Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast Episode 340 – Mary/Charles Hamilton: The Original Female Husband

Saturday, April 18, 2026 - 13:40 lhmpodcast.jpg Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 340 – Mary/Charles Hamilton: The Original Female Husband - transcript (Originally aired 2026/04/18) Introduction In 1746, a novelist named Henry Fielding wrote a sensational pamphlet, in the style of a criminal confession, titled The Female Husband: or, the Surprising History of Mrs Mary, Alias Mr George Hamilton. Hamilton was not the first case of a woman marrying while passing as a man. Nor was this the first use of the phrase “female husband”—there’s a reference in a ballad in the 17th century. But Fielding’s publication connected the phrase and the scenario in the popular imagination and helped spur a journalistic fascination for gender-crossing husbands that lasted at least a couple centuries. Yet Fielding’s pamphlet is—for the most part—a work of fiction. So what were the actual facts, and how did Fielding distort them? This episode centers around a person who was assigned female at birth,…