I agree with kat that two 'old maids' sharing a home historically seem to have raised few eyebrows. Two bachelors had to be brothers or otherwise related to each other to attain the same acceptance.

However, I would go a step further and venture that there's another element at work here, a sexist one. I suspect that one reason that two women living together has been accepted was the widely held belief that women are inherently less sexual than men and therefore 'probably' don't have a sexual relationship. (And we all know how much more sexual men are! Stereotypes are amazing, aren't they.)

Among my own friends in Oregon, there are several pairs of women who live together that, to this day, I don't know whether they are romantically/physically involved with each other. In some cases, if I felt it necessary to make a judgment on it, I would guess that they are probably not a 'couple'. In other cases, I imagine they are. In any case, I think it's good that they each have found someone who cares about them. Loneliness isn't fun, I've heard.

Ebbie