Sexuality
In a 1929 study Katherine B. Davis reported that, of 1,200 female college graduates who talked about their sex lives, 605, or 50.4 percent, responded that they had "experienced intense emotional relations with other women", and 234, or 19.5 percent, had "intense relationships accompanied by mutual masturbation, contact of genital organs, or other expressions recognized as sexual". Such relationships would probably be known as lesbian relationships now, though no such activity is recorded of any "Boston marriage"
Romantic relationships were especially common among academic women of the 19th century. At many colleges female professors were not allowed to marry conventionally while employed by the faculty. Having invested so much of their lives in scholarship, such women could find needed respect for their work and lifestyle among other academic women.
Read more about this topic: Boston Marriage