1. The relationship of a man and woman who cohabit without the benefit of marriage. [Cases: Marriage 22. C.J.S. Marriage §§ 24–25.]
2. The state of being a concubine.
3. Hist. A plea in a dower action made by a defendant who asserts that the plaintiff is the defendant’s concubine rather than wife.
“Concubinage, in common Acceptation is the Keeping of a Whore or Concubine: But in a legal Sense, it is used as an Exception against her that sueth for Dower, alledging thereby that she was not a Wife lawfully married to the Party, in whose Lands she seeks to be endowed, but his Concubine.” Giles Jacob, A New Law-Dictionary (8th ed. 1762).
CONCUBINATUS
concubinatus (kon-kyoo-bi-nay-t[schwa]s), n. [Latin “concubinage”] Roman law. A permanent, mono-gamous union of a man and a woman who are not legally married. • Concubinatus was not prohibited by law, but carried fewer benefits than a legal marriage. Cf. JUSTAE NUPTIAE.
“[C]oncubinage (concubinatus) … was something to which we have no precise analogue in modern law, for, so far from being prohibited by the law, it was regulated thereby, being treated as a lawful connexion. It is almost a sort of unequal marriage (and is practically so described by some of the jurists) existing between persons of different station — the man of superior rank, the woman of a rank so much inferior that it is not to be presumed that his union with her was intended to be a marriage.” James Bryce, “Marriage and Divorce under Roman and English Law,” in 3 Select Essays in Anglo-American Legal History 806–07 (1909).
