Family tree’s surprising branch: Spain’s earliest same-sex bride
AN ARGENTINE woman searching for information about her ancestors was shocked to discover that her greatgrandmother was a pioneer of gay marriage whose story has been turned into a Netflix documentary.
Norma Graciela Moure only learnt of her relative’s extraordinary life because of online stories about the Elisa & Marcela film.
She was amazed when a Google search for “Marcela Gracia Ibeas” resulted in around 50,000 results.
Many included a photograph of Marcela with her partner Elisa Sánchez Loriga, who is dressed as a man, which was taken after their church wedding in 1901.
“I cannot describe how I felt when I saw the photo and clicked on the story. I froze. I had no idea of that story. I didn’t even get to meet my grandmother,” Ms Moure told La Voz de Galicia newspaper. Elisa & Marcela,
Home comfort
directed by Isabel Coixet and released internationally on Friday, tells how two young schoolmistresses fell in love and pulled off a deception that led to what is thought to be the first same-sex marriage in Spain.
Historian Narciso de Gabriel, who wrote a book about the couple, says that Marcela, who was pregnant with an unidentified man’s child, told her family she was to marry a cousin of Elisa named “Mario”, who had been brought up as an atheist in London.
Mario was in fact Elisa who, with her hair cut short and dressed in a man’s morning suit, was baptised and married to Marcela on the same day. But soon after, the ruse was uncovered, and they fled to Portugal, where Marcela’s daughter Enriqueta was born, and then to Buenos Aires as exiles.
Mr de Gabriel was delighted to hear from Ms Moure. “Any time a relative of one of the two women gets in touch, it sparks the hope of shining some light onto the many shadows in this story,” he told The Sunday Telegraph.
“For example, we still don’t know whether Marcela’s pregnancy was a genuine accident or part of their plan to create a pretext for the wedding.”
He said that in Buenos Aires, the two women worked as housemaids, and in 1903, Elisa married a rich, elderly Dane called Christian Jensen but did not consummate the marriage.
It was reported that Elisa committed suicide in Mexico in 1909, but this is unconfirmed. “We don’t know what happened to them in the end. How did they think they would get away with it?” said Ms Coixet.