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Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 306.766094
EAN num: 9780679751649
ISBN number: 0679751645
Label: Vintage
Manufacturer: Vintage
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 464
Printing Date: May 30, 1995
Publishing house: Vintage
Release Date: May 30, 1995
Sale Popularity Level: 274726
Studio: Vintage
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Product Description:
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.
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Rated by buyers 
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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.
Rated by buyers -
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!
Rated by buyers 
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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.
Rated by buyers -
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 very 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 ... Read More
Rated by buyers -
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 endeavor 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 very 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 ... Read More
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