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Meet The Pioneering Lesbian Couple Who Got "Married" Over 200 Years Ago

A recent Washington Post article chronicled the 200-year-old love story of Charity Bryant and Sylvia Drake, one of America's first same sex "marriages."

According to Rachel Hope Cleves–an associate professor of history at the University of Victoria and author of a new study in the latest issue of the Journal of American History chronicling 500 years of same-sex unions in the United States–Bryant and Drake's 44-year-long marriage is by far the best and most explicitly documented example of an early same-sex union.

She recounts details of the relationship in her book, “Charity and Sylvia: A Same-Sex Marriage in Early America.”

Related: Lesbian Couple Wed After 72 Years Together

Bryant initially hired Drake as her assistant in her tailoring business. Within months, Bryant rented an apartment, asking Drake to become her roommate and wife–The latter arrangement was kept as an "open secret" amongst fellow townspeople.

According to Cleves, the pair considered themselves married, celebrating the day they moved in together as an anniversary and Bryant referring to Drake as her "helpmeet," a common 19th-century term for spouse.

Drakes archives at the Henry Sheldon Museum of Vermont History in Middlebury even include a scrap on which she had written her and Bryant's names in various successions: “Bryant, Bryant Charity, Bryant Sylvia, Bryant Sylvia, Bryant Charity, Bryant Sylvia.”

Cleves cites Bryant and Drake's unofficial marriage as a key argument in helping the continued fight to legalize gay marriage nationally, referencing how the opposition often defends marriage as a traditional institution, ignoring documented occurrences like Bryant and Drake's.

You can read the entire Washington Post profile of the couple here.

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