CONCUBINAGE • FREE-TRANSLATOR.COM • Definition of Concubinage

"Concubinage" Quotes from Famous Books

... polygamist, and the general history of patriarchal life shows that a plurality of wives and concubines were national customs. In the earlier part of Egyptian history, Menes is said to have founded a system of marriage, ostensibly monogamous, but in reality it was polygamous, because it allowed concubinage. As civilization advanced, the latter became unpopular, and "although lawful, was uncommon," while polygamy was expressly forbidden. Solomon, according to polygamous principles, with his thousand women, should have enjoyed a most felicitous condition. ...

— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce

... The custom was tolerated by the laws of Moses, and, in fact, no positive injunction against it is found in the whole of the Old Testament. It is questionable whether more than one was recognized as the bona fide wife, the others simply being wives by right of concubinage. But if polygamy was in its strictest sense the legal custom, it soon grew unpopular, for no trace of it is met in the records of the New Testament, where all the passages referring to marriage imply monogamy as alone lawful. ...

— The Ladies Book of Useful Information - Compiled from many sources • Anonymous

... state of the conscience of emperors had never been examined before their anointment; but if his wife was to be crowned with him, he must refuse his co-operation, because in crowning Josephine he dare not grant the divine sanction to concubinage. ...

— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach

Words linked to "Concubinage" : cohabitation