Marriage of Likeness (The): Same-sex Unions in Pre-modern Europe

by John Boswell | Reference |
ISBN: 0002555085 Global Overview for this book
Registered by Marcenda of Carcavelos, Lisboa (distrito) Portugal on 9/18/2006
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This book is in the wild! This Book is Currently in the Wild!
4 journalers for this copy...
Journal Entry 1 by Marcenda from Carcavelos, Lisboa (distrito) Portugal on Monday, September 18, 2006
'He offers a historical precedent - nothing less than the blessing of the church - for male coupling.'

Journal Entry 2 by Marcenda at on Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Released 15 yrs ago (4/16/2008 UTC) at

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Sent to Leisha-Camden for a gay pride festival book fair.

Journal Entry 3 by SkeiveFilmerBCZ from -- wild release somewhere in Oslo, Oslo fylke Norway on Friday, April 18, 2008
This book arrived in LeishaCamden's mailbox today. Thank you so much, Marcenda! This is a wonderful donation for our project! It's certainly very much appreciated. :-) It'll be great to see what the future has in store for this book.

It will definitely be read by at least one person here in Oslo! LeishaCamden has been wanting to read this book for years, but had actually forgotten about it for a couple of years, till now. Fortunately the release isn't until June, so LC'll have time to read it before then. :-)

Thank you, Marcenda!!

Journal Entry 4 by wingLeishaCamdenwing from Alna bydel, Oslo fylke Norway on Friday, May 2, 2008
LeishaCamden's taken the liberty of reading this while it's in her possession. :-) April 20th through May 1st.

I must confess, however, that I did not read the footnotes. ;-) (I did read the appendixes, though! Well, OK, not the one that's in Greek ...)

This was a very interesting read, but pretty heavy, not something one would read for fun or relaxation. I was interested in it because it touches on an issue that's being very hotly debated in this country at the moment, there is a law in the works which will legalize marriage for same sex couples and get rid of the so-called 'Partnership Act' which we have now which gives same sex couples almost the same status as married spouses but not quite. This new law will give both gay and straight marriages an equal footing. This book definitely gave me some good arguments for my side in the debate (I am in favor of the new law, except for the section that will give lesbians access to artificial insemination treatment - I am against this as I don't think anyone should be given such treatment, the world is dangerously overpopulated as it is and adoption is a much much better solution to the problem of childlessness). I think this book would give a lot of food for thought to any reader, regardless of their position on the issue of gay marriage.

As I said, this is a heavy read, a very scholarly work, and I am rather out of the habit of reading such books. But the book is well written and seems very well researched. Boswell presents his findings in a mostly convincing way. The one thing that stuck in my craw was when he said how incredibly anti-gay all Western societies have been and basically still are (the book was published in 1994). Speak for yourself, Mr American - I don't remember exactly what he said but I do know that it is not true in that extreme for most Western European countries. At his time of writing several European nations had gay marriage/partnership laws. And I fail to see how one sweeping statement on popular sentiment towards gays can possibly be true for the entire United States, a notoriously divided nation on many issues.

Knowing a good bit about premodern Europe I'm sure helped me in my understanding of this book (I am an historian by education, my period is the middle ages and my particular field high medieval Norway) but I don't think it's a necessity for gaining a lot of interesting info by reading this book. A somewhat open mind though I think has to be said to be necessary. ;-)

One thing I totally loved was learning that the Sacred Band of Sparta, the subject of the notoriously hard-hitting and super macho movie '300', was actually made up of 150 pairs of gay lovers ... !! :-D

I hope this book finds a lot of new readers in its future. It really deserves it and I'm grateful to have had the chance of reading it myself.

Journal Entry 5 by SkeiveFilmerBCZ from -- wild release somewhere in Oslo, Oslo fylke Norway on Friday, May 2, 2008
Back to the shelf in LC's basement ... :-)

Released 15 yrs ago (5/5/2008 UTC) at To a fellow BookCrosser in a BookCrosser, by hand -- Controlled Releases

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LeishaCamden brought some of the 'project books' to the Oslo BC meetup this afternoon, to see if we can't get a few more readers for some of them before the mass release. New BCer lille-gnom was interested in this. Here's wishing her a great reading experience!

As mentioned: the book must be back with LeishaCamden no later than June 20th. :-)

Journal Entry 7 by lille-gnom on Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Got this book from LeishaCamden at a BC-meeting yesterday. I'm looking forward to reading it as soon as my exams are over! Though I might sneak a peek before that...

Journal Entry 8 by lille-gnom on Monday, June 23, 2008
I only had time to read the first two chapters, they were ok. A little too heavy on the footnotes perhaps.. Passed the book on to LeishaCamden at Cinemateket today.

Journal Entry 9 by SkeiveFilmerBCZ from -- wild release somewhere in Oslo, Oslo fylke Norway on Monday, June 23, 2008
LeishaCamden got this book back from lille-gnom this afternoon.

Will be released soon.

Released 15 yrs ago (6/28/2008 UTC) at Pridepark - Skeive dager in -- wild release somewhere in Oslo, Oslo fylke Norway

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Somewhere in the Pridepark area on City Hall Square. :-)

the marriage of 1ikeness

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