Welcome to my latest queer history blog post, and Part II of my Aromantic History series! Part I is available here. If you enjoy this post, then you’ll love my Historical Fiction novels. Find out more about my projects here, and sign up for my Substack here to stay in touch!
Welcome back!
Presumably you’ve arrived here from Part 1 of my Aromantic History series. Whereas that post discussed the basic background of aromanticism and its terminology, as well as the arguable ancient fount(s) of the identity, this post pushes ahead into history with a look at medieval examples of aromantically-inclined organizations and collectives – primarily, those involving women across two continents.
Beguinages
It can be said, with reasonable certainty, that intellectual and philosophical movements which closely mirrored (or outright promoted) aromanticism far predate the modern era. But the ancient world is not the only era in which such seemingly aromantic communities are visible. Importantly, when considering entire groups of people, the dividing lines between asexuality and aromanticism become especially murky. Helpfully, in both of the examples which follow, both sex and romance seem to have been off the table for their committed and apparently willing participants.
The medieval world of Western Europe is itself an interesting case study in aromanticism given the prominence of the Roman Catholic church, both politically and as a force for social organization. Like other religious movements throughout history, the medieval Catholic church heavily promoted celibacy to men and women via the monasticism movements. For centuries, and through the present day, monasteries and convents might have provided alternative spaces for asexual and aromantic individuals (though of course those governing these institutions knew nothing of these identities) who sought another pathway free from the assumed heteronormativity (and amatonormativity) of the age: adulthood, marriage, and hopefully children thereafter.
Another institution, medieval in origin but still visible today, arguably fits in this category. Beguinages are the subject of diverse interpretation: at their most basic, these were enclosed, isolated communities of women which existed for about four hundred years throughout Western Europe. They emerged first in the Flanders region of modern-day Belgium. The first beguine community was purportedly founded by the Belgian religious mystic Marie d’Oignies (1177-1213).[1] Marie was among the most celebrated women of her age. Devoutly religious even as a child, Marie was married by her noble relatives at fourteen in an effort to refocus her mind on the secular world and encourage her to fulfill her expected roles as a high-ranking gentlewoman.[2] Instead, the teenager convinced her husband to serve alongside her tending to the sick and impoverished.
Marie’s fame grew such that she, like many celebrities of today, sought out peace and tranquility apart from the world to pursue ever deepening holiness. The region she spent most of her adult years, Brabant-Liège, was considered the birthplace of the beguine movement. Thereafter, the movement expanded throughout Western Europe in the years after Marie’s death until the 17th century.
According to UNESCO, which has designated 13 beguinages as world heritage sites, “[t]he Flemish béguinages formed architectural ensembles, enclosed by walls or surrounded by ditches, with gates opening to the outside world during the day. Inside, they were composed of houses, churches, ancillary buildings, and green spaces organized in a spatial conception of urban or rural origin.”[3]
But even if the inspiration for the beguinages was spiritual, “Marie of Oignies does not represent every beguine, nor necessarily most beguines that came after her, particularly ‘institutionalised’ beguines who lived in beguinages.”[4] During the late medieval to early modern period when they flourished, beguinages offered much more than religious retreat (which was already on offer by nunneries anyway) for women who flocked to them. Melissa Febos writes, “the beguinal movement spread across northwestern Europe. It’s an apt word—movement—not only because it describes the rapid growth of their communities but also because they achieved what so many subsequent movements of women have sought—independence, social change, and sustainable communal life.”[5]
Unlike nunneries, beguinages were places of work, industry, entrepreneurship and business – but also religious devotion, leisure, and amusement. Critically, these were marriage-free zones in which only unmarried or widowed women could enter and pass the remainder of their natural lives. Febos adds that, in the age of medieval romanticism heralded by the rise of the troubadours, “the beguines adopted that language and often referred to God and divine experience as the female-gendered persona of Love.”
Intriguingly, this understanding of love as neither sexual nor romantic harkens back to the Neoplatonic ideals discussed earlier in Part I. Love, in this lens, is best understood and pursued as a higher spiritual endeavor rather than a mundane interaction between two persons – the sort of interaction which beguine women had left behind them.[6]
Of course, it would be ludicrous to broadly categorize all beguine women across four centuries as aromantic; many of them may well have been, and many others may have had wholly different identities and/or motivations for joining up that had nothing to do with their personal inclinations. What seems relevant to a history of aromanticism, at least in this case, is the example of entire communities – with an accompanying ideology and social system – which are rooted in a collective assumption of aromanticism.
Fundamentally, aromanticism represents a rejection of amatonormativity and the burdens (in this case upon women) which come with it. Whether or not all the women who walked the courtyards of medieval beguinages personally would have identified with aromanticism, they formed part of a communal culture which had aromanticism as its base and arguable cornerstone.
The Golden Orchid Society
Concurrent developments in seemingly disconnected societies, especially those which happen in roughly the same time periods, are an infrequent but fascinating feature of history. As the era of beguinages was beginning to fade in Western Europe, a strikingly similar organization was emerging in the late Qing dynasty in southern China.
The Golden Orchid Society refers to not just a singular group of women but also dispersed pairs of “self-combing” Golden Orchid women who entered into committed partnerships with one another. In a departure from the beguinage model, the Golden Orchid Society treads closely to the more recent 19th century “Boston Marriage” model which saw women in partnered relationships together a century before any Western country legalized gay marriage.
Records suggest that women in the Guangdong region of southern China began pursuing alternatives to traditional heterosexual marriages beginning in the mid-17th century.[7] The Golden Orchid model developed to accommodate such women and enabled a new “sisterhood” of collective support and economic interdependence among the women involved. Two or more women could take the Golden Orchid Oath (presumably up to and including substantial group sizes) which swore them to see to each other’s needs and to eschew the sexual and romantic love of men.[8] These oaths were of the utmost seriousness and could be enforced with violence and threats of self-harm.
Of course, the Golden Orchid model could be simply interpreted as an early variation of lesbian marriage; lesbianism in imperial China was not unheard of and it is probable that some of these Golden Orchid arrangements were effectively tacit blessings on female homosexual partnerships.
But it seems equally plausible that some of the women who joined such arrangements were themselves aromantic, asexual or both. There is no evidence suggesting, for example, that sexual congress among these women was officially endorsed, let alone expected, for Golden Orchid women. More likely, it would have been assumed that women who joined were adopting a celibate life. Celibacy is not proof of or synonymous with a particular identity, but this model of communal sisterhood would have been especially appealing to aromantic and other a-spec women.
Likewise, the Golden Orchid system (like that of the beguinages) seems to have been designed on an aromantic model. Golden Orchid women rejected the standard requirements of love and sexuality placed upon them by their cultural context, and replaced these with a focus on their shared devotion to other women (perhaps many women in one group). In the end, it is fair to view the Golden Orchid Society as an early reflection of aromanticism which likely had aromantics among its ranks, as well as women of various other identities with their own unique motivations for signing up.
Love and Limerence
While it requires a long jump in time, the final stop (for now) in this journey through aromantic history takes us to the 1970s and what some sources refer to the precursor psychology of modern aromanticism.[9] Dorothy Tennov was a psychologist who specialized in understanding romantic love – in particular, how it manifested and did not manifest in some people and where its linkage with sexual action broke down.[10] Her 1979 book, Love and Limerence, has been the subject of controversy over time as her findings on “limerent” versus “non-limerent” people have been revisited and tussled over.
For the purpose of this discussion, limerence refers to a “mental state of profound romantic infatuation,” which Tennov understood as the initial flush of falling desperately in love.[11] For many people, experiencing “limerence” is the first step of a romantic relationship (presumably, a more matured and grounded connection follows afterward). For this discussion, it is the negative “non-limerent” group that is most interesting – those people who rarely or never experience the emotional highs, the obsession, anxiety and sharp, sudden attachment that limerent people describe as the initial foray of romantic passion.
In this sense, non-limerent might be (imperfectly) interpreted as correlating to aromantic. Indeed, most aromantics (the author included) are baffled by the notion of an immediate and life-altering emotional intoxication with another person. Although many people who do experience romantic attraction fall in love in other ways, the non-limerent category at least provided a modern psychological starting point for a wider academic awareness, and then understanding, of the aromantic community’s existence. Tennov’s work laid important foundations for a disciplined approach to what would grow into the study of aromanticism and its later recognition as a queer identity.
New (A)romantics
Ultimately, this brief survey of aromanticism in history fails to do justice to the wide-ranging experiences and diversity found within the aromantic community today. A satisfying and tidy summary is unfortunately impossible with this subject. That said, it is my hope that other aromantics can see reflections of their own lives in these historical examples of individuals and communities which may have been connected to us (even if across a vast distance of centuries).
Certainly, we have reasonable evidence to support the view that aromanticism – long before that English language word was ever coined or English even spoken at all – existed as both an innate identity and perhaps an aspirational one. Aromantic philosophers, scholars and mystics might have propelled the notion of higher consciousness forward into humanity’s understanding of its role in a bewildering world. Without any sort of queer theory established, entire collectives of women formed around the conviction that romance and sexuality need not be any person’s singular destiny. Instead, free choice could be made, and likely was made, on the basis of personal commitment and inclination.
Threads from these historical persons, groups, events and eras can be pulled forward and tied to the new aromantics – those who are naming and claiming that identity in the here and now. Our shared story, then, is messy – but so are we.
[1] Sarah Joan Moran, “The Court Beguinages of the Low Countries,” in Early Modern Women: Lives, Texts, Objects (ed. Martine Van Elk), December 2, 2016, https://martinevanelk.wordpress.com/2016/12/02/the-court-beguinages-of-the-low-countries/.
[2] A. Spencer-Hall, “Marie of Oignies, of Nivelles, or of Villers: The Multiple Textual Identities of a 13th-Century Holy Woman”, Open Library of Humanities 3(1), 11, https://doi.org/10.16995/olh.88.
[3] UNESCO World Heritage Center, “Flemish Béguinages,” accessed January 17, 2026, https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/855/
[4] Spencer, ibid.
[5] Melissa Febos, “They Used to Be Places Just for Women. Now They’re UNESCO World Heritage Sites,” AFAR Magazine, March 8, 2024, https://www.afar.com/magazine/at-beguinages-in-belgium-finding-history-feminism-and-freedom.
[6] Obviously, this discussion does not and cannot preclude the possibility of sapphic and lesbian relationships in these sorts of environments, but that inquiry falls outside the parameters of this analysis.
[7] Vincent Chow, “The Golden Orchid Society,” retrieved on April 26, 2015, https://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/the-golden-orchid-society/165558.
[8] Cultural China, “The Tradition of Female-Female Unions, https://web.archive.org/web/20121101234819/http://traditions.cultural-china.com/en/214T11933T14609.html.
[9] AUREA, “Aromantic History,” October 13, 2019, https://www.aromanticism.org/en/news-feed/aromantic-history.
[10] Ibid.
[11] Dr. Tom Bellamy, “What is limerence?” September 5, 2020, https://livingwithlimerence.com/what-is-limerence/.