Talk:Concubinage/Archive 2

Recent changes
The recent mass removal of content by, is now starting to border WP:VANDALISM. Without seeking consensus Grufo deleted 40% of the article! (This revision is 81,544 bytes, and Grufo removes 7,646+19,725+5,479 bytes = 32,800 bytes). Blanking massive amounts of the article without consensus is very WP:DISRUPTIVE.VR talk 18:36, 23 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Nonsense. Before your first intervention on this page one month ago the article 61 481 bytes. Now it measures 55 774 bytes. Moreover:
 * This is only a start of re-ordering. And for being a "start" only 5 707 bytes smaller than how the article was one month ago, it is quite a bloated start already
 * Everything has been moved to more appropriate sections – no text has been erased; the total quantity of information possessed by Wikipedia on this topic is much larger now than one month ago
 * Despite this is only a start, it looks already much much better than before
 * --Grufo (talk) 18:52, 23 September 2020 (UTC)
 * If anyone takes a look at the history of the article, they will know that Grufo has removed 7,646+19,725+5,479 bytes ~ 32,800 bytes worth of content from an article that was ~ 81,000 bytes before that removal. That's a 40% removal, and they have not bothered to seek consensus before removing all that.VR talk 18:54, 23 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Maybe. Hopefully they will look at this talk page at that point and express their opinion. --Grufo (talk) 19:02, 23 September 2020 (UTC)
 * The mass removal has transformed the article into a collection of stub paragraphs, each with an instruction to see another article. It resembles a what you get if you do a search on Google with a little bit about each search result. Be bold suggests that users should be bold when updating the encyclopaedia, but should not be upset when their bold edits get reverted.  Well the mass removal needs reverting. -- Toddy1 (talk) 20:19, 23 September 2020 (UTC)


 * This conversation escalated quickly so a few belated points directed towards Grufo.


 * The free to slave concubinage ratio could vary considerably and I don't think you can cut it this way especially without any sources. Previously, you moved the Greek concubinage to the slavery section since most Greek concubines were slaves but the source mentions that a few were free born concubines from poor families or foreign regions, invalidating the criteria you mentioned above (only slave concubines in this section). The ancient Judiasm section also mentions abducted women some of whom were enslaved. This whole slave vs free concubines distinction is really tangeial to the topic and a chronological overview of the subject.


 * Overall, I think you're being rather idological here with a pro-Roman bias and a desire to anarchonistically connect Roman concubinage to modern day LGBT and other civil unions (the sources don't make this connection as far as I can tell). As mentioned in a comment above there is no need to privelege Roman law when the entire institution predates them as noted in the article. Furthermore the entire concept of Roman marriage had mythical precedents like the abduction of Sabine women which hardly allows us to classify marriage let alone concubinage as always voluntary, in the case of Rome. The strong distinctions regarding sexual slavery vs concubinage, you wish to make don't seem substantiated in the sources. VR gave a different possible distinction between the two here


 * There is also no evidence that the reason the The Oxford Encyclopedia of Women in World History does "not even mention Islam for example" is because of considerations of what it considers "pure sexual slavery". More likely its because of its lack of notability of the overall topic and we even we have a harem painting there (according to you "concubines" couldn't be included in harems). Why is it there?


 * Furthermore the distinctions made by the encyclopaedia that you want us to note are specific to the 21st century (not Rome where it notes that there is much confusion in the laws, though you don't seem to think so) and it makes this clear when it begins with in 21st century parlance "concubine" refers to.... Otherwise the historical definition of concubinage can be found on pg 467. You seem to be arguing against what the source classifies as the "essential characteristic of concubinage" and which also mentions that:


 * "in Royal or imperial households, concubines could number into the thousands. Though their duty was to provide sexual pleasure and sons to the male head of the household, they also served as status markers" (note: concubines not sex slaves)


 * If quotes like this don't convince you that your denials of what constitutes bona fide concubinage are unfounded, I don't know what will.


 * For what it's worth, I think there should be a separate section for concubinage in the modern day but that would be the only instance of what we can (and what the women's encycopaedia) describes as "voluntary concubinage". Another article on concubinage (not sexual slavery ) in China would be acceptable as well. So too would one on Islam which VR is working on. That wouldn't be an excuse to just copy paste, shift or even remove information from various sections though.Ronakhtalk (talk) 06:39, 24 September 2020 (UTC)


 * I really don't have time for editors who intervene on the pages destroying days of work without even reading a discussion . I am done now with this page. If you all like it like this, be it.
 * “The free to slave concubinage ratio could vary considerably”
 * How many persons during any of the empires described here could afford “an harem of slaves”? Most cases of concubinage have always been cases of non-married monogamous non-rich couples, who for various reasons could not marry, simply because not many people could afford anything different than that.
 * “Greek concubinage to the slavery section”
 * Greek concubinage was absolutely not only with slaves. If I am not wrong most pallakai were free non-rich girls or foreigners, but whoever wrote the Wikipedia paragraph emphasized the slavery aspect, so I moved the paragraph under the slavery section. This would not have been the final result. As I had already explained to Vice regent, the ideal for the situations where a quasi-marital relationship was possible with both slaves and free citizens would be to distinguish the two cases as it is currently the situation for ancient Rome. For example, this could be done with ancient Greece too, presenting the pallake first, and dwelling in the appropriate paragraph on the slave-pallake in the (few? many?) cases where she was a slave.
 * “anarchonistically connect Roman concubinage to modern day LGBT and other civil unions (the sources don't make this connection as far as I can tell)”
 * The connection did not happen now. Although LGBT couples are definitely contemporary, the Roman idea of concubinage was already present in the Napoleonic civil code, as a sort of de facto civil union (for heterosexual couples, of course). And it was already in the Napoleonic code because the Roman idea of concubinage has always been around in European countries, since the corpus of the Roman law never really disappeared in the West (see ). When the French extended concubinage to LGBT couples in 1999, they extended the institution of concubinage as it was in the Napoleonic code.
 * --Grufo (talk) 08:07, 24 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Please don't make unsubstantiated accusations against Toddy1.
 * Are your assertions in accordance with RS? Every source on concubinage I have read seems to say a concubine is a woman who is an unmarried and unequal relationship with a man. It may be that modern same-sex unions use the same word ("concubinage" might simply mean "cohabitation" in some cases), but they don't seem to be the same concept. I could be wrong, so please present your sources.
 * Greek concubinage was absolutely not only with slaves. Pretty much the case throughout the world, historically: concubinage could happen with free women or slave women. It may or may not be legal, e.g. Christian clerics engaged in concubinage in contravention of church teachings, but it happened.VR talk 10:20, 24 September 2020 (UTC)
 * “It may be that modern same-sex unions use the same word”
 * Ok, let's revert a bit of concepts:
 * Classical meaning of concubinage --> monogamous cohabitation without marriage – of course if a couple did not end up marrying there were often big reasons, like she was a prostitute or he was a half-criminal, etc. You can look up at the municipal laws of cities in the Middle Age and Renaissance for what they meant with "concubinage". It was also often used for priests who found a girlfriend and were living together with her illicitly (since priests could not marry).
 * More recent meaning of concubinage --> sex with slaves, polygamy, etc.
 * “Every source on concubinage I have read seems to say a concubine is a woman who is an unmarried and unequal relationship with a man”
 * A “concubine” is a different thing compared to a “concubinage”. Since historically in most cases a “concubinage” has always meant “an impossible marriage”, often it was because the woman was of an inferior social status than the man. You must keep present that while in other societies there was a “social class” of concubines, this was not the case in Rome. There wasn't “a class” of concubines: a concubine or a "male-concubine" in Rome was simply a person impossible to marry because of too lower social class or because was a freed person. Maybe only in very few cases a concubinatus in Rome was an actual civil union due to free choice (although possibly this happened too). However, since Roman law did not talk about which cases were more suited for a concubinatus instead of a marriage, or how big the social difference needed to be for a concubinatus to be better than a marriage, but talked only abstractly of it as a quasi-marital cohabitation without marriage, the meaning in the law is that of a civil union – and as such is treated in legal contexts.
 * “I could be wrong, so please present your sources”
 * Paste below what you want that I reference and I will search for a source.
 * --Grufo (talk) 12:35, 24 September 2020 (UTC)
 * P.S. It is interesting also to click on the “other languages” for this article on Wikipedia and see what they talk about…
 * Arabic: معاشرة دون زواج [ Google Translate this page ]
 * German: Konkubinat [ Google Translate this page ]
 * French: Concubinage [ Google Translate this page ]
 * Italian: Concubinato [ Google Translate this page ]
 * --Grufo (talk) 13:55, 24 September 2020 (UTC)
 * It's entirely possible for words to have a common origin but then diverge in meaning in different languages. An extreme example of that is called "false friend". Google translate of the French article Concubinage translates it as "cohabitation", so perhaps it should link to cohabitation instead.VR talk 20:34, 24 September 2020 (UTC)
 * How a false friend? Does concubinage not mean cohabitation in English as well? It is just a less used word here, so it sounds a little bit old fashion; while in French they never stopped using it, so it retained its every-day meaning (that's why Google Translate substituted it).  I can assure though that in Italian and German it is as old fashion as it is in English  (and that's why Google Translate kept it). --Grufo (talk) 21:42, 24 September 2020 (UTC)
 * It's entirely possible for words to have a common origin but then diverge in meaning in different languages. An extreme example of that is called "false friend". Google translate of the French article Concubinage translates it as "cohabitation", so perhaps it should link to cohabitation instead.VR talk 20:34, 24 September 2020 (UTC)
 * How a false friend? Does concubinage not mean cohabitation in English as well? It is just a less used word here, so it sounds a little bit old fashion; while in French they never stopped using it, so it retained its every-day meaning (that's why Google Translate substituted it).  I can assure though that in Italian and German it is as old fashion as it is in English  (and that's why Google Translate kept it). --Grufo (talk) 21:42, 24 September 2020 (UTC)

Concubinage and cohabitation are different articles. Concubinage seems to have the connotation of inequality between the man and the woman, whereas cohabitation can be egalitarian. Most cultures practicing concubinage also seemed to have accepted polygyny, meaning the concubine would be taken in addition to a wife, whereas cohabitation seems to be monogamous. Rome's emphasis on monogamy seems to be the exception among other cultures that practiced it. This is why the Cambridge Dictionary defines it as a woman who, in some societies, lives and has sex with a man she is not married to, and has a lower social rank than his wife or wives.VR talk 23:39, 24 September 2020 (UTC)
 * “Concubinage seems to have the connotation of inequality between the man and the woman, whereas cohabitation can be egalitarian”
 * Doesn't sound like that to me (of course without counting the sexism intrinsic to our society), and it doesn't sound like that to them either:, ,  (in the last one “concubine” is used for the female and “paramour” for the male).
 * “Most cultures practicing concubinage also seemed to have accepted polygyny”
 * Then they practice polygyny. Concubinage is not related to the number of women or men involved. Actually according to some sources polygyny excludes concubinage (see: ).
 * “meaning the concubine would be taken in addition to a wife, whereas cohabitation seems to be monogamous”
 * Concubinage requires cohabitation, or at least some kind of common life. Without it you are talking about lovers.
 * “Rome's emphasis on monogamy seems to be the exception among other cultures that practiced it”
 * It is not that Rome invented the term and then this started to mean something else. Rome invented the term, wrote some laws about it, and these laws still survive in both the legal systems and cultural heritage of entire countries. The term has been recently extended to refer to something it would normally not refer to – since the West lacked the vocabulary to describe phenomena that were typical of other cultures. But the term still means quasi-marital cohabitation: without quasi-marital cohabitation you can't even use it.
 * ''“This is why the Cambridge Dictionary defines”
 * You keep presenting “concubine”, but I don't know how many times I have to repeat that concubine and concubinage are two different things. Ok, let's do this fast. If you lived in a concubinage in ancient Rome you and your partner would call each other “concubinus”/“concubina”. The Empire wrote laws about it. The Empire fell. People would not call each other concubine anymore. But still concubinage remained in the code (Corpus Juris Civilis), as an institution that survived the entire Middle Age and arrived to our days – with some accidents in between. It was often adopted – especially for not granting inheritance – as much as it was opposed. Maybe just the French in a concubinage today call each other “concubine”. But still the Roman concept of concubinage is alive and well. There are laws about it, churches are still against it calling it with its name. So this is the state today in the English language: “concubine” -> obsolete word, just the Romans used it, and today the French; “concubinage” -> alive and well. For the correct use of the dictionary, see, , , ,.
 * --Grufo (talk) 01:25, 25 September 2020 (UTC)
 * The sources you presented seem to back up the idea that concubinage involves lower status/lesser rights for one of the partners:
 * Do note that concubinage varied from culture to culture. The dictionaries all indicate the one of the definitions of concubinage is the state of being/having a concubine. Some dictionaries give an additional definition of cohabitation, but others don't. Most academic literature that specifically focuses on concubinage doesn't seem to talk about cohabitation. I think including a section on comparison of concubinage to cohabitation would be ok as long as it's not undue.VR talk 14:35, 25 September 2020 (UTC)
 * “… which differed from marriage in that it usually implied …”
 * The source is literally talking about the particular case of late Roman empire / early Christianity, and later compares it to a common-law marriage. You can't take that as a definition. Here's the entire text:
 * "For example, at the time of the Roman empire, debates flourished about the dignitas type of marriage (a binding civil contract between the partners) and the concubinatus (a more flexible contractual arrangement subjected to fewer legal regulations and social consequences as far as children and inheritance was concerned – the child remained with the mother and inherited from her). Toward the last days of the empire, the Christian church became the most influential force of power in Europe, and with it the concubinatus family form disappeared and the dignitas'' marriage was reformed into a sacred and unbreakable union (Zimmerman and Cervantes, 1956). Nevertheless, concubinage remained a legalized form of couple relationship in various cultures, which differed from marriage in that it usually implied a considerably lower status of both the female partner and her offspring than that enjoyed by the legally married wife (Malinowski, 1963:10).
 * “… which differed from marriage in that it usually implied …”
 * The source is literally talking about the particular case of late Roman empire / early Christianity, and later compares it to a common-law marriage. You can't take that as a definition. Here's the entire text:
 * "For example, at the time of the Roman empire, debates flourished about the dignitas type of marriage (a binding civil contract between the partners) and the concubinatus (a more flexible contractual arrangement subjected to fewer legal regulations and social consequences as far as children and inheritance was concerned – the child remained with the mother and inherited from her). Toward the last days of the empire, the Christian church became the most influential force of power in Europe, and with it the concubinatus family form disappeared and the dignitas'' marriage was reformed into a sacred and unbreakable union (Zimmerman and Cervantes, 1956). Nevertheless, concubinage remained a legalized form of couple relationship in various cultures, which differed from marriage in that it usually implied a considerably lower status of both the female partner and her offspring than that enjoyed by the legally married wife (Malinowski, 1963:10).

One example in the United States of tacitly sanctioned cohabitation is known as common law marriage. Ploscowe (1951) considers the basic thought underlying common law marriage to be that, if a man and a woman are living together and presumably portray themselves to the world as husband and wife, then the law treats them as having entered a common law marriage relationship. Common law marriage in the United States originated from the early frontier conditions, where the proper legal marriage often had to be postponed until a clergyperson could be found. It is still recognized in fifteen states today. Instead of being a choice against legal marriage, common law marriage was, throughout history, often an imperative and characteristic of the poor, somewhat comparable to conditions found in the Caribbean area as studied by Goode (1960), Blake (1976), Otterbein (1965), and Rodman (1966). Here, for economic reasons, "consensual" unions were often practiced as an acceptable means of obtaining children. Later on, when the male became better off economically, this union would be legalized by marriage. Thus, cohabitation became a means for adjustment to social-economic circumstances often affecting lower social classes. Marriage was, when possible, the preferred arrangement and it symbolized the transformation toward economic independence.''"


 * “[The concubine's] station was above the infamy of a prostitute, and below the honors of a wife”
 * Indeed. I agree with the text. Then modernity came and we invented a new word for it: girlfriend. I wouldn't say though that a boyfriend and a girlfriend have different status (although they may): they do have a different status compared to a husband and wife. Here is the whole paragraph you quoted:
 * "A concubine in the Civil Law did not mean a harlot. She possessed the character of a wife, but without the sanction of a legal marriage. It was confined in Europe to a single person, and was a perpetual obligation, and was generally entered into by men who were forbidden by the State to marry one who lacked quality or fortune. The concubine could be accused of adultery . Her station was above the infamy of a prostitute, and below the honors of a wife."


 * “The partners in such relationships [concubinage] and the offspring of their union did not have the same legal rights accorded married persons and their legitimate children.”
 * Again, see boyfriend and girlfriend, or simply cohabiting partners.
 * “The dictionaries all indicate the one of the definitions of concubinage is the state of being/having a concubine”
 * It is interesting that something that would be almost tautological is placed as a second definition in most dictionaries.
 * “Do note that concubinage varied from culture to culture”
 * Sure, exactly to the same extent in which extra-marital cohabitation varies from culture to culture.
 * “I think including a section on comparison of concubinage to cohabitation would be ok”
 * Maybe it's more interesting to talk about the history of the word and its different usages in different contexts. Maybe at some point I will do that.
 * --Grufo (talk) 16:39, 25 September 2020 (UTC)
 * it's more interesting to talk about the history of the word and its different usages in different contexts That would be great if sourced reliably and kept in accordance in WP:DUE. Note it includes sometimes contradictory views on concubinage that we find in reliable sources.VR talk 01:59, 26 September 2020 (UTC)

Reservations regarding article content
I have some serious reservations about this entry as it stands.

1) AFAIK, in many societies that practiced concubinage, it was a specific legal status and concubines had specific rights, though not equal to those of a spouse.

2) Therefore, the "concubinal relationship" is not similar to modern Common law marriage or de facto marriage.

Comments? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Conversion script (talk • contribs) 15:43, 25 February 2002 (UTC)


 * If you have some concrete information, add it. Be bold! :) &mdash;Frecklefoot 16:57, 2 Mar 2004 (UTC)


 * Added the reference starting with "In ancient times..." to the first section. Prof Philip Daileader mentions this in his series of lecture on the Early Middle Ages, produced by The Teaching Company. I have been unable to find a print source for the same material. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 163.191.194.235 (talk) 21:00, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Voluntary / Forced
This article makes it sound like concubinage is voluntary. There is the statement: "concubinage was frequently voluntary." That statement implies that sometimes concubinage was not voluntary; forced concubinage would involve repeated rape and should be discussed. It's also questionable how voluntary the "voluntary" concubinage really was.

The article states: "legitimate wives often gave their maids to their husbands to atone, at least in part, if they were barren, as in the cases of Sarah and Hagar, Rachel and Bilhah." How can a wife give a maid to a husband? What is going on there should be made explicit. It sounds like the husband and wife had a slave or semi-slave maid who was regarded as property. As the wife was barren, the wife tolerated the husband repeatedly raping the slave maid. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.67.108.193 (talk) 09:43, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

Today, when referring to a contemporary Civil union - failed verification
I do not see how the source supports the underlined parts of either version of the following text:
 * 1) 12:35, 18 October 2020 In the past, the woman involved in a concubinage was referred to as a concubine, while the man simply as "lover" or "patron" (depending on the asymmetry of the couple). Especially among royalty and nobility, the woman in such relationships was commonly described as a mistress. Today, when referring to a contemporary Civil union (e.g. in the context of LGBT rights), the term "concubinage" is used, but the term "concubine" is normally dropped.
 * 2) 12:45, 18 October 2020 "In present-day English, the term "concubinage" is not used about civil unions where there is the same equality of status as in a marriage, and the term "concubine" typically refers to women whose status is connected to their sexual or reproductive capabilities.

When Module:Citation/CS1 (the engine that underlies all cs1|2 templates) is finished processing the template, this is what it hands-off to MediaWiki for final rendering:

Here is the same template after the monkbot edit:

and what Module:Citation/CS1 hands-off to MediaWiki:

The output from both versions of the template is exactly the same except for the TemplateStyles stripmarkers and the original has the link to Category:CS1 maint: ref duplicates default. Note that the tag content is exactly the same in both versions of the template:

The  attribute is automatically created when ref is omitted or is empty. ref is redundant in this case because it creates the same value for the  attribute:

Please explain how the Montbot edit was unhelpful. Please explain how the Monkbot edit is a recipe for cite conflicts.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 18:06, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

I don't get the explanation, but I was also wondering why it was unhelpful. Incidentally, how and why do these |ref= functions appear in the templates in the first place? Iskandar323 (talk) 18:54, 21 November 2021 (UTC)
 * What about the explanation above don't you get?
 * Before the 18 April 2020 update to Module:Citation/CS1, cs1 templates required harv or ref or CITEREF... (plaintext) to create  anchor id attributes suitable for use with  and the  family of short-form templates.  From 18 April 2020, all cs1 templates automatically create   anchor id attributes from the first four names in the contributor-, author-, or editor-name lists (in that order; names from different lists not mixed) and year from year or date.
 * For this particular example, the original citation had ref which was created at . That template was replaced with ref at.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 19:33, 21 November 2021 (UTC)
 * For this particular example, the original citation had ref which was created at . That template was replaced with ref at.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 19:33, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

Ah ok, there was an update that obseleted the old function. Thanks. Iskandar323 (talk) 20:25, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

Because Editor Toddy1 has declined to participate in this discussion, I have restored the monkbot edit that that editor reverted.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 17:12, 25 November 2021 (UTC)