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Concubines... just a bit of mental jousting.

I think we need to be very clear exactly what we are taking from the Jewish sources, and what we are not. For myself (rightly or wrongly), at this stage I would
- Use Jewish references to learn the definition of what terms meant to the audience during scriptural times
- but NOT necessarily accept their take on right & wrong, if that wasn't also indicated by scripture.

In scripture we don't see any example of a concubine having the right to terminate the relationship - the only sort-of-relevant example is the Levite's concubine, who has run back to her father's house, and her husband goes there to persuade her to come home with him. That says nothing about whether she had the right to do so. On the contrary, David's 10 concubines who he shut away appear to have been bound to him for life regardless, there is no hint that they could have decided they didn't like that treatment and just walked off.

So I think it is reasonable to conclude from such references that the word pilagesh / concubine means a woman who is in a relationship with a man but without a ketubah / written contract. That just gives us a definition we can use to understand scripture better.

I don't think it is reasonable to accept that the relationship between her and her husband is any less permanent than a marriage relationship - unless someone else can show a scriptural example? All I see is instruction not to put away your woman, and for women to not leave their husbands, which seem to apply to all men & women with no distinction as to contract. Any suggestion that a concubine has the "right" to just leave seems to directly contradict these scriptures.
 
Samuel, don’t be too quick to dismiss what Rabbis may say. Just because it didn’t get written down in Scripture doesn’t make it automatically suspect. All of Torah existed as oral tradition for generations before it was written down.
From what I have read, some of the things that define a concubine are no Katuba, no inheritance rights,the right for either party to end the relationship and the female ownership of the children.
YHWH hates divorce, but doesn’t seem to deal harshly with Abraham sending Hagar away.
Your example of David’s concubines not leaving is conjecture. Their choice was between leaving and having to make their way in the outside world, because the king never visited them again, or to live their lives out in the luxury of the palace. And maybe one or more did later leave, how would we know? We are only told what decision he made.
 
steve said:
YHWH hates divorce, but doesn’t seem to deal harshly with Abraham sending Hagar away.
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Agreed that Yah hates divorce which is why I don't think Abraham divorced her. I think for the good of everyone, especially Isaac, he relocated her and continued to provide for her. Abraham acted honorably and that meant taking care of her out of his abundance.
 
Genesis 21:14-16 (KJV) 14 And Abraham rose up early in the morning, and took bread, and a bottle of water, and gave [it] unto Hagar, putting [it] on her shoulder, and the child, and sent her away: and she departed, and wandered in the wilderness of Beersheba. 15 And the water was spent in the bottle, and she cast the child under one of the shrubs. 16 And she went, and sat her down over against [him] a good way off, as it were a bowshot: for she said, Let me not see the death of the child. And she sat over against [him], and lift up her voice, and wept.

You can parse it anyway that you want, @Ancient Paths, but she obviously felt very rejected and abandoned the first go-around.
 
The definitions both @FollowingHim and @IshChayil are using are consistent with late (post exile) Hebrew practice. However it is virtually the same as Babylonian practice so it is hard to say where they got it from. The OT doesn't lend enough detail to know the exact practice in pre-exile times. However the post exile practice is not that much different from Mesopotamian practice; which Abraham was likely following. So one might conclude general similarity over the centuries. However that is something key to keep in mind; we're talking about practice over a time span of hundreds and thousands of years. Look how much it changed within just the last 200 years in the US!

From looking at the OT we can reasonably say the relationship was typically for life. However, no-contract means no-contract. That necessarily implies no rules for the relationship; that she was free to go if she pleased or be sent away if he did. This is consistent with the Levite in Judges, and with Abraham's practice as well.

The Greek, Roman, and (I think) Persian practices of concubinage were altogether different.

The language of the word concubine is consistent with all this as well; as it brings to mind a relationship based on attraction, rather than contract.

One could generalize @FollowingHim's definition further: concubine is a relationship woman with a woman that is lower status than that of with a wife. The relationship is what is lower status, not the woman per se. This would apply across many more cultures. This is a reflection of social or practical standing, not morality.

As above, that often meant no-paperwork. It could also be reflected in the household hierarchy, whether or not she lives in the home, or the original status of the woman (in some cultures a high class man could wife a high status woman but take low class woman only as concubines). Other cultures only allowed 1 wife, any extra women were called concubines.
 
Or we could all just finally admit that there is no concubine in God's system. What kind of extreme asshole would not give his children an inheritance because their mother was too stupid to negotiate a contract? Does this sound like God to anyone? It's not defined because it's not a thing. People did it but it wasn't in God's plan. If it was He would have regulated it for us. They were wives. They just had bad husbands.
 
Genesis 25:6 (KJV)
But unto the sons of the concubines, which Abraham had, Abraham gave gifts, and sent them away from Isaac his son, while he yet lived, eastward, unto the east country.

Just because they didn’t legally inherit doesn’t mean that they were left destitute.
 
ZecAustin said:
Or we could all just finally admit that there is no concubine in God's system. What kind of extreme asshole would not give his children an inheritance because their mother was too stupid to negotiate a contract? Does this sound like God to anyone? It's not defined because it's not a thing. People did it but it wasn't in God's plan. If it was He would have regulated it for us. They were wives. They just had bad husbands.
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It is a thing, the word is used many times in the OT and many hero's of the faith had concubines. Your distaste for the concept has no bearing on its existence. Was marriage in God's plan? The Hebrews had no word for either marry or marriage yet they did have one for concubinage. Nor did God give specification for how to marry. Just because God didn't give detailed instructions on something, doesn't mean its prohibited. That's not how the law worked.

There is often only so much inheritance to go around; choices must be made.

One of the key parts of marital contracts was the disposition of dowry and bride price in the event of dissolution of marriage or death of the husband. What kind of extreme asshole doesn't give a bride price?
 
rockfox said:
It is a thing, the word is used many times in the OT and many hero's of the faith had concubines. Your distaste for the concept has no bearing on its existence. Was marriage in God's plan? The Hebrews had no word for either marry or marriage yet they did have one for concubinage. Nor did God give specification for how to marry. Just because God didn't give detailed instructions on something, doesn't mean its prohibited. That's not how the law worked.

There is often only so much inheritance to go around; choices must be made.

One of the key parts of marital contracts was the disposition of dowry and bride price in the event of dissolution of marriage or death of the husband. What kind of extreme asshole doesn't give a bride price?
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So there's no word for marriage and there is for concubine. Which is fitting since there's no definition for concubine but there is for marriage. But somehow we just know there's a difference between the two. What I really want to know is how you tell the difference between the two. The vaunted marriage contract is also not an instruction in scripture. Which seems like an oversight on God's part since it's apparently a gigantic part of forming a marriage. I wish He would have been a little more thorough in how He wrote his book. We're not sure how to make sure our wives aren't concubines and our concubines aren't wives. It's a conundrum. What if I specified in a contract that a woman was definitely a concubine? Would she be a wife since she had a contract? What if I liked her kids and gave them an inheritance. Would she be a retroactive wife? And I never said it was prohibited. I said it's not a distinction to God.
 
Look, I don't want to go here again. This infuriates me because of what it would imply about God if it were true and because I get really spun up about adding to or taking away from scripture. I will leave with this; what we call marriage is a set of obligations we carry to each other and to God when we have sex with each other. That's the only definition I can come up with that fits all of the scripture. Obviously that's an oversimplification but it works. There are no different categories of sex. If you break it you bought it. And I can not ever wrap my mind around the idea that a Godly man would treat his children differently because he doesn't care about their mother as much. Which really if you think about it is what this debate is about. A concubine, by all the proposed definitions I've seen, is a woman you're having sex with but don't care enough to make a wife. That sounds a lot like the world's model. But you guys have at this all you want. I am officially bowing out of it. I will be interested to see the Biblical justification for having sex with a woman you're not married to and whose children you're going to treat very poorly.
 
@ZecAustin, you don’t realize that your concrete view of what the Bible means actually adds to and takes away from Scripture at the same time. You do it much damage as you attempt to confine it within a box that you presently understand.
1 Corinthians 13:12 (KJV)
For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.
 
Zec, I want to go there with you, I really do, because I think I understand the heart of what you believe. But the fact remains that concubines are mentioned in the Bible, there is no law against such, and there is clearly a difference, else there wouldn’t be a different word for that relationship.

Meanwhile, the truth in our culture is that you can’t make a second or third woman your wife just by wishing it so, at least not if we expect words to mean anything to others when we use them. So it’s worth our time to look at everything we can about how these relationships are supposed to work.
 
steve said:
@ZecAustin, you don’t realize that your concrete view of what the Bible means actually adds to and takes away from Scripture at the same time. You do it much damage as you attempt to confine it within a box that you presently understand.
1 Corinthians 13:12 (KJV)
For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.
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Cute but for that to work you would still have to show me where God defined and prescribed concubinage. If we're going to start taking everything a good guy in the Bible did in scripture as a normative event that carries God's approval then we're going to have a field day with Judah and Samson and even some events in the lives of Abraham and Moses. I like being counter cultural as much as the next guy but just because someone did it, or in this case claimed to have done it, doesn't mean it was God's will or that He approved of it.

And now I'm really, really, really, really out. I have nothing more to add here and I will try mightily to suppress my pathological need to have the last word.
 
Arguments over words. They are always divisive. And usually for no valid reason.

Ignore the words wife, marriage, concubine for a minute.

A man leaves his father and mother, cleaves unto his woman, and they become one flesh.

That's what God has to say on the subject. Really, that's about it. Plus some rules around divorce etc, but that's just detail. At the heart of it, God simply says that a man and woman will join sexually and be united.

Then language enters the picture. In scripture, some women are labelled "women" then translated "wife", others are labeled "concubine". In modern times, some are labelled "wives", others "de-facto partners", others "mistresses", others "girlfriends".

Christians tend to get all emotive about these labels. They say you have to call her a wife. If she's only your "partner" or "girlfriend" you're "living in sin". The same emotion gets placed on "concubine" also.

But to God, they're all the same. He doesn't care about the labels. They have the same obligations. None of the labels are biblical - not even "wife". To him, they're all equal.

At the same time, in the eyes of secular law, they are different. A "wife" has different legal standing to a "partner" in most jurisdictions. The words have a meaning that matters in secular society. And "concubine" had a meaning in ancient society.

So why does it matter what they are called?

If it's all the same to God, why must someone call their woman a "wife"?How is that scriptural? Why not argue that we must all use the scriptural term "woman"? Or maybe go back to the Hebrew to be perfect?

Don't get emotive about words. They are just words.
 
I am sick of arguing over whether we should have this conversation. It's repetitive and distracting. If you don't like the conversation, just ignore it and leave it to those who do wish to have it.

Maybe they'd actually get to a conclusion and be able to stop discussing it, without the interruptions...

Thanks for bowing out Zec. Sorry for making it harder for you refrain from commenting, I just suffer from similar pathological urges... :)
 
FollowingHim said:
Ignore the words wife, marriage, concubine for a minute.

A man leaves his father and mother, cleaves unto his woman, and they become one flesh.

That's what God has to say on the subject. Really, that's about it. Plus some rules around divorce etc, but that's just detail. At the heart of it, God simply says that a man and woman will join sexually and be united.

Then language enters the picture. In scripture, some women are labelled "women" then translated "wife", others are labeled "concubine". In modern times, some are labelled "wives", others "de-facto partners", others "mistresses", others "girlfriends".

Christians tend to get all emotive about these labels.
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I think this gets to the heart of the matter. Call it what you will, its all a man-woman relationship. What matters is what you do with it, not what we call it.

Now in the US you can only have 1 legal (on paper) wife. This is not that much different than in Ancient Rome. But we've got a bunch of different names for marriage like relationships that don't have that piece of paper (LTR, partner, girlfriend, sisterwife, etc). But in Rome they just had one: concubine (technically 2 words, but they both meant concubine). Now most of us recognize that the little piece of paper from the state carries no moral weight. The problem for us is we've attached a bunch of emotional moralizing garbage to the idea of 'wife' (a word that's only a few hundred years old).

However when looking at scripture, when trying to understand what they're saying, and when showing that they had multiple 'women' (whether wives, concubines, or handmaidens), it is useful to come to grips with the idea of concubinage.

Really, you wouldn't go wrong to just think of it as a catch-all term for women you're in a relationship with (but lower status, for whatever reason). The word was loaned from language to language across the ancient world with a lot of inconsistency in exactly how it was practiced. It would be a dead word in our language were it not for the scriptures and study of history; instead we have a ton of words for specific sub-types which the ancients would have lumped under concubine.
 
FollowingHim said:
….A man leaves his father and mother, cleaves unto his woman, and they become one flesh.

That's what God has to say on the subject. Really, that's about it. Plus some rules around divorce etc, but that's just detail. At the heart of it, God simply says that a man and woman will join sexually and be united.....

Christians tend to get all emotive about these labels. They say you have to call her a wife. If she's only your "partner" or "girlfriend" you're "living in sin". The same emotion gets placed on "concubine" also.

But to God, they're all the same. He doesn't care about the labels. They have the same obligations. None of the labels are biblical - not even "wife". To him, they're all equal.
Click to expand...
 
Difference being a valid common-law marriage is just as married in the eyes of the state as a licensed marriage. 'Concubine' clearly denotes some kind of not-quite-the-same status (the details of which have been hashed out above).
 
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