What is the relationship in the society between male friendship and marriage?  In what way do they work together?  In what way, for example, must marriage in the premodern societies work to reinforce and support male friendship as the most important relationship in that society?

Below you will find a small selection of theoretical questions relating to the course.  Any of these questions can be turned into a paper topic, especially for Paper 1.

1. What is the relative importance attached to (male) friendship in the society?  How is the society structured in a way that supports and encourages close bonds between men?
2. What is the relationship in the society between male friendship and marriage?  In what way do they work together?  In what way, for example, must marriage in the premodern societies work to reinforce and support male friendship as the most important relationship in that society?
3. Why is it that male friendship is given more importance in premodern and, to a certain extent, early modern societies?  What has made male friendship today diminished.  (You might ask how our society is structured in such a way that it encourages and promotes marriage (and the nuclear family) even as it requires that other relationships, including friendship, bow down to this relationship.)
4. Think about how human relationships differed when society was structured differently.  How did male friendship feel, and how does this feeling differ from the feeling we might have today toward our friends?  Relatedly, how did marriage feel, and how did it differ from how it felt today?  Even though I keep using the term, “diminish,” this question really should be considered in terms of the quality of the affection rather than simply the intensity.
5. In what way was friendship characterized by ritualistic behavior?  In what way was it considered a spiritual entity?  How does this compare and contrast to how marriage is considered by many (but not all) in our society?  Do we still have rituals around friendship?  If so, why not?  What do these rituals tell us about the way friendship felt or what it meant?
6. How do physical acts of intimacy serve to express the intimacy between men?  Did earlier cultures have the same homophobia — that is, fear that certain behavior or actions in their relationship would signify as an inappropriate relationship?  Without such homophobia (or awareness of something called “homosexuality”), how are male friendships constructed differently?