Why Sister States / Circuits / Cities and Not Brothers?

My friend Josh Bornstein asked me a question related this, and I realized I knew the custom but not the reason. At least in court decisions, states are always "sister states" and never "brother states," and likewise with circuit courts—except, as it happens, in Louisiana, where "brother circuits" and "brethren circuits" does appear (though still much less often than "sister circuits"). Likewise, in popular usage we have "sister cities" but almost never "brother cities."

But why? I assume it flows from broader customs, perhaps the historical references to nations as "she." But where did that come from? I crave enlightenment.

Comments

[arclements]

My understanding is that classifications of cities and countries as feminine derives from Latin's classification of terra firma as feminine, with that characterization eventually percolating through English and Romance languages' references to land - including particular lands associated with a polity, i.e., a city, country, or other similar jurisdiction. Might be accurate, might not, but as good as any explanation I've seen.

[Á àß äẞç ãþÇđ âÞ¢Đæ ǎB€Ðëf ảhf]

I wonder if there is any relation to "fatherland" vs "motherland".

[Rossami]

I'm not sure how far back the convention goes but "fatherland" is typically associated with germanic cultures while "motherland" is more commonly associated with slavic cultures. Etymologically, I don't think either would be especially relevant to the english phrase "sister cities".

One etymology website suggests that "sister cities" is an extrapolation from the phrase "sister ships" (ships always being female by that time) and/or "sister churches" (the Church being female because it is the 'bride of Christ'). That explanation was not entirely convincing but the evidence disputing it seemed even weaker.

[MatthewSlyfield]

"I crave enlightenment."

There is no spoon.

[Michael P]

From a purely English perspective, I would guess simple assonance -- so we might have brother burgs. But a more likely explanation might be the grammatical gender of the Latin word urbs (city), which is feminine.

[Armchair Lawyer]

America is a "she"...and a daughter of Britannia. (Or rather, her colonies are daughter colonies, and thus the states are sisters).

[gormadoc]

Interestingly the form "America" was chosen to be feminine to match the other continents.

[Á àß äẞç ãþÇđ âÞ¢Đæ ǎB€Ðëf ảhf]

But that only pushes the mystery one step further away. Why"daughter" colonies?

[MatthewSlyfield]

Because the sun shine and sheds light on everything and the empire wanted to keep the colonies in the dark as much as possible.

🙂

[gormadoc]

One of the few things we're pretty sure about for early Indo-European religion is the presence of an Earth goddess. That, and (as others have said), the fact that Latin usually has feminine place names, made it 'natural' for Europeans to associate places themselves with a feminine personification. Ireland was outside of the Empire without Latin in daily use but they still had goddesses (rather than gods) who personified places, so I think it's a little of this, a little of that.

[Cal Cetín]

Sexism and patriarchal oppression.

That's the answer. Now remind me what the question was.

[Squirrelloid]

Are you sure it isn't White Supremacy?

[Commenter_XY]

That was funny. 🙂

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

It is nice that clingers can find an occasional moment of mirth along their desolate, disaffected road toward replacement.

Happy holidays, everyone!

[DaivdBehar]

OK, Boomer. It is time you were replaced by a diverse.

[TwelveInchPianist]

Alliteration.

[Eric VonSalzen]

I'd never thought about this phenomenon before. It seems so natural. Perhaps it's only because we have Americans who grew up in other lingustic traditions that we can have these conversations.

[Milhouse]

For reference, Hebrew is not an Indo-European language, and in it too both "land" and "city" are feminine. "House" is masculine, and therefore so are courts, which are literally "houses of law".

[Caphon]

Convention is powerful, but there’s a poetic sensibility to it. Land of your birth calls to mind motherhood - that from which you came. The feminine evokes sympathy and a desire to respect and protect. Our art feminizes the particular virtues - concepts such as justice and liberty - which call for care-taking and protection. That our art invariably represents these as attractive feminine forms rather than some rare prehistoric gross mother goddess imagery is not coincidental. Desire for integrity of, protection of, and alignment with is strongest with female imagery. If one imagines these as represented by male symbolism, they would likely convey a sense of self sufficiency and authority — would not evoke such sympathy.

Other virtues such as strength still call on male symbolism, e.g. Atlas. There’s a difference in our individual and societal relationships with feminine vs masculine virtues.

Further, there’s the pattern of something discrete, tangible, having been created, worked on, and adored as feminine - ships, guns, buildings, computers, trucks. I would suspect a “court” is related to this most closely rather than the sense in which we apply gender to the land of our birth or “lady liberty”.

I mean, I hate to blame the patriarchy, but I think these conventions represent a pretty typical male perspective across eons. I don’t know how this imagery would be different in matriarchal societies if at all, but would love someone to chime in on that.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Feminine personification suggests comity, masculine personification suggests rivalry. Is anyone surprised?

[Brett Bellmore]

That was my thought, actually: Cities don't get into wrestling matches. Brother cities? They'd have to be two nearby cities that were continually at odds with each other.

[Cal Cetín]

"We're like friends, we're like brothers. We love each other. We'd do anything for each other. Why, we'd even cut each other's throats for each other!"

/Attributed to Sam Goldwyn

[Rossami]

People who lived in the city-states of what we now call Greece and Italy would be very surprised to hear that claim. They fought all the time.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

Feminine personification suggests comity, masculine personification suggests rivalry. Is anyone surprised?

Probably every naval warship crew in the world.

[Absaroka]

I was going to say 'nope, Russians call their ships he', but apparently it's complicated.

[John F. Carr]

In computer science, I see French writers use "son" where English writers use "child" to describe a dependent node in a hierarchy.

[Cal Cetín]

I know a court that lives on the hill
It won't practice be unjust, but its sister circuit will.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

They do the tube snake boogie?

[Alan Vanneman]

Anything that in some way protects us, whether it is a country or a ship, is seen as maternal. Louisiana's choice of the masculine surely reflects the Napoleonic Code. (Napoleon, as we all know, had a very small penis.)

[Aneglur]

I'm guessing because the French term, Cour d'Appel, is a feminine noun? I don't know what the Latin term would be, but I'm guessing it would be feminine as well.

It's a happy coincidence because "Sister Circuits" just sounds so much better than "Brother Circuits."

[Miss Greenparker]

Argue as you wish, but the tsunami of anti-traditional and non-historical gender proto-modern pronouns goes thusly:

zie zim zis
sie sie hirs
ey em eirs
ve ver vers

Forget then at your peril. This modern age is about assigning weird words to state-approved identity.

[TangoDelta]

I'd guess it's the same reason we sister boards to make a beam. Wild historical guess is that sisters work cooperatively to achieve the goals of a household. Brothers tend to go off, make money, spend it on whiskey, women, and wild debauchery, if they return home it's because they're broke and have no place to go to. Perhaps some thought similar cities and states with similar goals were thus sisters. One could argue that Cali is a brother state because of the way it spends money while debauching its citizenry only to come pleading to its Uncle Sam for a bailout.

[Cheezit]

The level of navel gazing in your articles is astounding