Mary Grew and Margaret Burleigh

In the 1860s, abolitionists turned suffragettes Mary Grew and Margaret Burleigh made no secret of the fact that they shared a home and a bed. Nor did they attempt to hide their distrust of the institution of heterosexual marriage. “Even well-intentioned men failed at matrimony,” Mary once said, because of “the low ideal of a wife’s position … [and] the marriage relation,” a fate from which she believed she was saved through her Boston Marriage with Margaret. [New York Times]