Concubinage - Concubinage

Concubinage

A concubine is a woman in an ongoing, marriage-like relationship with a man whom she cannot be married to for a specific reason. It may be because she is of lower social rank (including slave status) or because the man is already married. Generally, only men of high economic and social status have concubines. Many historical rulers maintained concubines as well as wives.

Historically, concubinage was frequently voluntary (by the woman and/or her family's arrangement), as it provided a measure of economic security for the woman involved.

Under Roman law, Roman culture under the Empire came to tolerate concubinage as long as the relationship was durable and exclusive; for Roman jurists, concubinage was an honorable de facto situation.

When having legal status recognized, or defined in law, as in ancient China, concubinage was akin, although inferior, to marriage. The children of a concubine were recognized as legal offspring of the father; though their inheritance rights may have been inferior to younger children of a marriage, or they may have received a smaller inheritance. Men frequently used concubines to bear heirs when he and his wife were unable to produce sons.