Friendships and what they could be

[flexagon]

Straight women in Tanzania are marrying each other and they make it sound pretty good, combining all the benefits of a stable home with the ability to choose their own male sexual partners.
http://www.marieclaire.com/culture/a21668/the-tanzanian-wives/

Isombe says that all-female households are the best defense available against the risk of male violence. "Nobody can touch us," she says. "If any men tried to take our property or hurt us, they would be punished by tribal elders because they have no rights over our household. All the power belongs to us."

Their dating lives are their own, and "There is no shortage of men keen to sleep with women in all-female marriages", but the legal bonds and the house-keeping and the child-raising are done with each other.

And an article from Ms. about "Boston marriages" (similar, really) and friendships in general:
http://www.msmagazine.com/june01/marriage.html

In Victorian times, women who wanted to maintain their independence and freedom opted out of marriage and often paired up to live together...

Most likely, the Boston marriage was many things to many women: business partnership, artistic collaboration, lesbian romance. And sometimes it was a friendship nurtured with all the care that we usually squander on our mates — a friendship as it could be if we made it the center of our lives.

An interesting notion, isn't it? I'm as bad as everyone else in this culture about making my boys the center of my social life -- I think polyamory often makes people worse at maintaining non-sexual connections, since there's often more than one lover to take care of, and we are so used to prioritizing those. But I could actually imagine this Tanzanian thing reasonably well, and I look forward to times in my life when I can better prioritize some of my platonic friendships.

Comments

[nahele-101.livejournal.com]

Cool link! Hadn't heard of Tanzania or the Boston Marriage thing.

I can see where you think poly makes life harder in regards to non-sexual relationships. People expect a certain level of involvement typically when you're spending lots of naked time with them repeatedly, so it could take up A LOT of time that you can't spend with others.

[polymale.livejournal.com]

I think the world would be a better place if such arrangements were far more common.