of procreative necessity-this is a fact, not a statement of belief or errant misogyny--although not the object of true friendship or love (i.e., intelligent love or bond), and certainly not an equal partner in marriage as our common but incorrect heterosexual currency would now define it. If you should care to read the ancient wits, various Greek and Roman philosophers and like playwrights, up to the beginnings of the Romantic Era, their most acidic and vituperative comments and biting satires would focus upon the cuckold who actually professed to love his mate (notice I do not here use the terms spouse or wife because, once more, as shown by Boswell, there were no official ceremonies, whether secular or religious, then extant, until the Late Middle Ages, which is why most relationships of whatever type were what we to-day define as common law). Since females were universally thought not to possess the intellectual equipment, loyalty or logic requisite for true love or even friendship (the term "friends," when used to described a relationship amongst males, was then more freighted with serious meaning than to-day), and possessed of no capability to form a lasting relationship, they were employed in drudgery, for ready sexual satisfaction, child-bearing and rearing, and housekeeping duties. In the centuries before condoms and the pill, as Boswell relates, young men were more frequently employed for the sexual release of older males (unwanted children were very frequently abandoned or sold), especially when all members of a household were under the sway of the pater familias or dominant male, and where all members were dominated and considered equal prey. In addition, Boswell writes, homosexual love was considered greatly preferable to heterosexual love in all respects, as well as being far more natural, tasteful and enduring. Indeed, most ancient males held the opinion that heterosexual sex was highly disgusting and distasteful, and could cause one to become effeminate, if performed too regularly. At present, due largely to the misanthropy of the so-called feminist revolution and its resultant devolution, already infected and informed by the limpid ideals of Romantic Love that preceded it, true historical tradition with regard to one's affective interests, love and relationships has been literally turned upside down. Neither the ancients, members of the so-called Church, both early and late, nor the Renaissance Man or the scholars of the Enlightenment would recognize or yet understand this massive turn of events in affective interest. Given only one of the many well-documented examples provided by Boswell, it could be easily established that, following the historical precursors of same-sex abduction and adoption, marriage was first practiced amongst those with same-sex affective interests. These facts are directly converse to the inaccurate and deceiving portrayal concocted by to-day's (and yester-day's) ignorant rabble that marriage is of heterosexual origin and that heterosexual relationships have been the exclusive preference of all mankind since time out of mind, regardless of such assertions being proven non-historical and without basis in fact or reality. As with one reviewer here, who wrote when addressing Same-Sex Unions..., "the parallels to marriage are utterly unquestionable," but then backs away and asserts that he "doubt(s) that he (Boswell) establishes that same-sex marriage existed," there is a consistently disappointing and confused attempt to somehow create a distinction without a real difference. That is timidity, intellectual atrophy and denial taken to extremes, which is, sadly, just one example of what can be described as intellectual suicide and the stubborn avoidance of reality whenever and wherever this particular subject matter is broached. I think the singularly tremendous and beneficial scholarship of Boswell and what will be his distinguished legacy require all honest readers, together with his book reviewers, to consider the known (even if uncomfortable) and unavoidable facts, and to not bring their biases, sense of denial, misunderstandings (purposeful or otherwise) and timorousness to bear on this great work of history, or to this subject matter as a whole. |
A Work of Surpassing Scholarship
| Customer Rating: | | Potential Reader: If you are interested in historical realities, fact and not bias, truth, and same-sex studies, then you need to read everything that John Boswell has written in this regard. Here, Boswell peels layer after layer of obscuring biases, prejudices, and untoward mis-apprehension from this long buried subject matter, thereby allowing us to view it clearly without the purposefully applied and clouding gloss from centuries of overt, outright lies about the character, naturalness, myths and legends, and the true history and works of an entire group of always existing human beings, who differ from their fellows only in terms of affective interest. Boswell's book does not promulgate an "agenda," whether perceived curiously as hidden or open, as asserted by and irrespective of the dishonest pretenses of its somehow blissful detractors. Rather, this is a very prescient, professionally competent and scholarly presentation of historical fact. It is tremendously unfortunate that some have chosen the disappointing path of continued denial and purposeful, wanton ignorance, yet even long after its publication. And like all and any other works of the professional historian, portions of such are open to learned, dispassionate debate, but should not be the subject of stubbornly ignorant and myopic diatribes of the most wrong-headed and biased sort, especially when coupled with no factual bases to somehow buttress their failed argument on behalf of the contrary opinion. Some of the reviewers here must be addressing instead some work other than that of Boswell, since what they assert has nothing whatever to do with either the extraordinary breadth and depth of this present work nor with its several and brilliantly interwoven theses. For example, one reviewer's reiteration of a Greek term uncomfortably provides the sense of homophobic panic, and this then is compounded by a wondrously absurd attempt to use a preposterous and nonexistent conflict in interpretation to deconstruct Boswell's entire work, on the simpleminded basis of that reviewer's peculiar use and his uniquely perceived meaning of one word in Greek. The Greek word as suggested does not, obviously was not intended to, and simply could not conceivably bear the entire weight, thematically or otherwise, of Boswell's much broader conception for his quite extensive work, which is the subject of my review. Boswell was wholly conversant, as this book more than clearly demonstrates, in several ancient and modern languages and was also a greatly respected and internationally recognized scholar of renown (a full professor at Yale University) in his own right. I would conjecture that this book's naysayers' supposed credentials or degrees were mail-ordered from some evangelical bible college. As for the unschooled, silly, but too conveniently oft-parroted misconception that asserts as some kind of unassailable fact the totally fanciful, nonhistorical idea of "male friends as only just friends" in ancient through pre-modern times, if one had bothered to read the book past the first fifty pages or so, it would have been learned and such provided with a number of verifiable examples that would inform even the most closed of minds that the concept of male "friends" and "friendship" had a much more significant, certainly romantic, and very serious meaning to males who lived during those historical periods. For some, these attitudes are operative, valid and present to-day. Reviewers also missed large sections of this work that addressed same-sex union ceremonies and, more importantly, those paragraphs abundantly devoted to the clear contemporary meaning of these unions to the actual participants and to their contemporaries. I myself am a Near and Middle Eastern History scholar, and I can attest to Professor Boswell's professional accuracy and correctness with regard to his translations, as well as to his use of the sources and materials he had to hand, and also to the substantiveness of the undoubted in-depth peer reviews that preceded and substantiated each and every part of this book. Boswell's scholarly appreciation for and his very selection and use of the many resources and source materials cited and compiled here, some quite arcane and largely unknown or even those illicitly altered and redacted centuries ago, are a virtual treasure trove of hidden, ignored and bypassed knowledge, even if some of it is general, that we are at long last made aware, having been brought from forgotten depths in to the light to inform. All is presented and conveyed in a style that is as interesting and informative to read as a good novel, or perhaps, for example, the excellent social histories by Barbara Tuchman. Yet 'Same-Sex Union...' is both a serious book for the historian (and even more so for the public at large, if they only will take the opportunity to learn) and moreover an exceedingly necessary work that I, for one, am very pleased was written, especially so by a person with the outstanding credentials Boswell possessed. I am very proud to have this book resident in my bookshelf, it having been read and referenced many times since being acquired. The information concerning Nero and Hadrian and their respective lovers and husbands (Sporus and Antinous), as well as the many so-called paired saints (Serge and Bacchus, etc.), together with the internal mini-histories and fascinating cultural aspects of abduction, adoption and marriage (greatly differing from the practices and rationales employed in our presumably modern society) in the ancient and premodern worlds was, for me, the most intriguing, informative and fascinating. His extra-textual cites, definitions, explications, notes, and appendices are utterly superb, and could not be bettered or more revealing. Surely, it was (and is again) time that someone with the requisite credentials, background, intellect and scholarship, moxie, rectitude, and writing skills, like Boswell, wrote this sort of history (I would definitely say the same for his previous much needed and heralded work: 'Christianity, Social...'). This book is a very densely-packed, highly intellectual and appropriately technical work, so if you like your histories 'light,' I would strongly recommend a sort of 'warm-up' first with other works of like but less intensive nature before tackling it without some preparatory information and knowledge. In my opinion, you, the fortunate reader of this book, will actually derive more from Boswell's work should you be prepared to comprehendingly read and thoroughly understand it--rather than try to get by with only the application of, at best, a pedestrian, provincial background and with a near dearth of requisite knowledge, such as that so embarrassingly exposed and natteringly evinced by some few intellectually challenged and clearly prejudiced exemplars displayed and revealed in a number of preceding reviews. I only wish that I could give this monumentally excellent work by Boswell more than 5-stars! |
|
