The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was delete. The article remains entirely unsourced, so WP:V applies. The concept as outlined by Carcaroth is probably encyclopedic, and (as has been noted) is touched upon in various articles, but nobody has found reliable sources suggesting it has been referred to by this term, or indeed any sources supporting the current article's contents.  Sandstein  17:30, 6 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Shield mate (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)

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Unreferenced hoax... was prodded, prod was seconded, prod expired, creator removed prod without explaination or work... I could find nothing to verify this article... Adolphus79 (talk) 16:12, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete as hoax, the article also strikes me as trying to make a biased point with its final sentance. Searching for sources show alot of different things, but none that support this. --Taelus (talk) 16:32, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• BUT! this is not a hoax. The term is raised in American politics (whether legend or not, the term is used) on the history and issue of Don't ask, don't tell. However, the burden is on the creator to provide references and prod expired. so, I also Endorse speedy deletion as expired prod that has no references. Miami33139 (talk) 16:43, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • … which is not only not one of the speedy deletion criteria, but is also based on a completely wrongheaded understanding of how Wikipedia:Proposed Deletion actually works. See the nomination for how a rationale that actually has a sound basis in Wikipedia:Deletion policy is given. Uncle G (talk) 18:19, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete Delete, no sources or links to that page.--WngLdr34 (talk) 16:53, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment - This is definitely not a hoax, the concept going back thousands of years (see Sacred Band of Thebes and Homosexuality in the militaries of ancient Greece for example). 98.248.33.198 (talk) 23:11, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - And yet, no mention of the term "Shield Mate" in either of those articles, or anywhere else on the Internet... - Adolphus79 (talk) 23:21, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Which, quite frankly, amazes me. I first encounted the phrase in a course taught by Jonathan David Katz. You'd think all those academics in Queer studies would have published something reference-able by now. 98.248.33.198 (talk) 23:50, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • Academics have. But what they have published directly contradicts this article. Sara Elise Phang in chapter 9 of ISBN 9789004121553, for example, states that such relationships are largely undocumented by historians, and whilst such relationships between soldiers and male slaves and prostitutes may have been accepted, "[w]hether soldiers were permitted to have sexual relations with each other, or whether this was punished, is far more obscure; it seems that such practices were punished in the mid-Republic, but evidence from the Principate is lacking.". Pat Southern, in ISBN 9780195328783, notes what Polybius says: that the fustuarium was the punishment for "men who engaged in homosexual acts". So this article's unsourced thesis, that in the Roman army not only was this sort of thing unpunished but the norm and a recognized practice, is directly contradicted by what sources actually say. Uncle G (talk) 01:56, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete. This isn't a hoax, really, it's just a poorly written and argued essay. I have removed a couple of the links (they couldn't have been called 'references'). As Uncle G proposes, there is in fact an important and relevant literature (even including Beowulf--see Allen J. Frantzen's Before the Closet), but it doesn't support what the article appears to claim. Drmies (talk) 04:18, 1 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete, no refs for use of the term "shield mate" to mean what is described in the article. If authors want to create a general historical article on homosexuality in military forces, fine, but name it accordingly and cite WP:RS. - Fayenatic (talk) 12:56, 1 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment (disclosure: I rarely comment on AfDs, and only became aware of this discussion after a thread on the wiki-en-l mailing list, please accept or ignore what I say accordingly).

  The term "shield mate" does seem a bit wrong-headed, but the non-sexual concept is certainly genuine (and the sexual concept as well, in certain historical contexts, though we have articles for those already, as has been pointed out). The article itself is also confused (as Uncle G has pointed out). What I wanted to comment on here, is the platonic concept of pairs or groups of warriors forming bonds without any sexual connotation, but in a military or fighting context.

  The term used here (shield mate) made me initially think it meant "mate" (close friend) in a platonic sense, not a sexual sense. Before reading the article, I thought it might have been hinting at terms that do exist, such as sword brother, blood brother, and shield bearer. Those are paired units. Going beyond pairs, you have groups such as housecarl and the shield wall, where the person on your right-hand side in a shield wall was vital for your protection, hence "right-hand man" (it's in the article). There are also situations in battle where familial ties led to sister-sons defending to the death their mother's brother (unfortunately, the article doesn't explain that yet).

  This is all heading towards Anglo-Saxon sources and other ancient warrior society concepts of fighting side-by-side with your sword brother (though the concept is more popular in sword-fantasy novels today), or more prosaically someone who watched your back in a battle just as you watched theirs - literally fighting back-to-back against your enemies. This is the closest I can come to the concept of "shield mate" stripped of its sexual connotations.

  As I said, I think the term is "sword brother", but unfortunately, the only sources I could find for this were a review here of The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún, where the reviewer mentions that "Gunnar has unjustly slain his sword-brother" (I have the book, so can dig out the full context if needed). The other source was St Eadweard the Martyr – The Historical King (which needs checking as it may be a non-mainstream view - see last paragraphs of that text), where there is this: "Another word, more widely applicable than þegn, which came to be applied only to noblemen, was gesiþ. This can be understood as companion, but it really means more than that, and also implies the sworn sword-brother of the Heroic Code, which I shall mention particularly in a moment."

  There is an entry on wiktionary for gesiþ. For more on this and the fyrd in general, see here. Our material on the fyrd is in our leidang article. But the whole concept of a 'sword brother' seems difficult to pin down. What I'm looking for is the concept of a pair of warriors working together to defend each other in a battle. Is there another term that I'm missing here? And the term "heroic code" (a concept found in many cultures) appears in lots of sources - enough for an article on heroic code? For some reason, the term is only mentioned twice in Wikipedia.

  Anyway, apologies for saying very little about the article shield mate, but I was hoping people here might be able to help with sword brother and heroic code. If not, I'll ask at various WikiProjects and the Reference Desk. Carcharoth (talk) 19:49, 3 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment - I've been meaning to say something about this, and your long comment just now made me remember... for a more modern (and maybe purely American) version, with absolutely no sexual meaning, look up Battle buddy... you are paired up at the beginning of your training, and are responsible for taking care of each other... - Adolphus79 (talk) 20:06, 3 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete Generally per Fayenatic. There should be an article about this, including both the sexual and non-sexual contexts of pair bonding in military forces - but this is not the article to achieve that goal. (FD: I got here by stalking Carcharoth's edits) Franamax (talk) 22:55, 3 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment Here's one person's way of looking at the idea of sexual acts between male soldiers:

The public women of the rare settlements we encountered in our wandering would have been nothing to our numbers, even had their raddled meat been palatable to a man of healthy parts. In horror of such sordid commerce our youths began indifferently to slake one another's few needs in their own clean bodies — a cold convenience that, by comparison, seemed sexless and even pure. Later, some began to justify this sterile process, and swore that friends quivering together in the yielding sand with intimate hot limbs in supreme embrace, found there hidden in the darkness a sensual co-efficient of the mental passion which was welding our souls and spirits in one flaming effort.

Written by no less than Lawrence of Arabia, from my 1936 copy of The Seven Pillars of Wisdom. (Warning: the book has no actual pillars or wisdom, it's an incredibly depressing story of wandering around the desert, getting tortured, and in the end having "the man" screw over the people you made promises to. Oh, did I mention that it's also a story of how a man becomes shattered to the core of their existence?) Anyway, there is definitely an article in there somewhere, though perhaps T. E. Lawrence wouldn't be considered a RS. Franamax (talk) 22:55, 3 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete - not a hoax as such; as Carcharoth and Franamax have mentioned, the concept of two soldiers having a strong personal bond and loyalty to one another is a real one, and several historical examples exist. Unfortunately, I'm unable to find any evidence that the term 'shield mate' has ever been used to describe it. I'll change my position if anyone can show that this is a notable term; otherwise, it's a neologism, and should be deleted. Robofish (talk) 23:16, 3 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, now that I think of it, Achilles and Patroclus and even earlier Gilgamesh and Enkidu make pair-bonding between warriors (sexual or not) a highly notable topic. But as noted, this article/essay is not going to be the one that properly addresses it. Franamax (talk) 23:54, 3 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Also, in a bout of pure and wild speculation, start with the idea that early soldiers slept on their shields (which I think could be RS'd). From there, it's not hard to get to the idea that two men sleeping on the same shield would be "shield mates". For armies in cold climates, it might turn out to be a simple matter of survival to combine body warmth through the night. And then obviously you would tend to seek the same partner each night, since you'd gotten used to their own incredible stink after weeks without a bath. It's definitely a concept worthy of something beyond my own original research, but I don't have the classical sources to support any of it. Franamax (talk) 00:09, 4 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Well, after a bit of searching, I came across the following in Google Books: The men we loved: male friendship and nationalism in Israeli culture, by Danny Kaplan. The prologue here mentions "combat fraternity". Chapter 6 is titled David, Jonathan, and other soldiers: The Hegemonic Script for Male Bonding. The terms "heroic friendship", "comrade-in-arms", and "love among soldiers" are used, as well as the more general term dyad, and the Greek term for 'guest friendship' (xenia), along with the term homosocial. The examples from antiquity are Gilgamesh and Enkidu (Assyrian epic story), Achilles and Patroclus (Homer's Iliad), and David and Jonathan (biblical Hebrew story). Difficult to know how to organise it, but the sources seem to be there for something (if not Kaplan, then the sources he refers to). Carcharoth (talk) 01:00, 4 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.