Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun Law Cohabitation without legal marriage.
- noun The state of being a concubine.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun The act or practice of cohabiting without a legal marriage.
- noun The state of being a concubine.
- noun In Rom, law [concubinatus], a permanent cohabitation, recognized by the law, between persons to whose marriage there were no legal obstacles.
- noun A natural marriage, as contradistinguished from a civil marriage.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun The cohabiting of a man and a woman who are not legally married; the state of being a concubine.
- noun (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.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun The state of
cohabiting or living together as man and wife while not married. - noun The state of being a
concubine .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun cohabitation without being legally married
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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a courtezan, and the term concubinage to the latter, because a concubine is a substituted partner of the bed, therefore for the sake of distinction, ante-nuptial stipulation with a woman is signified by keeping a mistress, and post-nuptial by concubinage.
The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love Emanuel Swedenborg 1730
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While she and Constantius were a love match, their only choice was to live together in concubinage, an accepted form of cohabitation for people of different social status.
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While she and Constantius were a love match, their only choice was to live together in concubinage, an accepted form of cohabitation for people of different social status.
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"Fornication of such a gross kind as (exists) not even among the heathen, so that one (of you) hath (in concubinage) his father's wife," that is, his stepmother, while his father is still alive (2Co 7: 12; compare Le 18: 8).
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The polygamy and concubinage which is sanctioned in the Koran, has degraded the women to a degree that may be imagined, and certainly has not, as some authorities contend, abolished other evils.
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Contrary practices, such as concubinage, were still tolerated, but they counted for little in the social organism.
The Mission and Expansion of Christianity in the First Three Centuries 1851-1930 1908
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Ph. Schaff, W.J. Mann describes the relation of the General Synod to the Methodists and Presbyterians as a "concubinage" with the sects.
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The Court held that a same - gender relationship could not constitute "concubinage" for the purpose of terminating alimony.
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Former husband sought to terminate his alimony payments which were made pursuant to a separation agreement because his wife began cohabitating with another women, which he claimed ran afoul of the "concubinage" restriction in the agreement.
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"I'm reminded of the first Christian legislators, who didn't quickly abolish the tolerant Roman laws regarding practices which didn't conform to the natural law, or which were actually contrary to it, such as concubinage and slavery," Cardinal Cottier wrote.
CathNews 2009
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