Friends to Lovers

[osprey_archer]

And when I thought how my dear friend my lover was on his way
coming, O then I was happy, - Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

When Civil War soldiers wrote to their wives, they often began their letters “Esteemed Friend.” (Actually they tended to spell it “Esteamed Friend.”) - Bell Irvin Wiley, The Life of Billy Yank

“As for William, he could never have been so wise, so tender, so lovable, so altogether delightful and worshipful, had it not been for his long guardianship of [his sister] Agatha. He has been father, mother, brother and lover to her.” - Florence Morse Kingsley, The Queer Browns, 1907. (I cannot emphasize enough that these Browns are queer because they are socialists.)

As I’ve been working on Sleeping Beauty, one of the things I’ve been thinking about/playing with/tearing my hair out over is the way that the meaning of “friend” and “lover” (and also just “love”) shifted over time between 1865 and 1965. Specifically:

1. Whitman uses “dear friend” and “lover” more or less as synonyms and the entire American reading public apparently found this a completely normal description of affectionate male friendship until about 1890, at which point people began occasionally to have Concerns.

2. In other contexts lover often specifically refers to an as-yet-unrequited romantic relationship: a girl’s “lovers” are the young men who are in love with her, whether or not she returns the feeling. If she does, he is then an “accepted lover.” Are they having sex? Probably not! Maybe? Who knows.

3. Also APPARENTLY you could use the word “lover” about a sister’s feeling for her beloved big brother without the entire reading public going INCEST??? The fact that William has been “father, mother, brother and lover” to his sister Agatha is not at all disturbing but the very reason he is “so wise, so tender, so lovable.” In this case lover seems to mean “shining ideal that the person looks up to very very much but not at all in a sex way.” Hero worship! (I have for a long time wondered how British boarding schools got the whole "You don't have a CRUSH, it's just HERO WORSHIP" thing going, but if that's part of the cultural understanding of crushes anyway...)

4. By the 1960s, “lovers” tends to describe a reciprocated romantic relationship, probaby with extramarital sex. (When my high school class was reading Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar in the 2000s, we all had a good snicker about the guy who signs a letter to Julius Caesar “Your lover.” IIRC he’s never even met Caesar. He just loves him in a “Don’t want you to die, bro” kind of way.)

5. In the 1960s friendship means DEFINITELY PLATONIC and if a man began a letter to his wife “esteemed friend” it would probably count as evidence in divorce court, but in the 1860s this was a warm and loving way in which many men began letters to their dear wives with whom they have had sex at LEAST five times based on the number of children produced by the marriage.

(I just find the “esteemed friend” thing so funny because nowadays I’m pretty sure the only people who use it are senators who hate each other. “My esteemed friend from Georgia would have us believe…”)

6. So when Whitman starts talking about his “dear friends” he’s not so much using a euphemism as using a word that in his context gives you no information at all about whether these people are having sex. Could be your bestie you have no sexual feelings for but would die for should the need arise. Could be your lawfully wedded spouse that you bang six times a week and twice on Sundays. Could be your friend you haven’t had sex sex with but you definitely share a bed whenever possible and kiss each other’s faces while murmuring fond words of deep emotional attachment. Who knows!

Anyway, yes, as you can imagine this is an absolute nightmare to try to write, and there is 100% a scene where they kiss among the wildflowers and afterward Russell gazes tenderly into Andrew’s eyes and murmurs, “You’re my dearest friend,” at which point steam rolls out of Andrew’s ears all “how the FUCK could you SAY that to me after kissing my entire FACE do you expect me to JOIN you in pretending this is platonic friendship???”

Comments

[asakiyume]

I'm laughing myself to tears at your no. 5. Evidence in divorce court! 😂 And you're so right about it being used in Congress omg.

and your no. 6 is making me laugh nearly as hard. Could be your friend you haven’t had sex sex with but you definitely share a bed whenever possible and kiss each other’s faces while murmuring fond words of deep emotional attachment. 😂

[osprey_archer]

To be fair I have no evidence that a 1960s divorce court would have cared, it's just a feeling I get from 1960s TV. You can't imagine Darren Stevens calling Samantha "my esteemed friend."

That is an extremely 19th century relationship that has absolutely no parallel in the 20th century! As Russell is discovering, to his great dismay.

[asakiyume]

^_^

This is going to be a humorous and touching story to read.

[osprey_archer]

I sure hope so, because the other possibility is that it will be a slough of crushing despair.

[troisoiseaux]

I just find the “esteemed friend” thing so funny because nowadays I’m pretty sure the only people who use it are senators who hate each other. “My esteemed friend from Georgia would have us believe…”

Ah yes, the "bless your heart" effect.

[osprey_archer]

TO BE FAIR I think that nineteenth century people were ALSO familiar with this usage of "esteemed friend," it's just that they had a non-ironic usage as well.

[regshoe]

E. M. Forster's Maurice and Edward Prime-Stevenson's Imre, both fiction about gay men written in the Edwardian period, both use 'friend' to mean 'romantic-sexual partner' in ways that seem to be playing with the equivocal meaning for deliberate effect, and it's something I like very much about both of them. In Imre the phrase 'the friendship which is love, the love which is friendship' is repeated at several pivotal moments (sometimes with Significant Capitals).

All of which is to say, it's a really interesting question! (as is the question of changing ideas about types of love in general, really). I didn't know that 'friend' was sometimes used between (heterosexual) actual married couples—that makes it even more interesting.

your friend you haven’t had sex sex with but you definitely share a bed whenever possible and kiss each other’s faces while murmuring fond words of deep emotional attachment. —hahaha, excellent summary of a specific sort of 19th C Thing...

[sovay]

I didn't know that 'friend' was sometimes used between (heterosexual) actual married couples—that makes it even more interesting.

John and Abigail Adams addressed one another in letters as "my dearest friend."

[skygiants]

This was my first thought/association too! (Thank you, 1776.)

[osprey_archer]

Yes, that's def. something I noticed when I was reading Forster - Maurice always thinks of what he wants as a Friend, sometimes IIRC with the capital letter.

Super emotional but not necessarily sexual bedsharing is Peak 19th century and Russell is deeply aghast to discover it no longer exists in 1965. He had thought friendship was timeless and eternal but apparently it changes over time and in 1965 you are only allowed this weaksauce lukewarm version with no declarations of heartfelt manly fervent love at all?

[sovay]

Whitman uses “dear friend” and “lover” more or less as synonyms and the entire American reading public apparently found this a completely normal description of affectionate male friendship until about 1890, at which point people began occasionally to have Concerns.

"Friend" and "friendship" are used with specifically romantic, queer connotations as late as 1920, cf. this journal which I found because Dorothy L. Sayers of all people contributed to it.

[regshoe]

Ooh, that looks interesting... *bookmarks*

[osprey_archer]

This makes me wonder if the reason "friend" become so aggressively platonic later is a conservative reaction against this kind of usage - an attempt to smother the queer reading of the word? "Friend is and always has been 100% platonic and there is absolutely NOTHING QUEER to see in ANY of these texts about intense friendship."

I'm also so curious why Sayers contributed to the magazine, because a queer magazine strikes me as outside her usual bailiwick. Did she have friends involved in the magazine?

[sovay]

This makes me wonder if the reason "friend" become so aggressively platonic later is a conservative reaction against this kind of usage - an attempt to smother the queer reading of the word?

In the absence of any research on the subject whatsoever, I would be willing to believe it. I have seen language—and gender roles—polarize in my lifetime.

I'm also so curious why Sayers contributed to the magazine, because a queer magazine strikes me as outside her usual bailiwick. Did she have friends involved in the magazine?

She did, although that doesn't entirely explain it to me: one of her contributions is sort of generically Christian, but the other is narrated from the more loving side of an affair: "I am not sadder that we have been friends / Not lonelier, loving you." There's some discussion in the modern preface; I poked a little at the lesbian representation in her books and it turned out to be more complex than I had remembered or noticed, which means there is almost certainly more (if my high school gaydar of a rock thought that Eiluned Price and Sylvia Marriott of Strong Poison (1930) were a couple, there must have been textual suggestion for it). I know that not every poetic "I" is autobiographical, but in this case I really want to know. It's a rather Housman-like poem.

[osprey_archer]

I'm not sure how one would research the question, even, but it does occur to me that Mary Renault uses "friend" and "lover" almost interchangeably in The Last of the Wine, set in ancient Athens where the characters have no reason to use a euphemism... so perhaps this was a usage she was familiar with, although one that had fallen out of fashion by the time she wrote the book? In The Charioteer, set in the 1940s, the characters only use "friend" to mean "lover" when they're afraid of being overhead, ​and Laurie never thinks a la Maurice that what he wants is a friend.

The Sayers part of the preface is fascinating. My impression (admittedly I am not deeply versed in Sayers biography) was that Sayers was strictly heterosexual, but then, many biographers struggle to deal with sexual fluidity in their subjects... Anyway, clearly she had witnessed these affairs with enough interest and sympathy to write a poem from the point of view of a participant, whether or not she was ever part of one.

[sovay]

I'm not sure how one would research the question, even, but it does occur to me that Mary Renault uses "friend" and "lover" almost interchangeably in The Last of the Wine, set in ancient Athens where the characters have no reason to use a euphemism... so perhaps this was a usage she was familiar with, although one that had fallen out of fashion by the time she wrote the book?

Renault uses the English words interchangeably in part because they are the same word in classical Greek: φίλος means a loved one and is therefore used for family, friends, lovers, spouses, social intimates, it's a multivalent word. When people call one another "my dear" in classical Renault, they are almost certainly saying φίλε, "my dear one." (I had a professor who used to translate φίλοι inclusively as "near and dear," which I always liked.) Latin has a similar relationship between its verb for "love," amo, and its noun for "friend," amicus. English now has the two different words, but if we go far enough back in the Indo-European DNA, I'm willing to bet it didn't. In any case, it clearly inherited the sense of overlap even after the terminology diverged; to get back to Renault, I also imagine she is evoking some contemporary gay culture, about which she felt ambivalently, but it's still vibing there in her ancient Athens. Honestly, I don't think the non-platonic valence of "friend" has died out entirely in the twenty-first century. It remains ambiguous, and ambiguity is useful to people.

My impression (admittedly I am not deeply versed in Sayers biography) was that Sayers was strictly heterosexual, but then, many biographers struggle to deal with sexual fluidity in their subjects...

Yeah. I have never read that she had any known romantic or sexual relationships with women, but then I also had no idea about The Quorum or "Veronica."

Anyway, clearly she had witnessed these affairs with enough interest and sympathy to write a poem from the point of view of a participant, whether or not she was ever part of one.

She had queer friends; that's known. She co-wrote the original 1936 stage play of Busman's Honeymoon with Muriel St. Clare Byrne, who had been a close friend since the undergraduate days of the Mutual Admiration Society and was openly lesbian. I really do wonder if at least once she got burned. That bitterness about dead sea apples reads less convincingly as a strictly external observation when she knew someone with an honest-to-God life partner.

[osprey_archer]

Yes to the continued non-platonic (at least sometimes) valence of friendship - you definitely see people calling their spouse "my best friend" these days, for instance.

Maybe Sayers had an unrequited crush on some girl at Oxford? I feel that even a blinkered biographer ought to notice an entire love affair (although... maybe not, who knows with biographers), but an unrequited crush could easily leave no record, or no record outside an ambiguous poem, anyway.

[skygiants]

There's also some interesting stuff in the book about the Mutual Admiration Society discussing Dorothy's friendship with Muriel St. Clare Byrne's partner Marjorie Barber -- that book does give the sense that Byrne was not always particularly kind about juggling her multiple ongoing relationships, and that Barber's struggles with being cast as the 'wifely' domestic partner who waited at home while Byrne lived the more glamorous and intellectual life resonated with Sayers in her own arguments with Heterosexuality And Gender. So it's possible that she was just drawing a line, although I certainly wouldn't rule out an Oxford crush either.

[osprey_archer]

I started Mutual Admiration Society and then drifted away and never finished it! I really ought to read the whole thing one of these days...

Yeah, the poem is not really *evidence* per se; Sayers could be drawing on personal experience, but she could also just be imagining herself into someone's shoes, "My Last Duchess" style. Anyway, I think the only evidence about the gender of the "you" the poet is addressing is the title? Which could be easily changed so Sayers would have a contribution to the magazine. (It is interesting that she wanted to contribute to the magazine, though.)

[minutia_r]

This isn't exactly the same, but I've been reading Robert Louis Stevenson's A Child's Garden of Verses, in which he refers to his childhood nurse, while dedicating the book to her, as "my second Mother, my first Wife", which, as a modern reader, kind of makes me go yikes, but apparently this was considered unexceptional enough to publish in a children's book.

So yeah, it does seem like in the nineteenth century you could have both friend (sexual) and wife (platonic).

[osprey_archer]

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON WHY.

This also makes me wonder what Stevenson considered the salient features of a Wife that would make him refer to his childhood nurse that way. Is it an angel in the house thing? Was it because she offered loving support to his writing endeavors, like Tolstoy's wife, who acted as amanuensis and argued characterization with him? Was it, in fact, something super yikes, but Stevenson doesn't see it as yikes at all, as evidenced by the fact that he referred to it in the dedication of his verse collection? WHO KNOWS. A MYSTERY. TWO CENTURIES DIVIDED BY A COMMON LANGUAGE.

[katherine]

This is fascinating!

I just finished re-reading Sutcliff's Flame-coloured Taffeta set in 1750 or thereabouts, in which the local witch calls anyone and everyone, down to her cat, lover.

[osprey_archer]

I remember that in Flame-Colored Taffeta! Gosh, I found that SO jarring, although I'm sure Sutcliff had some source or other that showed someone from the time doing just that. In some ways it's easier when writing historical fiction about people speaking something other than English, because you can "translate" (as it were) into something that won't jar modern speakers, instead of going, well, in the 1750s people used the word lover this way! ...as the modern reader blinks and goes "What?"

[philomytha]

Lover and my lover are still a fairly common way to address someone casually here in Devon - I've heard the bus driver giving an old man his ticket saying 'here you go my lover'.

(Here via regshoe's journal)

[osprey_archer]

Ooooh. I wonder if Sutcliff went to Devon while researching the novel (is it set in Devon? It's been so long since I've read it...) and picked up the usage there.

[katherine]

That's really interesting to know!

It is set in Sussex.

[oracne]

The fine line between historically accurate and what the modern-day readers will understand!

[osprey_archer]

I don't want to browbeat the poor modern day readers but it can be hard to know if you're really getting the point across if you don't actually have a character say in so many words "I DON'T MEAN FRIEND PLATONICALLY AND I'M NOT SURE WHY YOU THINK THAT'S AN INHERENT PART OF THE DEFINITION."

[oracne]

Discworld-style comedic footnotes?

[osprey_archer]

I don't think this would fit with the tone of the book at all tbh. Some novels are footnote books but most are not.

[lokifan]

Belated response but since this is a confusion for the characters, as opposed to 'this makes sense to the characters but not the readers', I think you can 100% have the explicit conversation! After some angst ofc :)

[osprey_archer]

I am not sure that Russell would say it QUITE like that, but he might make the point that he started letters to his beloved fiancee "Esteemed friend," and once they were married they would ABSOLUTELY have been banging, so Andrew needs to stop being so weird about the word friend already.

"What if I used another word instead of esteemed? Beloved friend? Would that suit you?"

[genarti]

Oh wow, this is fascinating! I knew about some of the "friend" uses, but not about the sheer extent of the overlap here.

[osprey_archer]

Someone should write "Friendship: A Queer History." Possibly with a companion piece "Lover: A Platonic History."

[lokifan]

(I just find the “esteemed friend” thing so funny because nowadays I’m pretty sure the only people who use it are senators who hate each other. “My esteemed friend from Georgia would have us believe…”)

LMAO!

The shift in "lover" is blowing my mind.

[osprey_archer]

You would expect lover to just mean lover, wouldn't you? But NO, apparently lover meant friend and friend meant lover and neither of those things meant what they mean today, so God knows what they DID mean exactly. Two centuries divided by a common language!