Matelotage

[TheSavannah]

I don't know if you knew about this concept, but I was very surprised to have come across it!

Matelotage, what it is?



During the Golden Age of Piracy, some buccaneers engaged in matelotage, a form of civil union. Sometimes these arrangements were purely financial — but often they were affectionate, romantic, or sexual.

It’s believed that matelotage began as a strictly economic partnership.
One pirate would agree with another that they could inherit the lion’s share of their fortune after leaving “part to the dead man’s friends or to his wife.

Matelotage manifested in many different ways, but among pirates in the Caribbean in the 18th century, it generally denoted a sexual relationship.

Though the bonds of matelotage were respected on board pirates’ ships, same-sex unions were still highly stigmatized on land.
All but the wealthy elite could be jailed or even killed for homosexuality.

Even in the pirate world, homosexuality wasn’t quite accepted as the norm. In Tortuga, a hotspot for buccaneers in the Caribbean, Governor Le Vasseur wrote to France in 1645 requesting that the government send 2,000 prostitutes to the colony, in hopes that the presence of more women would curb the prevalence of matelotage.

However, the plan backfired when some pirates began marrying prostitutes, only to share them with their matelotage partners. It seems the custom offered pirates a kind of security and companionship that they couldn’t find onshore and wasn’t so easily gotten rid of.

In terms of exactly how common same-sex romance was among pirates, historians today generally believe that rates of homosexuality likely mirrored what would have been found in the population at large. Unfortunately, without written matelotage records and only a handful of anecdotes documenting this practice, it’s impossible to say just how far-reaching it was.


https://allthatsinteresting.com/matelotage


What do you think? Did you know about this concept?

[Klord1]

As Kurt Cobain said.... Everyone is gay

[pigsmickey]

Ya learn something new everyday

[rockonallnite]

I never read about it.
But it makes sense, they were outlaws, mercenaries, so they had to have some sort of insurance, in case they were killed.
A sort of policy, a will, so to inherit their possessions if they were killed.

I guess is what we called BROMANCE, today...the word MATE, derived from matelotage.

And with some many months at see, no wonder they start looking at each other with extra love!

Feck it nothing wrong in today's society, but in the 1600s that was fucking progressive!!
Haaa, easy solutions to difficult problems!! Nothing better than that!


Why are pirates gay...??

Because they areghhhh !! ☠🤪 (I know is a bad joke)