18th Century England/Australia: Gay Couples

[jacquzy]

After looking through many books, and trying numerous terms in search engines such as Yahoo and Google, and coming up with just about nothing (nothing precise, anyway) I discovered this comm, and had a mini party in front of my computer.

Comments

[duckgirlie]

Men living together was a fairly common occurrence, as renting/owning property could be expensive, though that would generally be men of the same social class.

However, it would be believable for the marine to have 'hired' his lover, provided he had enough money to own enough property/be upper-class enough that having a full-time, live-in servant wouldn't looks excessive

[syntinen_laulu]

In the 18th century, if you couldn't afford a servant you were Really, Really Poor. A captain of marines would be expected to employ at least one full-time servant, and it wouldn't occur to anyone that this man is anything other than a servant unless their behaviour is stupidly blatant.

[tears_of_nienna]

There's a documentary out there called Queer as 18th Century Folk that you might find interesting. It does discuss a long-term lesbian couple, Anne Lister and Ann Walker.

[tears_of_nienna]

Yeah, that is true--but it does give an idea of how the relationship might (or might not) work in the given scenario.

[lilacsigil]

In early colonial Australia, you have the added "cover" that white men greatly outnumbered white women. It was absolutely accepted for military officers to have male convict servants - female convict servants where highly in demand and a lower-ranked single man would be unlikely to get one, settling for a male servant instead

[enemyfrigate]

Certainly they could be living out on a remote holding, running a farm/ranch together without anyone being the wiser. The main thing is they would not be able to associate socially, if we're talking officer/lower class convict.

[fluffy_goddess]

The situation of two men living together without suspicion is reasonable enough, but where you're going to run into trouble will be the spectre of class. The only really obvious way I see to get around it would be to have them live as master-and-servant for the years of his term, then have the convict buy some land with the money he's saved and work his way up with the quiet support of his lover. A man who spent seven years in labour, then ten years building up his land to the point of being reasonably wealthy, would have a fair position within Australia, though society back in England would look down on him a lot.

Also remember: if they were both 'masculine' men by the standards of the time, it'd be fairly unlikely for people to leap to omg he's a sodomite Physically hardy men, even those who acted outright uncomfortable with women and never married, could get away with a lot, and might even be applauded for choosing the civilizing influence of friendship instead of living (expensively) alone.