Affrèrement

We love it when we stumble across an unfamiliar French word, and this month we found a fascinating one: affrèrement. Sometimes translated as “brotherment”, un affrèrement refers to a legally binding same-sex union of two men that existed in France in late medieval times.

According to this article in The Atlantic:

“In the contract, the ‘brothers’ pledged to live together sharing ‘un pain, un vin, et une bourse,’ (that's French for one bread, one wine and one purse). The ‘one purse’ referred to the idea that all of the couple's goods became joint property.”