Gay Civil Partnerships Become Law

Oct 31, 2011
Janet Cameron

Aphra Behn Wrote About Lesbian Marriage - Public Domain

Brighton Town Hall was inundated with bookings from gay couples who, at long last, were permitted to express their love and commitment to each other.

In their book Women in Early Modern England, Sarah Mendelson and Patricia Crawford mention a seventeenth century case of the marriage of two women. Arabella Hirst, who was later to become a musician in Queen Mary's Court, dressed as a man in order to marry her sweetheart, Amy Poulton, in a regular church ceremony. Sadly, the marriage only lasted six months before it broke down and had to be annulled by the London Consistency Court.

Aphra Behn's play, The False Count, written in 1682 during the time of the Restoration, is widely believed to refer to this case. In the play, a character makes the following speech: "I have known as much danger under a Petticoat as a pair of Breeches. I have heard of two women who married each other - oh, abominable, as if there were so prodigious a scarcity of Christian Man's Flesh."

So, it is clear that Aphra Beh knew about and was publicly acknowledging the possibility of marriage between two women.

Marriage for Lesbian Couples Becomes a Reality

Civil partnerships for gay and lesbian couples became legal in England and Wales on 21 December 2005. Brighton and Hove, with its large gay community, had 198 ceremonies booked to take place before the year's end. The city also scored the highest number of bookings in the country, around 510 for the year. Local gay couples were elated at this long overdue change in the law.

"Our view is that civil partnerships are transformative for the lives of individual couples and their rights, but also for society more generally. Society now recognises gay relationships for the first time," said Mr. Alan Wardle, Stonewall campaigner.

Gay Couples Rush to Become Committed

For gay couples in committed relationships this change in the law has meant everything. They had felt themselves to be invisible in society. An eighty-year-old couple, who had been in a committed relationship for most of their adult lives, were among the first to take advantage of the new law.

One jubilant young lesbian couple said: "It was a day that made our souls grin. Whatever life throws at us, we know we can get through it together."

Sources:

Mendelson, Sarah, and Crawford, Patricia, Women in Early Modern England, Oxford University Press, 1998.
BBC 6 O'clock News, 5 December 2006.
Adapted from Cameron, Janet, LGBT Brighton and Hove, Amberley Publishing, 2010.