The Social Sex

A History of Female Friendship

Marilyn Yalom, Theresa Donovan Brown

• Publisher: Harper Perennial
• Year: 2024
• Print ISBN: 9780062265500
• eBook ISBN: 9780062265517
• Subtopic: Gender Studies

"Fascinating . . . The Social Sex is a paean to companionship. Share it with a bosom friend."  —NPR

From historian and acclaimed feminist author of How the French Invented Love and A History of the Wife comes this rich, multifaceted history of the evolution of female friendship

In today's culture, the bonds of female friendship are taken as a given. But only a few centuries ago, the idea of female friendship was completely unacknowledged, even pooh-poohed. Only men, the reasoning went, had the emotional and intellectual depth to develop and sustain these meaningful relationships.

Surveying history, literature, philosophy, religion, and pop culture, acclaimed author and historian Marilyn Yalom and co-author Theresa Donovan Brown demonstrate how women were able to co-opt the public face of friendship throughout the years. Chronicling shifting attitudes toward friendship—both female and male—from the Bible and the Romans to the Enlightenment to the women's rights movements of the '60s up to Sex and the City and Bridesmaids, they reveal how the concept of female friendship has been inextricably linked to the larger social and cultural movements that have defined human history.

Armed with Yalom and Brown as our guides, we delve into the fascinating historical episodes and trends that illuminate the story of friendship between women: the literary salon as the original book club, the emergence of female professions and the working girl, the phenomenon of gossip, the advent of women's sports, and more.

Lively, informative, and richly detailed, The Social Sex is a revelatory cultural history.

PART ONE

When the Public Face of Friendship Was Male

ONE

LOOKING FOR FRIENDSHIP IN THE BIBLE

“Thine own friend, and thy father’s friend, forsake not.”

—PROV. 27:10 (KING JAMES BIBLE)

“Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”

—JOHN 15:13 (KING JAMES BIBLE)

MOST FRIENDSHIP STORIES IN THE Hebrew Bible and the New Testament are male-centered, but often we can sense a feminine presence lurking within the narrative. At a time when men had a monopoly on writing and showed little interest in what women did among themselves, it is surprising that we have any records at all of women as friends. While the headliner male friendship stories are more prominent and more familiar to us, a few portraits of female bonds supplement our understanding of friendship among Biblical peoples.

The Book of Job

In the Book of Job, the central character is a blessed man who has lived righteously; yet God, goaded by Satan, decides to strip Job of all his possessions and slaughter his children. When this isn’t enough, He afflicts Job with boils from head to foot. Why God has done this has perplexed readers for almost three millennia. When Job sits down to lament his fate, three male friends come to comfort him and share his sorrow: “They sat down with him upon the ground, seven days and seven nights.”¹³ Nobody talks for a whole week. Finally, Job breaks the silence with a famous (and understandable) self-pitying rant, cursing the day he was born. Then a cycle of dramatic interaction begins in which each friend argues with Job and tries to make him admit to having sinned and accept God’s chastisement without question. But an anguished Job continues to maintain his innocence, and in so doing he raises eternal questions about the nature of goodness, evil, and divine justice.

Though his friends think they have done their best to sympathize with him, Job calls them “miserable comforters” who do not truly understand his situation: “I also could speak as ye do; if your soul were in my soul’s stead.” Here is the crux of friendship as experienced not only by Job but by friends in all centuries: Can we truly put ourselves in another’s shoes? Can we truly share another person’s “soul”? How should we behave when our friend is anguished, depressed, suicidal? Job says he would not criticize his friend, he would not “heap up words against you, and shake mine head at you. But I would strengthen you with my mouth, and the moving of my lips should assuage your grief” (Job 16:2–5). When you are in distress, what you need is a loving presence—someone to hold your hand and empathize with your sorrow, not offer criticism or blame.

In the end, after the appearance of God Himself out of the whirlwind, Job confesses his lack of understanding and acknowledges the sovereignty of God’s judgment. His friends have played a significant role in Job’s psychological trajectory, if only as a sounding board for his protestations. They are present at Job’s final reversal of fortune, when God restores him to his previous state of happiness. We can assume that as good friends, they share in his joy.

David and Jonathan

Like the story of Job, the story of David dates from the time of the patriarchs, roughly 1000 BCE. As described in the books 1 Samuel and 2 Samuel, the lofty bromance between David and Jonathan offers a paradigm of pure love in which “the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David” (1 Sam. 18:1). When Jonathan’s father, Saul, commands his servants to kill David, Jonathan speaks up on David’s behalf and protects him from death. Saul wishes to destroy David because he, rather than his own son, is destined to become the king of Israel. But Jonathan cares only about the survival of his friend and tells David: “Go in peace, for as much as we have sworn both of us in the name of the Lord, saying, The Lord be between me and thee, and between my seed and thy seed for ever” (1 Sam. 20:42). Thus Jonathan and David establish an alliance of brotherly love and loyalty that will extend unto their offspring.

Ruth and Naomi

Women as platonic soul mates, comparable to Jonathan and David, are not visible in the Hebrew Bible. The closest we come to such affection between women is the story of Ruth and her mother-in-law, Naomi. When Ruth is widowed, instead of returning to her own Moabite clan, she chooses to follow Naomi, reciting these now-famous words: “Whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge; thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God” (Ruth 1:16). Though these women are depicted as capable of faithful attachment to each other, their relationship comes about because they have been connected by a man, in this case Naomi’s son, who was Ruth’s husband. But whatever the motives that inspire her choice, Ruth’s attachment to Naomi comes across as genuine. Here is one woman casting her lot with another woman, through bonds of friendship that resemble those of marriage. It is not surprising that “Whither thou goest . . .” is now recited as part of the vows that some couples—opposite-sex as well as same-sex—pledge to each other in their weddings.

Plural Wives

Elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible, the husband is often a source of friction rather than bonding between women. Remember the story of Sarah, Abraham’s wife, and her maidservant, Hagar (Gen. 16). Because Sarah is barren, she asks Abraham to give her a child through Hagar’s body—long before the technological advances of the twentieth century, the Hebrews had their own form of surrogate mothering. Hagar gives birth to Ishmael, but a jealous Sarah then sends her away. Later, with God’s intervention, Sarah does indeed conceive a son, Isaac, but the rivalry between the mothers does not end. It is passed on to the sons, Isaac and Ishmael, who each found separate nations. Isaac continues Abraham’s Hebrew lineage, whereas Ishmael is considered the legendary father of the Arab nations.

The story of Sarah and Hagar fits into the stereotypical depiction of women as rivals for male attention, which persists to the present day. This same rivalry is depicted between Rachel and Leah, two sisters given as wives to Jacob (a grandson of Sarah and Abraham). Jacob labors for seven years to marry Rachel, but he is tricked into marrying her elder sister, Leah, instead. Then he is obliged to work seven more years for the woman he had wanted in the first place. After fourteen years of hard work he finds himself with two wives, Leah and Rachel, who are envious of each other for different reasons. Leah envies Rachel because Jacob loves Rachel more, and Rachel envies Leah because Leah has produced children, while Rachel has remained barren. At this point, a contest ensues between the two women over childbearing. Rachel produces a son through her handmaiden and, later, one on her own. Leah produces more sons and, when she is no longer fertile, enlists her handmaiden to add to the number of Jacob’s children. All in all he becomes the father of a minitribe consisting of numerous sons and one daughter, Dinah. Instead of portraying women as sisters and friends, aiding each other in childbirth and nursing, as they must have done, the Biblical author chose instead to depict them as jealous rivals for their husband’s affection and contestants in childbearing. Where is the historical truth in all this?

The Hebrew Bible presents childbirth stories in the context of a tribal or national continuum. So important was the idea of perpetuating the Hebrew people that no fault was found if the husband of a childless woman fathered offspring via the wife’s handmaidens, with the consent, or even urging, of the wife. But when we come to the New Testament, individual actions and interactions begin to take precedence over tribal considerations. Thus we see more relationships between nonfamily members and members of different tribes in the New Testament than we do in the Hebrew Bible. The Gospel depictions of Jesus and the Apostles give us the archetype of today’s bromances.

Jesus and His Disciples

Several of the apostles have highly distinctive personalities—Peter, the stalwart leader, dense and cowardly in some moments, brilliant and rock solid in others; Thomas, the stubborn pragmatist; Matthew, the calculating one; John, the most beloved by Jesus (at least according to John himself); Judas, the needy one. Many of these characters have backstories that add heft to their individuality, apart from tribal or familial connections. Most of them are framed as ordinary guys—fishermen, a tax collector, maybe a drifting son of a well-to-do father. The friendships we witness throughout the gospels are, with two exceptions discussed below, man-to-man bonds. The male writers of the New Testament had no qualms about giving short shrift to women in their narratives. Even the Virgin Mary, in a notable scene, is ignored by her then-famous son, who emphasized the primacy of one’s chosen associates over the value of family:

While he yet talked to the people, behold, his mother and his brethren stood without, desiring to speak with him.

Then one said unto him, Behold, thy mother and thy brethren stand without, desiring to speak with thee.

But he answered . . . and he stretched forth his hand toward his disciples, and said, Behold my mother and my brethren!

For whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother.

(Matt. 12:46–50)

Despite the significant differences between the New Testament and the Hebrew Bible, relatively little changes between the two books with regard to women. We do hear mention of the women who supported Jesus’s ministry, and, after his death, those who continued as followers within the fledgling church. These women provided funds, food and shelter, and meeting places, but few warranted the barest character development or description of their friendships.

Elisabeth and Mary

There is, however, one New Testament story that truly centers on female friendship. This is the lovely story of the Visitation, when the young, newly pregnant Mary goes to visit her kin, Elisabeth, who is finally with child after a long history of being barren. One cannot deny women center stage when it comes to pregnancy.

In the brief, elliptical Biblical passages that mention the meeting between the mothers-to-be of John the Baptist and Jesus, the scripture writer sticks to his script and reinforces the virgin-mother-of-God conceit. Elisabeth’s advanced-age pregnancy is so outré that the annunciating archangel, Gabriel, tells Mary about it as proof that God can do anything and thus can get Mary pregnant while she remains a virgin.

Chances are good that Mary’s visit to Elisabeth was welcomed by Mary’s family, who found themselves with the problem of a betrothed virgin turning up pregnant. Joseph of Nazareth would have been firmly within his rights to reject Mary and publicly shame her family. But Joseph, whatever his reasons, opted in favor of acceptance. As soon as Mary conceived, she went “with haste” (Luke 1:39) to the hill country of Judah, where Elisabeth and her husband, Zacharias, lived.

When Mary arrived and “Elisabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb” (Luke 1:41). This action has been interpreted as the joy John the Baptist felt in utero when confronted with the divine fetus of Jesus. Elisabeth and Mary say nothing about how it felt to be two women sharing the discomforts and fears of pregnancy, one already six months along, the other possibly experiencing the morning sickness so common in the early stages. Luke tells us that Mary remained with Elisabeth for three months, which would coincide with Elisabeth’s giving birth.

The Elisabeth/Mary story endures. It has reinforced, for hundreds of years, one of Christianity’s most basic tenets: the virgin birth of God-made-man. Luke keeps the focus in the Visitation episode on the male fetuses, yet the fundamental power of the meeting between the two pregnant women vibrates just below the surface. The strength of the story lies in a motif to which everybody responds: the bond between two women who love each other as friends. And, since time immemorial, pregnancy and birthing are likely to top the list of occasions when a woman requires, and is permitted, the friendship of another woman.

The actual details of this important story are minimal. Both women clearly needed help. We do not know how old Elisabeth was—at what age a woman was considered hopelessly barren in Biblical times—but we do know that pregnancy can be complicated and difficult for anybody, and especially for older mothers. On the other hand, social custom of the time would indicate that Mary, a virgin, was very young indeed—twelve to fifteen years old. Given her mission, we can easily speculate that this girl was terrified. We can imagine how much comfort the two women provided for each other, with Mary offering the physical strength and cheering aura of youth and Elisabeth responding with the practical and emotional experience of a mature woman.

Mary Magdalene

There is another standout Mary in the New Testament, Mary Magdalene, and we know even less about her than we do about Jesus’s mother. The few sentences referring to “the Magdalene” in the four Gospels only hint at her place in Jesus’s ministry. She and two other named women (Joanna and Susanna) mentioned among his followers “ministered unto him of their substance”—that is, provided him with material support (Luke 8:3). At one point, when Mary is afflicted with a mysterious illness, Jesus is able to drive evil spirits from her body. Alongside Jesus’s mother and his mother’s sister, Mary of Cleophas, Mary Magdalene witnesses the crucifixion (John 19:25), and, on the third day after the crucifixion, she discovers the empty sepulchre where Jesus’s body had been placed. Indeed, she is the only person to be listed in all four Gospels as the first to discover Jesus’s missing body and to believe that he had been resurrected (Matt. 28:1–10, Mark 16:1-11, Luke 24:1–11, John 20:11–18). Both Mark and John name Mary Magdalene as the one who announced the news of Jesus’s resurrection to his disbelieving apostles.

Because of Mary Magdalene’s participation in key moments of the crucifixion and resurrection, some scholars and creative writers have speculated that she was more than a bit player in Jesus’s life—not only his avid student but possibly also his lover or wife. They have found support in the noncanonical Gospel of Mary Magdalene, extant in Coptic translations from the Greek, which states specifically that Jesus loved Mary more than any other woman.¹⁴ In this vein, Mary Magdalene has inspired the work of New Testament scholars, most notably Elaine Pagels,¹⁵ as well as novelist Dan Brown in The Da Vinci Code and composer Mark Adamo in his beautiful opera The Gospel of Ma...

Table of contents

• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• Introduction
• Part I: When the Public Face of Friendship was Male
• Part II: When Women’s Friendships Entered into History
• Part III: Face-To-Face in the Twenty-First Century
• Epilogue Female Friendship: What Endures
• Notes
• Acknowledgments
• Index
• About the Authors
• Also by Marilyn Yalom
• Credits
• Back Ad
• Copyright
• About the Publisher