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Concubines... just a bit of mental jousting.

andrew said:
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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True, I use common-law marriage as an illustration to demystify concubinage. So the marriage license is like unto the marriage contract which separated concubinage from marriage for the near eastern Semitic cultures. But non-papered marriage isn't some big moral deal. They're not required today to legally have a marriage like relationship (only to have it recognized by the state) and have only existed a 150 years or so. Before marriage licensing we (the English legal tradition of the last 1000 years) only ever had common law marriage.
 
That depends on the jurisdiction. Here we have funny laws. When a couple have lived together for 3 years they are automatically considered to have all the legal rights and resonsibilities of marriage (to put it very simplistically). But this is very specifically not called marriage. "Marriage" means you have a marriage licence. Now the practical effect is basically identical to if we recognised common law marriage - but the terminology is different. And the terminology means that the church in general will not accept such a relationship to be truly "marriage" since the word doesn't apply legally.

My point is that people's laws and words are inconsistent across time and place. We overcomplicate everything with words.

The simplest understanding is that there are relationships with contracts, and relationships without. The words change, as does the legal status, but the reality is similar in every age.
 
Yes the laws vary between countries and in the US between states. It's a mess now.

Some US states statutorily recognize what they call 'common law marriage'; basically something along the lines of if you hold yourself out as married. The whole 3 year thing is mainly a misnomer; but some courts are recognizing cohabitation to have legal consequences. But in the US many states have rejected that in rejecting palimony. In the US nothing makes it illegal to hold yourself out as married without a license; you just need that to get government benefits. Before licenses came along the custom in the colonies was to post a notice on the village board.

Under English common law licenses are only required to get permission to do something otherwise illegal or to qualify for government created privileges. Marriage, being a social institution predating all human governments, is recognized as a fundamental human right not subject to licensure. Not that governments are of a habit in recognizing rights much these days. But they came about for marriage to handle exceptions like to allow marriage without adequate public notice and later as a method to inhibit miscegenation.
 
Martin Luther on concubines...

"At this point, you have what Scripture calls concubines; they were not harlots, but wives; they were not truely matres familias; they did not bear the keys. Hagar was such a wife, who was not the primary one. They are compelled to give way to the primary [wife] like the other handmaids. And this Scripture calls concubines, which is [the conclusion] to which this text leads[,saying,] 'He took another wife,' and yet, 'He gave Isaac all his goods.'"

Martin Luther 1523 "Predigten uber das erste Bech Mose," WA 14:320a, 15-19; LW null
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matres famillias...

materfamilias: A woman who is the head of a household or the mother of a family. the mother of a family or the female head of a family. From Latin. "the woman kept house while the man hunted"
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h/t @Frank S
 
materfamilias: A woman who is the head of a household or the mother of a family. the mother of a family or the female head of a family. From Latin. "the woman kept house while the man hunted"

Interesting, they are actually heads of their own households, but the household doesn’t belong to a man. A household without a master.
 
steve said:
materfamilias: A woman who is the head of a household or the mother of a family. the mother of a family or the female head of a family. From Latin. "the woman kept house while the man hunted"

Interesting, they are actually heads of their own households, but the household doesn’t belong to a man. A household without a master.
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It says they're heads of their own households, but the next part of your statement that "the household doesn't belong to a man" is an assumption nowhere stated in that definition. She may be seen as the head of the household, under the overall headship of her husband.

I don't have a theoretical problem with the idea of multi-layered authority structures, like you have in any business or military, applied to family life. A simpler structure with all wives equal should work better in a house with 2-3 wives and is far more compatible with Western culture. So I do not see myself ever using such a system. However, in a historical case where a man had a large number of wives and concubines, some sort of hierarchy would have been necessary in order to maintain order in the household, especially when the husband was away unavoidably for work or war. Kings put eunuchs in charge of the harem, but a lesser wealthy man probably appointed a head wife for that exact same reason.
 
Let me restate that.
Luther said that concubines are not materfamilias, so I looked materfamilias up. The end of the definition states that it is from Latin: the woman kept house while the man hunted. Implying that a man is involved.
But Luther states that concubines are not materfamilias. They would be heads of their houses, so why do they not qualify?
Of course, a concubine living in the man’s house under the materfamilias would not be the head of her house, which doesn’t seem necessary for Luther to make the distinction.
 
I don't get what you're saying. You seem to be restating what Luther simply said - a concubine is not the head of her household but rather part of the household led by her mistress, the head wife. You're just using different words ("Of course, a concubine living in the man’s house under the materfamilias would not be the head of her house"). Could you clarify what you think Luther is saying, and why this is different to what you are saying?
 
If Luther is simply saying that that a concubine wouldn’t be the head wife, that seems rather superfluous. But maybe he is.

If he is stating that a concubine living separate from the family is not a materfamilias in her own house, he is making a distinction.
 
The thing to remember about the Latin context is they were a martial society; men might be gone for long periods of time to war or away on business.

I think the distinction made is that the concubine wouldn't rule his house in his absence, that fell to the lawful wife. He's pointing out a distinction of heirarchy between them and full wives. They're in the house, not truly harlots or mistresses in the modern sense. But they don't have the same level of power/honor in the household.
 
steve said:
If Luther is simply saying that that a concubine wouldn’t be the head wife, that seems rather superfluous. But maybe he is.
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I think he is just affirming that concubines existed and saying what their place was in the home. It's not superfluous as he's explaining it to an audience that is unfamiliar with polygamy and does not necessarily already understand what a 'concubine' is.
 
I find Luther's statement important for 4 reasons:
  1. Martin Luther, a theologian of note, gives us a definition. The very definition of concubine is often in question.
  2. It gives us what the historical view in that pivotal time period was.
  3. He makes it clear they're like a wife (just different in 1 way) and not like a harlot; which is how critics of concubinage/polygamy often construe them.
  4. It brings in a concept, matres familias, I don't recall seeing mentioned in relation to this subject before.
 
This is really long, so someone probably said this already. But, scripture indicates that the Hebrew idea of a concubine was a wife from a lower social standing relative to another wife (i.e. wealthy background vs poor background). The Greeks, when they introduced monogamy+fornication to replace polygyny as their ideal, redefined concubine to mean the women they owned but did not marry.
 
Philip said:
This is really long, so someone probably said this already. But, scripture indicates that the Hebrew idea of a concubine was a wife from a lower social standing relative to another wife (i.e. wealthy background vs poor background). The Greeks, when they introduced monogamy+fornication to replace polygyny as their ideal, redefined concubine to mean the women they owned but did not marry.
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Why, after a subject has been discussed over a period of 6 years and nigh unto 400 posts, would you think that it is a good idea to make a definitive statement without reading whether or not it has been brought up?
 
Philip said:
This is really long, so someone probably said this already. But, scripture indicates that the Hebrew idea of a concubine was a wife from a lower social standing relative to another wife (i.e. wealthy background vs poor background). The Greeks, when they introduced monogamy+fornication to replace polygyny as their ideal, redefined concubine to mean the women they owned but did not marry.
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Lots of people said that but I almost single handedly waged a one man crusade to show them how wrong they were. Scripture doesn’t indicate that anywhere.
 
steve said:
Why, after a subject has been discussed over a period of 6 years and nigh unto 400 posts, would you think that it is a good idea to make a definitive statement without reading whether or not it has been brought up?
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LOL
 
The Revolting Man said:
Lots of people said that but I almost single handedly waged a one man crusade to show them how wrong they were. Scripture doesn’t indicate that anywhere.
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It indicates it in one place. I'm sure you know where and refuted it. I'll have to make time to read through this whole thing. I'll probably learn something.
 
Well, I finally read through the whole thing. The verse was mentioned at the bottom of page 7 but no one noticed it provides the definition and no one refuted that it does.

Solomon had 300 women of royal descent and had 700 concubines.
That is the definition right there. A concubine was a woman who was not of royal descent.
If you are not a princess, then you are a concubine (after a man takes you).

My only conjecture is that the term can be relative to the status of the man.
If the man is a king, any of his women who is not a princess, is a concubine.
If the man is the head of a tribe, any of his women who is not the daughter of the head of a tribe, is a concubine.
If the man is 19th in command, any of his women who is the daughter of someone less than 19th in command is a concubine.

My speculation on how this came to be:
The fathers of the prestigious women, demanded that your other women be labeled as lower status, as a way to elevate their own daughter's status.
"If you ever take a woman who is lower class than my daughter, you had better give her a lower class title so everyone knows that mine was more prestigious. And you are going to vow that to me right now or you can't have her."

This is the only definition given in scripture, so it is the only one I hold to.
 
Philip said:
That is the definition right there. A concubine was a woman who was not of royal descent.
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Nice try but it could simply mean the King, as a man of chief status, would not grant wife status to non-royalty. That could simply be his choice and not anything to do with the definition.

Concubines often had lower status, but it was usually not that status which made them concubines.
 
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