Man Friends

An historical novel that would be fun to research and write -- if I were to go in that direction -- is one centering american men's friendship, the language and practice, from the early years through the Civil War. If we see loving relationships between fathers and sons in such a novel, that would be value added.

Without even trying I can think of several bold-faced historical pairs of such friends.

The tenderness in the language with which men of those decades speak of their friends, and their behaviors a joyeous thing.  These are very different from what these days goes by the rubric "bromance." The very word -- tender -- will not be coming out these boy-children's mouths, but was commonly spoken by men about each other's friends in those days.  In letters and journals of these decades you see the men write phrases as he performed such-and-such an act on the behalf of a male friend "as tenderly as a woman," for instance.

It's interesting to google male friendships nineteenth century or 1840's and the majority of the images that come up are two women or a man and a woman.

Friendship is one of the most precious and wonderful of all experiences.  It seems to me that perhaps it was easier for men to be friends in some earlier eras than it is now.  This might be true of women as well: that they could have life-long tender friendships more easily in another time.  I don't know enough about these matters to know.