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In this article, Brigitte Schnegg († 2014) analyzes the culture of friendship as it developed in the German Enlightenment period under the influence of Sentimentalism (18th century). Inspired by social and cultural historical approaches, the author performs a gendered reading of the practice of friendship between cultivated men and women in Switzerland, in particular those of Christoph Martin Wieland. She analyzes the forms that friendship takes, how it was distinguished from love, and its meanings and effects on the self-understanding of those who entertained these friendships. As such, this article is a contribution to our understanding of the changing values that marked the birth of bourgeois society.