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{{Short description|State of living together as spouses while unmarried}}{{Redirect|Concubine|the modern legal term|Concubinage (law)}}{{Use dmy dates|date=October 2020}}{{Close Relationships|types}}Concubinage is an interpersonal and sexual relationship between two people in which the couple does not want to, or cannot, enter into a full marriage.{{sfn|The Oxford Encyclopedia of Women in World History|2008}} Concubinage and marriage are often regarded as similar, but mutually exclusive.{{sfn|The Oxford Encyclopedia of Women in World History|2008|p=467}}In China, until the 20th century, concubinage was a formal and institutionalized practice that upheld concubines’ rights and obligations.{{sfn|Rodriguez|2011|p=203}} A concubine could be freeborn or of slave origin, and her experience could vary tremendously according to her master’s whim.{{sfn|Rodriguez|2011|p=203}} During the Mongol conquests, both foreign royals and captured women were taken as concubines.BOOK, Peter Jackson, The Mongols and the West 1221-1410, May 2014,books.google.com/books?id=kMCCBAAAQBAJ&pg=PT64, Taylor & Francis, 9781317878988, Concubinage was also common in Meiji Japan as a status symbol. Many Middle Eastern societies used concubinage for reproduction.{{sfn|The Oxford Encyclopedia of Women in World History|2008|p=469}} The practice of a barren wife giving her husband a slave as a concubine is recorded in the Code of Hammurabi.{{sfn|The Oxford Encyclopedia of Women in World History|2008|p=469}} The children of such relationships would be regarded as legitimate.{{sfn|The Oxford Encyclopedia of Women in World History|2008|p=469}} Such concubinage was also widely practiced in the premodern Muslim world, and many of the rulers of the Abbasid caliphate and the Ottoman Empire were born out of such relationships.{{sfn|Cortese|2013}} Throughout Africa, from Egypt to South Africa, slave concubinage resulted in racially mixed populations.ENCYCLOPEDIA, The Greenwood Encyclopedia of International Relations: S-Z, slave labor/slavery, 1530, The practice declined as a result of the abolition of slavery.{{sfn|Cortese|2013}}In ancient Rome, the practice was formalized as concubinatus, the Latin term from which the English “concubine” is derived. It referred to any extramarital sexual relationship, most often that between a wealthy or politically powerful man and a woman of low social origins kept for sexual service. The marital status of the man was irrelevant and the concubine’s children did not receive an inheritance.{{sfn|Historical Dictionary of Slavery and Abolition|2014|p=122}}{{sfn|The Oxford Encyclopedia of Women in World History|2008|p=471}} After the Christianization of the Roman Empire, Christian emperors improved the status of the concubine by granting concubines and their children the sorts of property and inheritance rights usually reserved for wives.{{sfn|The Oxford Encyclopedia of Women in World History|2008|p=471}} In European colonies and American slave plantations, single and married men entered into long-term sexual relationships with local women.{{sfn|Historical Dictionary of Slavery and Abolition|2014|p=122-123}} In the Dutch East Indies, concubinage created mixed-race Indo-European communities.{{sfn|Hagemann|Rose|Dudink|2020|p=320}}In the Judeo-Christian world, the term concubine has almost exclusively been applied to women, although a cohabiting male may also be called a concubine.ENCYCLOPEDIA , In the 21st century, concubinage is used in some Western countries as a gender-neutral legal term to refer to cohabitation (including cohabitation between same-sex partners).BOOK, Long, Scott, Family, unvalued : discrimination, denial, and the fate of binational same-sex couples under U.S. law., 2006, Human Rights Watch, New York, 9781564323361,www.hrw.org/reports/2006/us0506/10.htm#_Toc132691986, 29 November 2021, JOURNAL, Halho, H.R., The Law of Concubinage, South African Law Journal, 1972, 89, 321–332, JOURNAL, Soles III, Donald E., Truisms & Tautologies: Ambivalent Conclusions regarding Same-Sex Marriage in Chapin v. France, Global Justice & Public Policy, 2016, 3, 149,

Etymology and usage

The English terms “concubine” and “concubinage” appeared in the 14th century,WEB, Definition: concubine (n.),www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/concubine, Merriams-Webster, 1 November 2021, WEB, Definition: concubinage (n.),www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/concubinage, Merriams-Webster, 1 November 2021, deriving from Latin terms in Roman society and law. The term concubine ({{Circa|1300}}), meaning “a paramour, a woman who cohabits with a man without being married to him”, comes from the Latin (f.) and (m.), terms that in Roman law meant “one who lives unmarried with a married man or woman”. The Latin terms are derived from the verb from “to lie with, to lie together, to cohabit,” an assimilation of ”com”, a prefix meaning “with, together” and “”, meaning “to lie down”.WEB,www.etymonline.com/word/concubine, Etymology: concubine (n.), concubinage (n.), Century Dictionary, 1 November 2021, Concubine is a term used widely in historical and academic literature, and which varies considerably depending on the context.WEB, Definition of ‘concubine’,www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/concubine, Collins Dictionary, 1 November 2021, In the twenty-first century, it typically refers explicitly to extramarital affection, “either to a mistress or to a sex slave”, without the same emphasis on the cohabiting aspect of the original meaning.{{sfn|The Oxford Encyclopedia of Women in World History|2008|p=467-468|ps=: “In twenty-first-century parlance, ‘concubine’ refers either to a mistress or to a sex slave.“}}Concubinage emerged as an English term in the late 14th century to mean the “state of being a concubine; act or practice of cohabiting in intimacy without legal marriage”, and was derived from Latin by means of Old French, where the term may in turn have been derived from the Latin ,{{sfn|Stocquart|1907|p=304}} an institution in ancient Rome that meant “a permanent cohabitation between persons to whose marriage there were no legal obstacles”. It has also been described more plainly as a long-term sexual relationship between a man and a woman who are not legally married.{{sfn|The International Encyclopedia of Anthropology|1999}}{{sfn|The Oxford Encyclopedia of Women in World History|2008|p=467}} In pre-modern to modern law, concubinage has been used in certain jurisdictions to describe cohabitation, and in France, was formalized in 1999 as the French equivalent of a civil union.JOURNAL, Borrillo, Daniel, Who is Breaking with Tradition? The Legal Recognition of Same-Sex Partnership in France and the Question of Modernity, Yale Journal of Law and Feminism,openyls.law.yale.edu/bitstream/handle/20.500.13051/6926/08_17YaleJL_Feminism89_2005_.pdf, 2005, 17, 91, WEB,blogs.loc.gov/law/2018/09/concubinage-and-the-law-in-france/, Concubinage and the Law in France, Sarah, Ettedgui, 20 September 2018, 27 October 2021, {{refn|Article 515-8 of the Civil Code defines “concubinage” as “a de facto union, characterized by a shared life and a character of stability and continuity, between two persons of different or same sex, who live as a couple” (”une union de fait, caractérisée par une vie commune présentant un caractère de stabilité et de continuité, entre deux personnes, de sexe différent ou de même sexe, qui vivent en couple“). See also (:fr:Concubinage en France|Concubinage en France) (in French).}} The US legal system also used to use the term in reference to cohabitation,See, for instance, Succession of Jahraus, 114 La. 456, 38 So. 417 (1905) and Succession of Lannes, 174 So. 94, 187 La. 17 (1936) but the term never evolved further and is now considered outdated.JOURNAL, Wagnon, Brittanie, From Wedding Bells to Working Women:Unmasking the Sexism Resulting from “Illicit Concubinage” in Louisiana’s Jurisprudence, Louisiana Law Review, Summer 2016, 76, 4, 1414,

Characteristics

Forms of concubinage have existed in all cultures, though the prevalence of the practice and the rights and expectations of the persons involved have varied considerably, as have the rights of the offspring born from such relationships, a concubine’s legal and social status, their role within a household and society’s perceptions of the institution.{{sfn|The Oxford Encyclopedia of Women in World History|2008|p=467}} A relationship of concubinage could take place voluntarily, with the parties involved agreeing not to enter into marriage, or involuntarily (i.e. through slavery).{{sfn|The Oxford Encyclopedia of Women in World History|2008}} In slave-owning societies, most concubines were slaves,{{harvnb|Historical Dictionary of Slavery and Abolition|2014|p=122}}:In almost all slave-using societies, the highest prices are paid for beautiful young women. Some became high-priced prostitutes or companions, but most became concubines...Not all concubines were slaves but most were. also called “slave-concubines”. This institutionalization of concubinage with female slaves dates back to Babylonian times,{{harvnb|Lerner|2008}} and has been practiced in patriarchal cultures throughout history.{{sfn|Rodriguez|2011|p=203}} Whatever the status and rights of the persons involved, they were typically inferior to those of a legitimate spouse, often with the rights of inheritance being limited or excluded.{{sfn|The Oxford Encyclopedia of Women in World History|2008|pp=468, 472}}Concubinage and marriage are often regarded as similar but mutually exclusive.{{sfn|The Oxford Encyclopedia of Women in World History|2008|p=467}} In the past, a couple may not have been able to marry because of differences in social class, ethnicity or religion,{{sfn|The Oxford Encyclopedia of Women in World History|2008|p=467}} or a man might want to avoid the legal and financial complications of marriage.{{sfn|The Oxford Encyclopedia of Women in World History|2008|p=467}} Practical impediments or social disincentives for a couple to marry could include differences in social rank status, an existing marriage and laws against bigamy, religious or professional prohibitions, or a lack of recognition by the appropriate authorities.The concubine in a concubinage tended to have a lower social status than the married party or home owner,{{sfn|The Oxford Encyclopedia of Women in World History|2008|p=468}} and this was often the reason why concubinage was preferred to marriage.{{sfn|Rodriguez|2011|p=203}} A concubine could be an “alien” in a society that did not recognize marriages between foreigners and citizens. Alternatively, they might be a slave, or person from a poor family interested in a union with a man from the nobility.{{sfn|Women’s Studies Encyclopedia|1999|p=290}}In other cases, some social groups were forbidden to marry, such as Roman soldiers, and concubinage served as a viable alternative to marriage.{{sfn|The Oxford Encyclopedia of Women in World History|2008|p=470}}In polygynous situations, the number of concubines there were permitted within an individual concubinage arrangement has varied greatly. In Roman Law, where monogamy was expected, the relationship was identical (and alternative) to marriage except for the lack of marital affection from both or one of the parties, which conferred rights related to property, inheritance and social rank.{{harvnb|Stocquart|1907|p=309}}: “[marriage] seems to have had a double object, first, to establish between husband and wife, perfect equality of rank, of condition and of dignity, honor, dignitas; it is this which distinguishes it precisely from concubinatus, called as well inaequale conjugium.“{{harvnb|Stocquart|1907|p=304}}: “Marriage implied the intention of the husband to have a legal wife, to raise her to his rank, to make her his equal, and the corresponding intent of the wife; this was called the affectio maritalis (’marital affection’).” By contrast, in parts of Asia and the Middle East, powerful men kept as many concubines as they could financially support.{{sfn|Historical Dictionary of Slavery and Abolition|2014|p=122}} Some royal households had thousands of concubines. In such cases concubinage served as a status symbol and for the production of sons.{{sfn|The Oxford Encyclopedia of Women in World History|2008|p=467}} In societies that accepted polygyny, there were advantages to having a concubine over a mistress, as children from a concubine were legitimate, while children from a mistress would be considered “bastards”.{{sfn|Walthall|2008|p=13}}

Categorization

Scholars have made attempts to categorize various patterns of concubinage practiced in the world.The International Encyclopedia of Anthropology gives four distinct forms of concubinage:{{sfn|The International Encyclopedia of Anthropology|1999}}

• Royal concubinage, where politics was connected to reproduction. Concubines became consorts to the ruler, fostered diplomatic relations, and perpetuated the royal bloodline. Imperial concubines could be selected from the general population or prisoners of war. Examples of this included imperial China, the Ottoman empire and the Sultanate of Kano.{{sfn|The International Encyclopedia of Anthropology|1999}}
• Elite concubinage, which offered men the chance to increase social status and satisfy desires. Most such men already had wives. In East Asia this practice was justified by Confucianism. In the Muslim world, this concubinage resembled slavery.{{sfn|The International Encyclopedia of Anthropology|1999}}
• Concubinage could be a form of common-law relationship that allowed a couple who did not or wish to marry to live together. This was prevalent in medieval Europe and colonial Asia. In Europe, some families discouraged younger sons from marriage to prevent division of family wealth among many heirs.{{sfn|The International Encyclopedia of Anthropology|1999}}
• Concubinage could also function as a form of sexual enslavement of women in a patriarchal system. In such cases the children of the concubine could become permanently inferior to the children of the wife. Examples include Mughal India and Choson Korea.{{sfn|The International Encyclopedia of Anthropology|1999}}

Junius P. Rodriguez gives three cultural patterns of concubinage: Asian, Islamic and European.{{sfn|Rodriguez|2011|p=203}}

Antiquity

Mesopotamia

{{Expand section |date=September 2020}}In Mesopotamia, it was customary for a sterile wife to give her husband a slave as a concubine to bear children. The status of such concubines was ambiguous; they normally could not be sold but they remained the slave of the wife.BOOK, Slavery and Social Death, Orlando, Peterson, 230, Harvard University Press, Many societies in addition to those advocating Islam automatically freed the concubine, especially after she had had a child. About a third of all non-Islamic societies fall into this category., However, in the late Babylonian period, there are reports that concubines could be sold.

Old Assyrian Period (20th–18th centuries BC)

In general, marriage was monogamous.{{efn|During the Old Assyrian Period, Assyrian marriages were generally monogamous. But if a merchant had two homes, one in Anatolia and another in Assyria, he was allowed to have a wife in each city.}} “If after two or three years of marriage the wife had not given birth to any children, the husband was allowed to buy a slave (who could also be chosen by the wife) in order to produce heirs. This woman, however, remained a slave and never gained the status of a second wife.“{{citation |title=A Companion to Assyria |editor-first1=Eckart |editor-last1=Frahm |author-first1=Cécile |author-last1=Michel |page=85 |chapter=Chapter 4. Economy, Society, and Daily Life in the Old Assyrian Period |isbn=978-1444335934 |publisher=Wiley-Blackwell |date=2017}}

Middle Assyrian Period (14th–11th centuries BC)

In the Middle Assyrian Period, the main wife (assatu) wore a veil in the street, as could a concubine (esirtu) if she were accompanying the main wife, or if she were married.{{citation |title=A Companion to Assyria |editor-first1=Eckart |editor-last1=Frahm |author-first1=Stefan |author-last1=Jacob |pages=157–58 |chapter=Chapter 7. Economy, Society, and Daily Life in the Middle Assyrian Period |isbn=978-1444335934 |publisher=Wiley-Blackwell |date=2017}}{{citation |title=A Companion to Assyria |editor-first1=Eckart |editor-last1=Frahm |author-first1=Frederick Mario |author-last1=Fales |pages=412–13 |chapter=Chapter 22. Assyrian Legal Traditions |isbn=978-1444335934 |publisher=Wiley-Blackwell |date=2017}} “If a man veils his concubine in public, by declaring ‘she is my wife,’ this woman shall be his wife.” It was illegal for unmarried women, prostitutes and slave women to wear a veil in the street. “The children of a concubine were lower in rank than the descendants of a wife, but they could inherit if the marriage of the latter remained childless.”

Ancient Egypt

File:Concubine-IMG 6346.jpg|thumb|306x306px|UshabtiUshabtiWhile most Ancient Egyptians were monogamous, a male pharaoh would have had other, lesser wives and concubines in addition to the Great Royal Wife. This arrangement would allow the pharaoh to enter into diplomatic marriages with the daughters of allies, as was the custom of ancient kings.Shaw, Garry J. The Pharaoh, Life at Court and on Campaign, Thames and Hudson, 2012, p. 48, 91–94. Concubinage was a common occupation for women in ancient Egypt, especially for talented women. A request for forty concubines by Amenhotep III (c. 1386–1353 BC) to a man named Milkilu, Prince of Gezer states:“Behold, I have sent you Hanya, the commissioner of the archers, with merchandise in order to have beautiful concubines, i.e. weavers. Silver, gold, garments, all sort of precious stones, chairs of ebony, as well as all good things, worth 160 deben. In total: forty concubines—the price of every concubine is forty of silver. Therefore, send very beautiful concubines without blemish.” — (Lewis, 146)WEB,www.worldhistory.org/article/623/women-in-ancient-egypt/, Women in Ancient Egypt, World History Encyclopedia, 2020-03-17, Concubines would be kept in the pharaoh’s harem. Amenhotep III kept his concubines in his palace at Malkata, which was one of the most opulent in the history of Egypt. The king was considered to be deserving of many women as long as he cared for his Great Royal Wife as well.

Ancient Greece

{{see also|Hetaira}}In Ancient Greece, the practice of keeping a concubine ( pallakís) was common among the upper classes, and they were for the most part women who were slaves or foreigners, but occasional free born based on family arrangements (typically from poor families).BOOK, Sue, Blundell, Susan, Blundell, Women in Ancient Greece,archive.org/details/womeninancientgr0000blun, registration, 1995, Harvard University Press, 978-0-674-95473-1, 124–, Children produced by slaves remained slaves and those by non-slave concubines varied over time; sometimes they had the possibility of citizenship.BOOK, Nigel Guy, Wilson, Encyclopedia of Ancient Greece,books.google.com/books?id=-aFtPdh6-2QC&pg=PA158, 2006, Psychology Press, 978-0-415-97334-2, 158–, The law prescribed that a man could kill another man caught attempting a relationship with his concubine.BOOK, James, Davidson, Courtesans and Fishcakes: The Consuming Passions of Classical Athens,archive.org/details/isbn_9780312185596, registration, 98, 0-312-18559-6, 1998, Macmillan, By the mid fourth century, concubines could inherit property, but, like wives, they were treated as sexual property.BOOK, Bonnie, MacLachlan, Women in Ancient Greece: A Sourcebook,books.google.com/books?id=vlsJBAAAQBAJ&pg=PT74, 31 May 2012, Bloomsbury Publishing, 978-1-4411-0964-4, 74–, While references to the sexual exploitation of maidservants appear in literature, it was considered disgraceful for a man to keep such women under the same roof as his wife.BOOK, James, Davidson, Courtesans and Fishcakes: The Consuming Passions of Classical Athens,archive.org/details/isbn_9780312185596, registration, 98–99, 0-312-18559-6, 1998, Macmillan, Apollodorus of Acharnae said that hetaera were concubines when they had a permanent relationship with a single man, but nonetheless used the two terms interchangeably.BOOK, James, Davidson, Courtesans and Fishcakes: The Consuming Passions of Classical Athens,archive.org/details/isbn_9780312185596, registration, 101, 0-312-18559-6, 1998, Macmillan,

Ancient Rome

{{See also|Marriage in ancient Rome}}A concubinatus (Latin for “concubinage” – see also (wikt:concubina|concubina), “concubine”, considered milder than (wikt:paelex|paelex), and (wikt:concubinus|concubinus), “bridegroom“) was an institution of quasi-marriage between Roman citizens who for various reasons did not want to enter into a full marriage.{{sfn|Stocquart|1907|p=304}}{{sfn|Treggiari|1981|p=58|ps=, note #42: “Marriage existed if there was affectio maritalis on the part of both parties. For the difficulty of determining whether a relationship was marriage, see for example Cic. de Or. 1.183, Quint. Decl. 247 (Ritter 11.15), Dig. 23.2.24, Mod. 24.1.32.13, Ulp.; 39.5.31 pr., Pap.“}} The institution was often found in unbalanced couples, where one of the members belonged to a higher social class or where one of the two was freed and the other one was freeborn.{{sfn|Rawson|1974|p=288|ps=: “Concubinage seems to have been most frequent amongst freed persons.“}} However it differed from a contubernium, where at least one of the partners was a slave.{{sfn|Stocquart|1907|p=305|ps=: “From matrimonium, we should distinguish; First, concubinatus, a union authorized under Augustus from the leges Julia et Papia, between persons of unequal condition, provided the man had no uxor. The concubina was neither uxor nor pellex, but uxoris loco. The children, issue of such a union, are neither legitimi nor spurii, but naturales. (Cod. 5, 27.) Second, contubernium is the perfectly regular and valid relation between a free man and a slave, or between two slaves. Through the civil law, it produced all the effects arising from the natural law.}}{{sfn|Treggiari|1981}}The relationship between a free citizen and a slave or between slaves was known as contubernium. The term describes a wide range of situations, from simple sexual slavery to quasi-marriage. For instance, according to Suetonius, Caenis, a slave and secretary of Antonia Minor, was Vespasian’s wife “in all but name”, until her death in AD 74. It was also not uncommon for slaves to create family-like unions, allowed but not protected by the law. The law allowed a slave-owner to free the slave and enter into a concubinatus or a regular marriage.{{sfn|Treggiari|1981|p=53|ps=: “If he is of respectable social status, he should free her and make her his concubina: again, she will not be contubernalis. If his status is not so respectable, he could even free her and marry her.“}}

Asia

Concubinage was highly popular before the early 20th century all over East Asia. The main functions of concubinage for men was for pleasure and producing additional heirs, whereas for women the relationship could provide financial security. Children of concubines had lower rights in account to inheritance, which was regulated by the Dishu system.In China and the Muslim world, the concubine of a king could achieve power, especially if her son also became a monarch.{{sfn|Historical Dictionary of Slavery and Abolition|2014|p=122}}

China

File:Hua-Qing-Chi-Yang-Gui-Fei.jpg|alt=|thumb|289x289px|Statue of Yang Guifei (719–756), the favoured concubine of Emperor Tang XuanzongTang XuanzongFile:The Fourth Concubine of Hexing.jpg|thumb|upright|Portrait of a concubine, by Chinese painter Lam QuaLam QuaIn China, successful men often had concubines until the practice was outlawed when the Chinese Communist Party came to power in 1949. The standard Chinese term translated as “concubine” was qiè , a term that has been used since ancient times. Concubinage resembled marriage in that concubines were recognized sexual partners of a man and were expected to bear children for him. Unofficial concubines ({{zh|t=婢妾|p=bì qiè}}) were of lower status, and their children were considered illegitimate. The English term concubine is also used for what the Chinese refer to as pínfÄ“i ({{zh|t=嬪妃}}), or “consorts of emperors”, an official position often carrying a very high rank.Patricia Buckley Ebrey (2002): Women and the Family in Chinese History. Oxford: Routledge, p. 39.In premodern China it was illegal and socially disreputable for a man to have more than one wife at a time, but it was acceptable to have concubines.Ebrey 2002:39. From the earliest times wealthy men purchased concubines and added them to their household in addition to their wife. The purchase of concubine was similar to the purchase of a slave, yet concubines had a higher social status.BOOK, Passions of the Cut Sleeve: The Male Homosexual Tradition in China, Bret, Hinsch, University of California Press, Berkley, 1990, 51, In the earliest records a man could have as many concubines as he could afford to purchase. From the Eastern Han period (AD 25–220) onward, the number of concubines a man could have was limited by law. The higher rank and the more noble identity a man possessed, the more concubines he was permitted to have.Shi Fengyi 史凤仪 (1987): Zhongguo gudai hunyin yu jiating 中国古代婚姻与家庭 Marriage and Family in Ancient China. Wuhan: Hubei Renmin Chubanshe, p. 74. A concubine’s treatment and situation was variable and was influenced by the social status of the male to whom she was attached, as well as the attitude of his wife. In the Book of Rites chapter on “The Pattern of the Family” ({{zh|t=內則}}) it says, “If there were betrothal rites, she became a wife; and if she went without these, a concubine.“BOOK,ctext.org/liji/nei-ze#n9964, Nei Ze, 11 December 2016,ctext.org/liji/nei-ze#n9964," title="web.archive.org/web/20160304051012ctext.org/liji/nei-ze#n9964,">web.archive.org/web/20160304051012ctext.org/liji/nei-ze#n9964, 4 March 2016, live, Wives brought a dowry to a relationship, but concubines did not. A concubinage relationship could be entered into without the ceremonies used in marriages, and neither remarriage nor a return to her natal home in widowhood were allowed to a concubine.Ebrey 2002: 60. There are early records of concubines allegedly being buried alive with their masters to “keep them company in the afterlife”.WEB, 2012, Concubines of Ancient China,www.beijingmadeeasy.com/beijing-history/concubines-of-ancient-china, live,www.beijingmadeeasy.com/beijing-history/concubines-of-ancient-china," title="web.archive.org/web/20120608030129www.beijingmadeeasy.com/beijing-history/concubines-of-ancient-china,">web.archive.org/web/20120608030129www.beijingmadeeasy.com/beijing-history/concubines-of-ancient-china, 8 June 2012, 13 June 2012, Beijing Made Easy, The position of the concubine was generally inferior to that of the wife. Although a concubine could produce heirs, her children would be inferior in social status to a wife’s children, although they were of higher status than illegitimate children. The child of a concubine had to show filial duty to two women, their biological mother and their legal mother—the wife of their father.Ebrey 2002: 54. After the death of a concubine, her sons would make an offering to her, but these offerings were not continued by the concubine’s grandsons, who only made offerings to their grandfather’s wife.Ebrey 2002: 42.Until the Song dynasty (960–1276), it was considered a serious breach of social ethics to promote a concubine to a wife. During the Qing dynasty (1644–1911), the status of concubines improved. It became permissible to promote a concubine to wife, if the original wife had died and the concubine was the mother of the only surviving sons. Moreover, the prohibition against forcing a widow to remarry was extended to widowed concubines. During this period tablets for concubine-mothers seem to have been more commonly placed in family ancestral altars, and genealogies of some lineages listed concubine-mothers. Many of the concubines of the emperor of the Qing dynasty were freeborn women from prominent families.{{sfn|Rodriguez|2011|p=203}} Concubines of men of lower social status could be either freeborn or slave.{{sfn|Rodriguez|2011|p=203}}Imperial concubines, kept by emperors in the Forbidden City, had different ranks and were traditionally guarded by eunuchs to ensure that they could not be impregnated by anyone but the emperor.WEB, Concubines of Ancient China,www.beijingmadeeasy.com/beijing-history/concubines-of-ancient-china, Beijing Made Easy, 13 June 2012, 2012,www.beijingmadeeasy.com/beijing-history/concubines-of-ancient-china," title="web.archive.org/web/20120608030129www.beijingmadeeasy.com/beijing-history/concubines-of-ancient-china,">web.archive.org/web/20120608030129www.beijingmadeeasy.com/beijing-history/concubines-of-ancient-china, 8 June 2012, live, In Ming China (1368–1644) there was an official system to select concubines for the emperor. The age of the candidates ranged mainly from 14 to 16. Virtues, behavior, character, appearance and body condition were the selection criteria.Qiu Zhonglin(Chung-lin Ch’iu)邱仲麟:“Mingdai linxuan Houfei jiqi guizhi” 明代遴選後妃及其規制 (The Imperial Concubine Selection System during the Ming Dynasty). Mingdai Yanjiu 明代研究 (Ming Studies) 11.2008:58.Despite the limitations imposed on Chinese concubines, there are several examples in history and literature of concubines who achieved great power and influence. Lady Yehenara, otherwise known as Empress Dowager Cixi, was one of the most successful concubines in Chinese history. Cixi first entered the court as a concubine to Xianfeng Emperor and gave birth to his only surviving son, who later became Tongzhi Emperor. She eventually became the de facto ruler of Qing China for 47 years after her husband’s death.BOOK, Sterling, Seagrave, Peggy Seagrave, Dragon lady: the life and legend of the last empress of China, 1993, Vintage Books, An examination of concubinage features in one of the Four Great Classical Novels, Dream of the Red Chamber (believed to be a semi-autobiographical account of author Cao Xueqin’s family life).WEB, China-Underground, 2016-05-08, Dream of the Red Chamber,china-underground.com/2016/05/08/dream-of-the-red-chamber/, 2021-10-20, China Underground, en-US, Three generations of the Jia family are supported by one notable concubine of the emperor, Jia Yuanchun, the full elder sister of the male protagonist Jia Baoyu. In contrast, their younger half-siblings by concubine Zhao, Jia Tanchun and Jia Huan, develop distorted personalities because they are the children of a concubine.{{Citation needed |date=July 2018}}Emperors’ concubines and harems are emphasized in 21st-century romantic novels written for female readers and set in ancient times. As a plot element, the children of concubines are depicted with a status much inferior to that in actual history.{{citation needed |date=July 2018}} The zhai dou ({{zh|t=å®…æ–—}}，residential intrigue) and gong dou ({{zh|t=宫斗}}，harem intrigue) genres show concubines and wives, as well as their children, scheming secretly to gain power. Empresses in the Palace, a gong dou type novel and TV drama, has had great success in 21st-century China.WEB,en.people.cn/102774/8067124.html, Top 10 Chinese entertainment events in 2012 (7) – People’s Daily Online, en.people.cn, 2020-02-23, Hong Kong officially abolished the Great Qing Legal Code in 1971, thereby making concubinage illegal. Casino magnate Stanley Ho of Macau took his “second wife” as his official concubine in 1957, while his “third and fourth wives” retain no official status.WEB,www.aiweibang.com/yuedu/101925130.html, 港台剧怀旧经典, www.aiweibang.com, 5 September 2016,www.aiweibang.com/yuedu/101925130.html," title="web.archive.org/web/20160923232525www.aiweibang.com/yuedu/101925130.html,">web.archive.org/web/20160923232525www.aiweibang.com/yuedu/101925130.html, 23 September 2016, live,

Mongols

Polygyny and concubinage were very common in Mongol society, especially for powerful Mongol men. Genghis Khan, Ögedei Khan, Jochi, Tolui, and Kublai Khan (among others) all had many wives and concubines.Genghis Khan frequently acquired wives and concubines from empires and societies that he had conquered, these women were often princesses or queens that were taken captive or gifted to him.{{harvnb|Broadbridge|2018|pp=74, 92}} Genghis Khan’s most famous concubine was Möge Khatun, who, according to the Persian historian Ata-Malik Juvayni, was “given to Chinggis Khan by a chief of the Bakrin tribe, and he loved her very much.“BOOK, McClynn, Frank,books.google.com/books?id=RBZpCQAAQBAJ&pg=PT117, Genghis Khan: His Conquests, His Empire, His Legacy, 2015, Hachette Books, 978-0306823961, 117, After Genghis Khan died, Möge Khatun became a wife of Ögedei Khan. Ögedei also favored her as a wife, and she frequently accompanied him on his hunting expeditions.BOOK, De Nicola, Bruno, Women in Mongol Iran: The Khatuns, 1206–1335, 2017, Edinburgh University Press, 68,

Japan

{{See also|ÅŒoku}}File:Taikō gosai rakutō yÅ«kan no zu.jpg|thumb|16th-century Samurai Toyotomi HideyoshiToyotomi HideyoshiBefore monogamy was legally imposed in the Meiji period, concubinage was common among the nobility.WEB,departments.kings.edu/womens_history/concubin.html, Concubinage in Asia, 11 December 2016,departments.kings.edu/womens_history/concubin.html," title="web.archive.org/web/20170326034744departments.kings.edu/womens_history/concubin.html,">web.archive.org/web/20170326034744departments.kings.edu/womens_history/concubin.html, 26 March 2017, live, Its purpose was to ensure male heirs. For example, the son of an Imperial concubine often had a chance of becoming emperor. Yanagihara Naruko, a high-ranking concubine of Emperor Meiji, gave birth to Emperor Taishō, who was later legally adopted by Empress Haruko, Emperor Meiji’s formal wife. Even among merchant families, concubinage was occasionally used to ensure heirs. Asako Hirooka, an entrepreneur who was the daughter of a concubine, worked hard to help her husband’s family survive after the Meiji Restoration. She lost her fertility giving birth to her only daughter, Kameko; so her husband—with whom she got along well—took Asako’s maid-servant as a concubine and fathered three daughters and a son with her. Kameko, as the child of the formal wife, married a noble man and matrilineally carried on the family name.WEB,www.sankei.com/west/news/150602/wst1506020001-n1.html, 【九転十起の女（２７）】女盛りもとうに過ぎ…夫とお手伝いの間に子供, SANKEI DIGITAL, INC., 3 June 2015, 11 December 2016,www.sankei.com/west/news/150602/wst1506020001-n1.html," title="web.archive.org/web/20161019020813www.sankei.com/west/news/150602/wst1506020001-n1.html,">web.archive.org/web/20161019020813www.sankei.com/west/news/150602/wst1506020001-n1.html, 19 October 2016, live, A samurai could take concubines but their backgrounds were checked by higher-ranked samurai. In many cases, taking a concubine was akin to a marriage. Kidnapping a concubine, although common in fiction, would have been shameful, if not criminal. If the concubine was a commoner, a messenger was sent with betrothal money or a note for exemption of tax to ask for her parents’ acceptance. Even though the woman would not be a legal wife, a situation normally considered a demotion, many wealthy merchants believed that being the concubine of a samurai was superior to being the legal wife of a commoner. When a merchant’s daughter married a samurai, her family’s money erased the samurai’s debts, and the samurai’s social status improved the standing of the merchant family. If a samurai’s commoner concubine gave birth to a son, the son could inherit his father’s social status.Concubines sometimes wielded significant influence. Nene, wife of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, was known to overrule her husband’s decisions at times and Yodo-dono, his concubine, became the de facto master of Osaka castle and the Toyotomi clan after Hideyoshi’s death.

Korea

Joseon monarchs had a harem which contained concubines of different ranks. Empress Myeongseong managed to have sons, preventing sons of concubines from getting power.Children of concubines often had lower value in account of marriage. A daughter of concubine could not marry a wife-born son of the same class. For example, Jang Nok-su was a concubine-born daughter of a mayor, who was initially married to a slave-servant, and later became a high-ranking concubine of Yeonsangun.The Joseon dynasty established in 1392 debated whether the children of a free parent and a slave parent should be considered free or slave. The child of a scholar-official father and a slave-concubine mother was always free, although the child could not occupy government positions.{{sfn|Rodriguez|2011|p=392}}

India

File:Savant Singh (Reigned 1748-1757) and Bani Thani in the Guise of Krishna and Radha Cruising on Lake Gundalao LACMA AC1999.264.1 (3 of 3).jpg|thumb|right|Raja Savant Singh of KishangarhKishangarhIn Hindu society, concubinage was practiced with women with whom marriage was undesirable, such as a woman from a lower-caste or a non-Hindu woman.{{harvnb|Hassig|2016|p=41}}“In some societies, ties of concubinage were made with women who would not be socially acceptable wives.” Children born of concubinage followed the caste categorization of the mother.BOOK, Robert Parkin, South Asia in Transition An Introduction to the Social Anthropology of a Subcontinent,books.google.com/books?id=gUcHEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA127, 127, 2020, Lexington books, 9781793611796, In medieval Rajasthan, the ruling Rajput family often had certain women called paswan, khawaas, pardayat. These women were kept by the ruler if their beauty had impressed him, but without formal marriage. Sometimes they were given rights to income collected from a particular village, as queens did. Their children were socially accepted but did not receive a share in the ruling family’s property and married others of the same status as them.BOOK, The Politics of Marriage in India: Gender and Alliance in Rajasthan, Sabita Singh, Oxford University Press, 2019, 153–154, Concubinage was practiced in elite Rajput households between 16th and 20th centuries.BOOK, Ramya, Sreenivasan, Indrani Chatterjee, Slavery and South Asian History, Indiana University Press, 136, Female slave-servants or slave-performers could be elevated to the rank of concubine (called khavas, pavas) if a ruler found them attractive. The entry into concubinage was marked by a ritual; however, this ritual differentiated from rituals marking marriage.BOOK, Ramya, Sreenivasan, Indrani Chatterjee, Slavery and South Asian History, Indiana University Press, 144, Rajputs did not take concubines from the untouchable castes and refrained from taking Charans, Brahmins, and other Rajputs.BOOK, Singh, Sabita,books.google.com/books?id=0bSmDwAAQBAJ, The Politics of Marriage in India: Gender and Alliance in Rajasthan, 2019-05-27, Oxford University Press, 978-0-19-909828-6, 154, en, In medieval Rajasthan, there seems to have been different categories of concubines. The pardayat was given chuda (bangles) by the Rani almost accepting her as a co-wife. Also, the Rajputs could keep woman of any caste as pardayat but not a Charan, Brahmin, or a Rajput woman., There are instances of wives eloping with their Rajput lovers and becoming their concubines.BOOK, Priyanka, Khanna, Embodying Royal Concubinage: Some Aspects of Concubinage In Royal Rajput Household of Marwar, (Western Rajasthan) C. 16 Th–18 Th Centuries, Indian History Congress, 338, 44146726,www.jstor.org/stable/44146726,

Europe

Vikings

Polygyny was common among Vikings, and rich and powerful Viking men tended to have many wives and concubines. Viking men would often buy or capture women and make them into their wives or concubines.JOURNAL, Karras, Ruth Mazo, 1990, Concubinage and Slavery in the Viking Age, Scandinavian Studies, 62, 2, 141–62, 0036-5637, 40919117, JOURNAL, Poser, Charles M., 1994, The dissemination of multiple sclerosis: A Viking saga? A historical essay, Annals of Neurology, en, 36, S2, S231–43, 10.1002/ana.410360810, 7998792, 36410898, 1531-8249, Concubinage for Vikings was connected to slavery; the Vikings took both free women and slaves as concubines. Researchers have suggested that Vikings may have originally started sailing and raiding due to a need to seek out women from foreign lands.WEB,www.sciencealert.com/vikings-might-have-raided-because-there-was-a-shortage-of-single-women, Vikings Might Have Started Raiding Because There Was a Shortage of Single Women, Hrala, Josh, ScienceAlert, 14 November 2016, en-gb, live,web.archive.org/web/20190530102637/https://www.sciencealert.com/vikings-might-have-raided-because-there-was-a-shortage-of-single-women, 30 May 2019, 2019-07-19, WEB,www.livescience.com/56786-vikings-raided-to-find-love.html, The Real Reason for Viking Raids: Shortage of Eligible Women?, Choi, Charles Q., November 8, Live Science Contributor {{!, |website=Live Science|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190729113022www.livescience.com/56786-vikings-raided-to-find-love.html|archive-date=29 July 2019 |access-date=2019-07-21|last3=ET|first3=2016 09:07am|date=8 November 2016}}WEB,allthatsinteresting.com/iceland-founded-viking-slaves, Sex Slaves – The Dirty Secret Behind The Founding of Iceland, 2018-01-16, All That’s Interesting, en-US, live,web.archive.org/web/20190722043846/https://allthatsinteresting.com/iceland-founded-viking-slaves, 22 July 2019, 2019-07-22, WEB,www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2015/12/151228-vikings-slaves-thralls-norse-scandinavia-archaeology/, Kinder, Gentler Vikings? Not According to Their Slaves, 2015-12-28, National Geographic News, dead,web.archive.org/web/20190802035726/https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2015/12/151228-vikings-slaves-thralls-norse-scandinavia-archaeology/, 2 August 2019, 2019-08-02, Polygynous relationships in Viking society may have led to a shortage of eligible women for the average male; polygyny increases male–male competition in society because it creates a pool of unmarried men willing to engage in risky status-elevating and sex-seeking behaviors.JOURNAL, Raffield, Ben, Price, Neil, Collard, Mark, 2017-05-01, Male-biased operational sex ratios and the Viking phenomenon: an evolutionary anthropological perspective on Late Iron Age Scandinavian raiding, Evolution and Human Behavior, 38, 3, 315–24, 10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2016.10.013, 1090-5138, free, 2164/8759, free, WEB,www.science.org/content/article/vikings-may-have-first-taken-seas-find-women-slaves, Vikings may have first taken to seas to find women, slaves, Lawler, Andrew, 2016-04-15, Science, AAAS, en, live,web.archive.org/web/20190727122934/https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/04/vikings-may-have-first-taken-seas-find-women-slaves, 27 July 2019, Thus, the average Viking man could have been forced to perform riskier actions to gain wealth and power to be able to find suitable women.WEB,www.nbcnews.com/id/26755692/ns/technology_and_science-science/t/viking-age-triggered-shortage-wives/, Viking Age triggered by shortage of wives?, Viegas, Jennifer, 2008-09-17, msnbc.com, en, live,www.nbcnews.com/id/26755692/ns/technology_and_science-science/t/viking-age-triggered-shortage-wives/," title="web.archive.org/web/20190723002325www.nbcnews.com/id/26755692/ns/technology_and_science-science/t/viking-age-triggered-shortage-wives/,">web.archive.org/web/20190723002325www.nbcnews.com/id/26755692/ns/technology_and_science-science/t/viking-age-triggered-shortage-wives/, 23 July 2019, 2019-07-21, NEWS, Knapton, Sarah,www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/11/05/viking-raiders-were-only-trying-to-win-their-future-wives-hearts/, Viking raiders were only trying to win their future wives’ hearts, 2016-11-05, The Telegraph, 2019-08-01, live,web.archive.org/web/20190801070257/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/11/05/viking-raiders-were-only-trying-to-win-their-future-wives-hearts/, 1 August 2019, en-GB, 0307-1235, WEB,www.thevintagenews.com/2018/10/22/vikings-invasions/, New Viking Study Points to “Love and Marriage” as the Main Reason for their Raids, 2018-10-22, The Vintage News, en, live,web.archive.org/web/20190802035734/https://www.thevintagenews.com/2018/10/22/vikings-invasions/, 2 August 2019, 2019-08-02, The concept was expressed in the 11th century by historian Dudo of Saint-Quentin in his semi imaginary History of The Normans.BOOK, David R., Wyatt,books.google.com/books?id=RWJGynaKSkkC&pg=PA124, Slaves and Warriors in Medieval Britain and Ireland: 800–1200, Brill, 2009, 978-90-04-17533-4, 124, The Annals of Ulster depicts raptio and states that in 821 the Vikings plundered an Irish village and “carried off a great number of women into captivity”.BOOK, Andrea, Dolfini,books.google.com/books?id=8e1lDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA349, Prehistoric Warfare and Violence: Quantitative and Qualitative Approaches, Rachel J., Crellin, Christian, Horn, Marion, Uckelmann, Springer, 2018, 978-3-319-78828-9, 349,

Early Christianity and Feudalism

The Christian morals developed by Patristic writers largely promoted marriage as the only form of union between men and women. Both Saint Augustine and Saint Jerome strongly condemned the institution of concubinage. Emperor Justinian in his great sixth-century code, the Corpus Iurus Civilis, granted to concubines and their children the sorts of property and inheritance rights usually reserved for wives.{{sfn|The Oxford Encyclopedia of Women in World History|2008|p=471}} He brought the institution of concubinatus closer to marriage, but he also repeated the Christian injunction that concubinage must be permanent and monogamous.{{sfn|The Oxford Encyclopedia of Women in World History|2008|p=471}}The two views, Christian condemnation and secular continuity with the Roman legal system, continued to be in conflict throughout the entire Middle Ages, until in the 14th and 15th centuries the Church outlawed concubinage in the territories under its control.{{sfn|The Oxford Encyclopedia of Women in World History|2008|p=471}}

Middle East

{{POV section |date=August 2014}}{{Self-contradictory|section|about=the permissibility of concubinage |date=May 2020}}(File:Harem Scene with Mothers and Daughters in Varying Costumes, One of 274 Vintage Photographs, late 19th-early 20th century.jpg|thumb|“Harem Scene with Mothers and Daughters in Varying Costumes” (between 1875 and 1933))File:Tizian 123.jpg|thumb|upright|Hurrem Sultan (Roxalena) was the “favorite concubine” of www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780195148909.001.0001/acref-9780195148909-e-472, 9780195148909, Suleiman became monogamous with her, breaking Ottoman custom.{{sfn">Peirce|1993|p=59}}In the Medieval Muslim Arab world, “concubine” (surriyya) referred to the female slave (jāriya), whether Muslim or non-Muslim, with whom her master engages in sexual intercourse in addition to household or other services. Such relationships were common in pre-Islamic Arabia and other pre-existing cultures of the wider region.ENCYCLOPEDIA, Kate, Fleet, Gudrun, Krämer, Denis, Matringe, John, Nawas, Everett, Rowson, Encyclopaedia of Islam, 3, Concubinage in Islamic law, Marion H., Katz, Islam introduced legal restrictions and discipline to the concubinageWEB,www.islamicstudies.info/quran/maarif/maarif.php?sura=4&verse=22, Maarif ul Quran, Muhammad Shafi’ Deobandi, Muhammad Shafi Deobandi, 19 November 2015,www.islamicstudies.info/quran/maarif/maarif.php?sura=4&verse=22," title="web.archive.org/web/20151119191859www.islamicstudies.info/quran/maarif/maarif.php?sura=4&verse=22,">web.archive.org/web/20151119191859www.islamicstudies.info/quran/maarif/maarif.php?sura=4&verse=22, 19 November 2015, live, and encouraged manumission.WEB,www.islamicstudies.info/quran/maarif/maarif.php?sura=2&verse=177, Surah Al-Baqara 2:177-177 – Maariful Quran – Maarif ul Quran – Quran Translation and Commentary, 11 December 2016,www.islamicstudies.info/quran/maarif/maarif.php?sura=2&verse=177," title="web.archive.org/web/20151119195319www.islamicstudies.info/quran/maarif/maarif.php?sura=2&verse=177,">web.archive.org/web/20151119195319www.islamicstudies.info/quran/maarif/maarif.php?sura=2&verse=177, 19 November 2015, live, Islam furthermore endorsed educating,BOOK, Jonathan A.C., Brown, Slavery and Islam, 2020, Simon & Schuster, 72, The Prophet states that there are two people who will receive a double reward from God on the Day of Judgment...The second is the man who had taken his slave woman as a concubine, educated her well, then freed her and taken her as his wife., freeing or marrying female slaves if they embrace Islam abandoning polytheism or infidelity.ENCYCLOPEDIA, Jonathan E., Brockopp, Encyclopaedia of the Quran, Concubines, Jane Dammen McAuliffe, 1, 396–97, 2001, BOOK, Sahih Bukhari Volume 3, Book 46, Number 724, The Prophet said, “He who has a slave-girl and teaches her good manners and improves her education and then manumits and marries her, will get a double reward., Islamic scholars have disagreed on the exact interpretation, but (Quran 23:6|verse 23:6 in the Quran) is believed by many to say that it is allowed to have sexual intercourse with concubines after marrying them, as Islam forbids sexual intercourse outside of marriage. WEB,www.astudyofquran.org/web/index.php?id=93,0,0,1,0,0, A Study of the Quran – 3. Does the Qur’an permit sex outside marriage with female slaves?, 11 December 2016,astudyofquran.org/web/index.php?id=93,0,0,1,0,0," title="web.archive.org/web/20160911222959astudyofquran.org/web/index.php?id=93,0,0,1,0,0,">web.archive.org/web/20160911222959astudyofquran.org/web/index.php?id=93,0,0,1,0,0, 11 September 2016, dead, Children of concubines are generally declared as legitimate with or without wedlock, and the mother of a free child was considered free upon the death of the male partner. There is evidence that concubines had a higher rank than female slaves. Abu Hanifa and others argued for modesty-like practices for the concubine, recommending that the concubine be established in the home and their chastity be protected and not to misuse them for sale or sharing with friends or kins. While scholars exhorted masters to treat their slaves equally, a master was allowed to show favoritism towards a concubine. Some scholars recommended holding a wedding banquet (walima) to celebrate the concubinage relationship; however, this is not required in teachings of Islam and is rather the self-preferred opinions of certain non-liberal Islamic scholars. Even the Arabic term for concubine surriyya may have been derived from sarat meaning “eminence”, indicating the concubine’s higher status over other female slaves.The Qur’an does not use the word ”surriyya”, but instead uses the expression “Ma malakat aymanukum” (that which your right hands own), which occurs 15 times in the book.WEB,corpus.quran.com/wordbyword.jsp?chapter=70&verse=30, The Quranic Arabic Corpus - Word by Word Grammar, Syntax and Morphology of the Holy Quran, corpus.quran.com, WEB,corpus.quran.com/wordbyword.jsp?chapter=23&verse=6, The Quranic Arabic Corpus - Word by Word Grammar, Syntax and Morphology of the Holy Quran, corpus.quran.com, Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi explains that “two categories of women have been excluded from the general command of guarding the private parts: (a) wives, (b) women who are legally in one’s possession”.WEB,www.translatedquran.com/meaning.asp?pagetitle=AL+-+MUMINOON&sno=23&tno=1324,www.translatedquran.com/meaning.asp?pagetitle=AL+-+MUMINOON&sno=23&tno=1324," title="archive.today/20070311085024www.translatedquran.com/meaning.asp?pagetitle=AL+-+MUMINOON&sno=23&tno=1324,">archive.today/20070311085024www.translatedquran.com/meaning.asp?pagetitle=AL+-+MUMINOON&sno=23&tno=1324, dead, Surah – AL – MUMINOON, 11 March 2007, 11 March 2007, Some contend that concubinage was a pre-Islamic custom that was allowed to be practiced under Islam, with Jews and non-Muslim people to marry a concubine after teaching her, instructing her well and then giving her freedom.WEB,quranx.com/Hadith/adab/In-Book/Book-9/Hadith-48/, Al-Adab Al-Mufrad / Book-9 / Hadith-48, quranx.com, 7 June 2015,quranx.com/Hadith/adab/In-Book/Book-9/Hadith-48/," title="web.archive.org/web/20170217062833quranx.com/Hadith/adab/In-Book/Book-9/Hadith-48/,">web.archive.org/web/20170217062833quranx.com/Hadith/adab/In-Book/Book-9/Hadith-48/, 17 February 2017, live, Others contend that concubines in Islam remained in use until the 19th century. In the traditions of the Abrahamic religions, Abraham had a concubine named Hagar, who was originally a slave of his wife Sarah.BOOK, The Will to Arise: Women, Tradition, and the Church in Africa, Mercy A., Oduyoye, Musimbi R. A., Kanyoro, 2005, 93–94, The story of Hagar would affect how concubinage was perceived in early Islamic history.{{harvnb|Jenco|Idris|Thomas|2019|pp=291–292}}{{sfn|Concubines and Courtesans|2017|p=232}}Sikainiga writes that one rationale for concubinage in Islam was that “it satisfied the sexual desire of the female slaves and thereby prevented the spread of immorality in the Muslim community.“{{harvnb|Sikainga|1996|p=22}} Most Islamic schools of thought restricted concubinage to a relationship where the female slave was required to be monogamous to her master,{{sfn|Bloom|Blair|2002|p=48}} (though the master’s monogamy to her is not required), but according to Sikainga, in reality this was not always practiced and female slaves were targeted by other men of the master’s household. These opinions of Sikaingia are controversial and contested.File:Odalisque (Boston Public Library).jpg|thumb|upright=0.8| A “cariye” or Ottoman concubineconcubineIn ancient times, two sources for concubines were permitted under an Islamic regime. Primarily, non-Muslim women taken as prisoners of war were made concubines as happened after the Battle of the Trench,Majlisi, M. B. (1966). Hayat-ul-Qaloob Volume 2, Translated by Molvi Syed Basharat Hussain Sahib Kamil, Imamia Kutub Khana, Lahore, Pakistan or in numerous later Caliphates.Murat Iyigun, “Lessons From the Ottoman Harem on Culture, Religion & Wars”, University of Colorado, 2011It was encouraged to manumit slave women who rejected their initial faith and embraced Islam, or to bring them into formal marriage.The expansion of various Muslim dynasties resulted in acquisitions of concubines, through purchase, gifts from other rulers, and captives of war. To have a large number of concubines became a symbol of status.{{sfn|Cortese|2013}} Almost all Abbasid caliphs were born to concubines.{{sfn|Concubines and Courtesans|2017|p=4}} .{{sfn|Concubines and Courtesans|2017|p=4}} Similarly, the sultans of the Ottoman empire were often the son of a concubine.{{sfn|Cortese|2013}} As a result, concubines came to exercise a degree of influence over Ottoman politics.{{sfn|Cortese|2013}} Many concubines developed social networks, and accumulated personal wealth, both of which allowed them to rise on social status.{{sfn|Concubines and Courtesans|2017|p=5}} The practice declined with the abolition of slavery, starting in the 19th century.{{sfn|Cortese|2013}}Ottoman sultans appeared to have preferred concubinage to marriage,{{sfn|Peirce|1993|p=30}} and for a time all royal children were born of concubines.{{sfn|Peirce|1993|p=39}} The consorts of Ottoman sultans were often neither Turkish, nor Muslim by birth.{{sfn|Peirce|1993|p=37}} Leslie Peirce argues that this was because a concubine would not have the political leverage that would be possessed by a princess or a daughter of the local elite.{{sfn|Peirce|1993|p=39}} Ottoman sultans also appeared to have only one son with each concubine; that is once a concubine gave birth to a son, the sultan would no longer have intercourse with her.{{sfn|Peirce|1993|p=42-43}} This limited the power of each son.{{sfn|Peirce|1993|p=42-43}}

New World

File:Free Woman of Color with daughter NOLA Collage.jpg|thumb|upright|Free woman of color with her quadroon daughter; late 18th century collage painting, New OrleansNew OrleansWhen slavery became institutionalized in Colonial America, white men, whether or not they were married, sometimes took enslaved women as concubines; children of such unions remained slaves.BOOK,books.google.com/books?id=PQzmjgSObrEC&q=u.s.+slavery+concubine&pg=PA147, Race, Gender, and Work: A Multi-cultural Economic History of Women in the United States, Amott, Teresa L., Matthaei, Julie A., 1996, South End Press, 9780896085374, en, In the various European colonies in the Caribbean, white planters took black and mulatto concubines,BOOK, Sex and Sexuality in Early America, Merril D., Smith, NYU Press, 173, The dramatic growth of a free colored class from the first third of the eighteenth century onward is tangible proof of the extensiveness of the sexual links between white men and their black concubines., owing to the shortage of white women.BOOK, Slavery and Social Death, Orlando, Peterson, 146, Harvard University Press, The children of such unions were sometimes freed from slavery and even inherited from their father, though this was not the case for the majority of children born of such unions. These relationships appeared to have been socially accepted in the colony of Jamaica and even attracted European emigrants to the island.

Brazil

In colonial Brazil, men were expected to marry women who were equal to them in status and wealth. Alternatively, some men practiced concubinage, an extra-marital sexual relationship.BOOK, “Licentious Liberty” in a Brazilian Gold-Mining Region: Slavery, Gender, and Social Control in Eighteenth-Century Sabara, Minas Gerais, Kathleen J., Higgins, 108–09, This sort of relationship was condemned by the Catholic Church and the Council of Trent threatened those who engaged in it with excommunication. Concubines constituted both female slaves and former slaves.BOOK, “Licentious Liberty” in a Brazilian Gold-Mining Region: Slavery, Gender, and Social Control in Eighteenth-Century Sabara, Minas Gerais, Kathleen J., Higgins, 117–18, One reason for taking non-white women as concubines was that free white men outnumbered free white women, although marriage between races was not illegal.

New France

Some French settlers in New France were recorded to keep native women as “concubines,” sometimes while being married to a white woman. This was particularly common in Louisiana, but was discouraged by the clergy.THESIS, Karahasan, Devrim, Métissage in New France and Canada, 1508 to 1886, July 2008, European University Institute,cadmus.eui.eu/bitstream/handle/1814/7765/2008_Karahasan.pdf, 10.2870/11337,

United States

Relationships with slaves in the United States and the Confederacy were sometimes euphemistically referred to as concubinary.{{cn|date=May 2023}} From lifelong to single or serial sexual visitations, these relationships with enslaved people illustrate a radical power imbalance between a human owned as chattel, and the legal owner of same. When personal ownership of slaves was enshrined in the law, an enslaved person had no legal power over their own legal personhood, the legal control to which was held by another entity; therefore, a slave could never give real and legal consent in any aspect of their life. The inability to give any kind of consent when enslaved is in part due to the ability of a slave master to legally coerce acts and declarations including those of affection, attraction, and consent through rewards and punishments. Legally however, the concept of chattel slavery in the United States and Confederate States defined and enforced in the law owning the legal personhood of a slave; meaning that the proxy for legal consent was found with the slave’s master, who was the sole source of consent in the law to the bodily integrity and all efforts of that slave except as regulated or limited by law. With slavery being recognized as a crime against humanity in the United States law, as well as in international customary law, the legal basis of slavery is repudiated for all time, as are any rights which owner-rapists had had to exercise any proxy consent, sexual or otherwise for their slaves.“Sexual Relations Between Elite White Women and Enslaved Men in the Antebellum South: A Socio-Historical Analysis”, J. M. Allain, Inquiries Journal, 2013, Vol. 5 No. 08, p. 1Foster, Thomas A. “Sexual Abuse of Black Men Under American Slavery”. Journal of History and Sexuality 20, 3 (2011): 445–64.Susan Bordo, “Are Mothers Persons?”, Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture, and the Body, Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press, 2003, 71–97.Rule 93. Rape and other forms of sexual violence are prohibited., 161 rules of customary international humanitarian law identified in volume I (rules) of the International Committee of the Red Cross’s study on customary IHL, Cambridge University Press 2005.Free men in the United States sometimes took female slaves in relationships which they referred to as concubinage, although marriage between the races was prohibited by law in the colonies and the later United States. Many colonies and states also had laws against miscegenation or any interracial relations. From 1662 the Colony of Virginia, followed by others, incorporated into law the principle that children took their mother’s status, i.e., the principle of partus sequitur ventrem.Peter Kolchin, American Slavery, 1619–1877, New York: Hill and Wang, 1993, p. 17 This led to generations of multiracial slaves, some of whom were otherwise considered legally white (one-eighth or less African, equivalent to a great-grandparent) before the American Civil War.In some cases, men had long-term relationships with enslaved women, giving them and their mixed-race children freedom and providing their children with apprenticeships, education and transfer of capital. A relationship between Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings is an example of this.“Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: A Brief Account” {{Webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100430175449www.monticello.org/plantation/hemingscontro/hemings-jefferson_contro.html |date=30 April 2010 }}, Monticello Website, Thomas Jefferson Foundation. Retrieved 22 June 2011. Quote: “Ten years later [referring to its 2000 report], TJF and most historians now believe that, years after his wife’s death, Thomas Jefferson was the father of the six children of Sally Hemings mentioned in Jefferson’s records, including Beverly, Harriet, Madison and Eston Hemings...Since then, a committee commissioned by the Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society, after reviewing essentially the same material, reached different conclusions, namely that Sally Hemings was only a minor figure in Thomas Jefferson’s life and that it is very unlikely he fathered any of her children. This committee also suggested in its report, issued in April 2001 and revised in 2011, that Jefferson’s younger brother Randolph (1755–1815) was more likely the father of at least some of Sally Hemings’s children.” Such arrangements were more prevalent in the American South during the antebellum period.WEB, Antebellum slavery,www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p2956.html, 2022-11-21, www.pbs.org,

Plaçage

In Louisiana and former French territories, a formalized system of concubinage called plaçage developed. European men took enslaved or free women of color as mistresses after making arrangements to give them a dowry, house or other transfer of property, and sometimes, if they were enslaved, offering freedom and education for their children.Helen Bush Caver and Mary T. Williams, “Creoles” {{Webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110813013942www.everyculture.com/multi/Bu-Dr/Creoles.html |date=13 August 2011 }}, Multicultural America, Countries and Their Cultures Website. Retrieved 3 February 2009 A third class of free people of color developed, especially in New Orleans.Peter Kolchin, American Slavery, 1619–1865, New York: Hill and Wang, 1993, pp. 82–83 Many became educated, artisans and property owners. French-speaking and practicing Catholicism, these women combined French and African-American culture and created an elite between those of European descent and the slaves. Today, descendants of the free people of color are generally called Louisiana Creole people.

In Judaism

File:1-concubine-dore.jpg|thumb|right|upright|The Israelite discovers his concubine, dead on his doorstep – by Gustave DoréGustave Doré{{see also|Pilegesh}}In Judaism, a concubine is a marital companion of inferior status to a wife.WEB,www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/concubine, Concubine, Jewish Virtual Library, 14 February 2019, Among the Israelites, men commonly acknowledged their concubines, and such women enjoyed the same rights in the house as legitimate wives.ENCYCLOPEDIA, PILEGESH (Hebrew; comp. Greek, παλλακίς).,jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=313&letter=P&search=Pilegesh, Jewish Encyclopedia, JewishEncyclopedia.com, 13 June 2012, Staff, 2002–2011,

Ancient Judaism

The term concubine did not necessarily refer to women after the first wife. A man could have many wives and concubines. Legally, any children born to a concubine were considered to be the children of the wife she was under.The concubine may not have commanded the exact amount of respect as the wife. In the Levitical rules on sexual relations, the Hebrew word that is commonly translated as “wife” is distinct from the Hebrew word that means “concubine”. However, on at least one other occasion the term is used to refer to a woman who is not a wife{{snd}} specifically, the handmaiden of Jacob’s wife.{{bibleverse||Genesis|30:4|}} In the Levitical code, sexual intercourse between a man and a wife of a different man was forbidden and punishable by death for both persons involved.{{bibleverse||Leviticus|20:10|}}{{bibleverse||Deuteronomy|22:22|}} Since it was regarded as the highest blessing to have many children, wives often gave their maids to their husbands if they were barren, as in the case of Rachel and Bilhah. The children of the concubine often had equal rights with those of the wife; for example, King Abimelech was the son of Gideon and his concubine.{{bibleverse||Judges|8:31|}} Later biblical figures, such as Gideon and Solomon, had concubines in addition to many childbearing wives. For example, the Books of Kings say that Solomon had 700 wives and 300 concubines.{{bibleverse|1|Kings|11:1–3}}File:Fiddlerandtaborer.png|thumb|Illustration from the Morgan Bible of the Benjamites taking women of Shiloh as concubines]]The account of the unnamed Levite in Judges 19–20{{bibleverse||Judges|19|NRVS}}, {{bibleverse||Judges|20|NRSV}} shows that the taking of concubines was not the exclusive preserve of kings or patriarchs in Israel during the time of the Judges, and that the rape of a concubine was completely unacceptable to the Israelite nation and led to a civil war. In the story, the Levite appears to be an ordinary member of the tribe, whose concubine was a woman from Bethlehem in Judah. This woman was unfaithful, and eventually abandoned him to return to her paternal household. However, after four months, the Levite, referred to as her husband, decided to travel to her father’s house to persuade his concubine to return. She is amenable to returning with him, and the father-in-law is very welcoming. The father-in-law convinces the Levite to remain several additional days, until the party leaves behind schedule in the late evening. The group pass up a nearby non-Israelite town to arrive very late in the city of Gibeah, which is in the land of the Benjaminites. The group sit around the town square, waiting for a local to invite them in for the evening, as was the custom for travelers. A local old man invites them to stay in his home, offering them guest right by washing their feet and offering them food. A band of wicked townsmen attack the house and demand the host send out the Levite man so they can rape him. The host offers to send out his virgin daughter as well as the Levite’s concubine for them to rape, to avoid breaking guest right towards the Levite. Eventually, to ensure his own safety and that of his host, the Levite gives the men his concubine, who is raped and abused through the night, until she is left collapsed against the front door at dawn. It is important to note that the Levite man chose to save himself from rape at the expense of his wife. In the morning, the Levite finds her when he tries to leave. When she fails to respond to her husband’s order to get up (possibly because she is dead, although the language is unclear) the Levite places her on his donkey and continues home. Once home, he dismembers her body and distributes the 12 parts throughout the nation of Israel. The Israelites gather to learn why they were sent such grisly gifts, and are told by the Levite of the sadistic rape of his concubine. The crime is considered outrageous by the Israelite tribesmen, who then wreak total retribution on the men of Gibeah, as well as the surrounding tribe of Benjamin when they support the Gibeans, killing them without mercy and burning all their towns. The inhabitants of (the town of) Jabesh Gilead are then slaughtered as a punishment for not joining the 11 tribes in their war against the Benjaminites, and their 400 unmarried daughters given in forced marriage to the 600 Benjamite survivors. Finally, the 200 Benjaminite survivors who still have no wives are granted a mass marriage by abduction by the other tribes.

Medieval and modern Judaism

In Judaism, concubines are referred to by the Hebrew term pilegesh (). The term is a loanword from Ancient Greek ,{{sfn|Lieb|1994|p=274}}BOOK, Raphael, Marc Lee, Agendas for the Study of Midrash in the Twenty-first Century, 1999, Department of Religion, College of William and Mary, 136, 607184334, BOOK, Nicholas Clapp, Sheba: Through the Desert in Search of the Legendary Queen, 297, Houghton Mifflin, 2002, meaning “a mistress staying in house”.According to the Babylonian Talmud, the difference between a concubine and a legitimate wife was that the latter received a ketubah and her marriage (nissu’in) was preceded by an erusin (“formal betrothal“), which was not the case for a concubine.WEB,www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/12148-pilegesh, PILEGESH (Hebrew; comp. Greek, παλλακίς)., Jewish Virtual Library, One opinion in the Jerusalem Talmud argues that the concubine should also receive a marriage contract, but without a clause specifying a divorce settlement. According to Rashi, “wives with kiddushin and ketubbah, concubines with kiddushin but without ketubbah”; this reading is from the Jerusalem Talmud,Certain Jewish thinkers, such as Maimonides, believed that concubines were strictly reserved for royal leadership and thus that a commoner may not have a concubine. Indeed, such thinkers argued that commoners may not engage in any type of sexual relations outside of a marriage. Maimonides was not the first Jewish thinker to criticise concubinage. For example, Leviticus Rabbah severely condemns the custom.Leviticus Rabbah, 25 Other Jewish thinkers, such as Nahmanides, Samuel ben Uri Shraga Phoebus, and Jacob Emden, strongly objected to the idea that concubines should be forbidden. Despite these prohibitions, concubinage remained widespread among Jewish households of the Ottoman empire and resembled the practice among the Muslim households.BOOK, Gender, Mastery and Slavery From European to Atlantic World Frontiers, William Foster, 2009, Bloomsbury Publishing,books.google.com/books?id=cfhGEAAAQBAJ&pg=PT30, 30, 9781350307438, In the Hebrew of the contemporary State of Israel, pilegesh is often used as the equivalent of the English word “mistress“—i.e., the female partner in extramarital relations—regardless of legal recognition. Attempts have been initiated to popularise pilegesh as a form of premarital, non-marital or extramarital relationship (which, according to the perspective of the enacting person(s), is permitted by Jewish law).NEWS, Kosher sex without marriage,www.jpost.com/Jewish-World/Jewish-Features/Kosher-sex-without-marriage, The Jerusalem Post, 16 March 2006, Matthew, Wagner, 13 June 2012,www.jpost.com/Jewish-World/Jewish-Features/Kosher-sex-without-marriage," title="web.archive.org/web/20140503230106www.jpost.com/Jewish-World/Jewish-Features/Kosher-sex-without-marriage,">web.archive.org/web/20140503230106www.jpost.com/Jewish-World/Jewish-Features/Kosher-sex-without-marriage, 3 May 2014, live, Adam Dickter, “ISO: Kosher Concubine”, New York Jewish Week, December 2006Suzanne Glass, “The Concubine Connection” {{Webarchive |url=https://archive.today/20130103033314www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-4826676.html |date=3 January 2013 }}, The Independent, London 20 October 1996

Concubinage and slavery

{{see also|Slavery|Sexual slavery}}In some context, the institution of concubinage diverged from a free quasi-marital cohabitation to the extent that it was forbidden to a free woman to be involved in a concubinage and the institution was reserved only to slaves. This type of concubinage was practiced in patriarchal cultures throughout history.{{sfn|Rodriguez|2011|p=203}} Many societies automatically freed the concubine after she had a child. Among societies that did not legally require the manumission of concubines, it was usually done anyway. In slave-owning societies, most concubines were slaves, but not all.{{sfn|Historical Dictionary of Slavery and Abolition|2014|p=122}}{{Dubious|“In slave owning societies, most concubines were slaves” |date=September 2020}} The feature of concubinage that made it attractive to certain men was that the concubine was dependent on the man; she could be sold or punished at the master’s will.{{sfn|Historical Dictionary of Slavery and Abolition|2014|p=122}} According to Orlando Peterson, slaves taken as concubines would have had a higher level of material comfort than the slaves used in agriculture or in mining.BOOK, Slavery and Social Death, Orlando, Peterson, 173, Harvard University Press, It should be obvious that if slaves were acquired as secondary wives, concubines, or homosexual lovers, their material comfort (if not their peace of mind) generally would have been better than those acquired to perform agricultural or mining jobs.,

See also

{{Div col|colwidth=25em}}

• Courtesan
• Polygamy
• Polygamy in Christianity
• Polygyny
• Cicisbeo
• Contubernium
• Common-law marriage

{{Div col end}}

References

Notes

{{notelist}}

Citations

{{reflist}}

Sources

• JOURNAL, Andreeva, Elena, 2007, Russia and Iran in the great game: travelogues and Orientalism, Routledge Studies in Middle Eastern History, 8, Psychology Press, 162–63, 978-0415771535,
• BOOK, Bloom, Jonathan, Blair, Sheila, Islam: A Thousand Years of Faith and Power, Yale University Press, 2002, 0-300-09422-1,archive.org/details/isbn_9780300094220,
• BOOK, Broadbridge, Anne F.,books.google.com/books?id=RHOFDwAAQBAJ, Women and the Making of the Mongol Empire, 2018, Cambridge University Press, 978-1-108-63662-9,
• ENCYCLOPEDIA, Cortese, Delia, Natana J. DeLong-Bas, The Oxford Encyclopedia of Islam and Women, Concubinage, Oxford University Press, 2013,
• BOOK, Karen, Hagemann, Sonya O., Rose, Stefan, Dudink, Karen, Stefan, Sonya O., Hagemann, Dudink, Rose, The Oxford Handbook of Gender, War, and the Western World since 1600, Oxford University Press, 2020, 9780199948710, 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199948710.001.0001,
• BOOK, Ross, Hassig, 2016, Polygamy and the Rise and Demise of the Aztec Empire, University of New Mexico Press,
• BOOK, Ä°lkkaracan, Pınar, Deconstructing sexuality in the Middle East: challenges and discourses,books.google.com/books?id=pnGwP9-FhxYC&pg=PA36, Ashgate Publishing, 2008, 978-0-7546-7235-7, live,web.archive.org/web/20151030194344/https://books.google.com/books?id=pnGwP9-FhxYC&pg=PA36&dq, 2015-10-30,
• BOOK, Leigh K., Jenco, Murad, Idris, Megan C., Thomas, Leigh K., Murad, Megan C., Jenco, Idris, Thomas, The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Political Theory, 291–292, Oxford University Press, 2019, 9780190253752, 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190253752.001.0001,
• ENCYCLOPEDIA, Historical Dictionary of Slavery and Abolition, Concubines and Concubinage, Martin A., Klein, 122, Rowman & Littlefield, 2014, {{sfnRef, Historical Dictionary of Slavery and Abolition, 2014, }}
• BOOK, Concubines and Courtesans: Women and slavery in Islamic history, Matthew S. Gordon and Kathryn A. Hain, Oxford University Press, 2017, {{sfnRef, Concubines and Courtesans, 2017, }}
• JOURNAL, Women and slavery, Gerda, Lerner, Slavery & Abolition, 4, 3, 2008, 173–198, 10.1080/01440398308574858,
• BOOK, Michael, Lieb, Milton and the culture of violence, Cornell University Press, 1994,
• BOOK, The Imperial Harem Women and Sovereignty in the Ottoman Empire, Oxford University Press, Leslie P., Peirce, 1993,
• ENCYCLOPEDIA, Nina, Kushner, Smith, Bonnie G., Bonnie G. Smith, 2008, The Oxford Encyclopedia of Women in World History, Concubinage,books.google.com/books?id=EFI7tr9XK6EC&pg=PA468,books.google.com/books?id=EFI7tr9XK6EC, Oxford University Press, OUP, 467–72, 9780195337860, 10.1093/acref/9780195148909.001.0001, 2020-09-15, {{sfnRef, The Oxford Encyclopedia of Women in World History, 2008, }}
• JOURNAL, Rawson, Beryl, 1974, Roman Concubinage and Other De Facto Marriages, Transactions of the American Philological Association, 104, 279–305, 10.2307/2936094, Johns Hopkins University Press, JHUP, 2936094,
• ENCYCLOPEDIA, Slavery in the Modern World: A History of Political, Social, and Economic Oppression, Concubines, Junius P., Rodriguez, 203, ABC-CLIO, 2011,
• BOOK, Sikainga, Ahmad A., Slaves into Workers: Emancipation and Labor in Colonial Sudan, University of Texas Press, 1996, 0-292-77694-2,archive.org/details/slavesintoworker0000sika,
• JOURNAL, Stocquart, Emile, Bierkan, Andrew T., Sherman, Charles Phineas, March 1907, Marriage in Roman law, Yale Law Journal, 16, 5, 303–27, 10.2307/785389, 785389,digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1887&context=ylj, 2020-09-15,
• ENCYCLOPEDIA, Tran, Lisa, Callan, Hillary, 2018, The International Encyclopedia of Anthropology, Concubinage, Wiley (publisher), Wiley, 10.1002/9781118924396.wbiea1331, 240237467, {{sfnRef, The International Encyclopedia of Anthropology, 1999, }}
• ENCYCLOPEDIA, Tierny, Helen, 1999, Women’s Studies Encyclopedia, Concubinage,books.google.com/books?id=DkPFL6XcKeQC, Greenwood Press, 290–91, 9780313296208, {{sfnRef, Women’s Studies Encyclopedia, 1999, }}
• JOURNAL, Treggiari, Susan, 1981, Contubernales, Phoenix (classics journal), Phoenix, 35, 1, 42–69, 10.2307/1087137, CAC, 1087137,
• BOOK, Walthall, Annue, Servants of the Dynasty Palace Women in World History, University of California Press, 2008,

Further reading

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