CONCUBINAGE • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Concubinage

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noun

Concubinage n.

The cohabiting of a man and a woman who are not legally married; the state of being a concubine. Note: In some countries, concubinage is marriage of an inferior kind, or performed with less solemnity than a true or formal marriage; or marriage with a woman of inferior condition, to whom the husband does not convey his rank or quality. Under Roman law, it was the living of a man and woman in sexual relations without marriage, but in conformity with local law.

(Law) A plea, in which it is alleged that the woman suing for dower was not lawfully married to the man in whose lands she seeks to be endowed, but that she was his concubine.

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Etymology of 'Concubinage'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Concubinage" Quotes from Famous Books

... come so intimately into Florio's life, and probable, when all the evidence is considered, that Rose Spicer, the "dear wife Rose" mentioned in his will, was the "Rosalinde" of his youth, whom, it appears, he had seduced, and with whom he had evidently lived in concubinage in the intervening years; making tardy amends by marriage in 1617, only eight years before his death. His marriage to Rose Spicer was evidently brought about by the admonitions of his friend Theophilus Field, Bishop of Llandaff, under whose ...

— Shakespeare's Lost Years in London, 1586-1592 • Arthur Acheson

... produce for denying that marriage is simply a civil contract. The form, binding one man to one woman, had its origin outside of the Bible. Up to the time of Charlemagne in the eighth century, polygamy and concubinage were common among Christians and countenanced by the Church. Even Luther seems to have had somewhat lax, though not unscriptural, notions on the subject. When Philip, landgrave of Hesse-Cassel, wanted to take another wife, and threatened to get a dispensation from the Pope for the purpose, Luther ...

— The Woman Who Dared • Epes Sargent

... live in wedlock; and he expressly states that eight "metropolitans" of Armagh were "married men" (Sec. 19). But if there was nevertheless a revival among large sections of the people of pagan ideas of marriage, which tolerated polygamy, concubinage, incest and easy termination of unions, it can be understood that marriage in the face of the Church, which included a vow absolutely prohibitive of all these things, would be commonly avoided. Malachy's ...

— St. Bernard of Clairvaux's Life of St. Malachy of Armagh • H. J. Lawlor