Concubīna
（
παλλακή, παλλακίς). A concubine.
1. Greek
The
παλλακή or
παλλακίς
occupied at Athens a kind of middle rank between the wife and the harlot (
ἑταίρα). Demosthenes defines the position of each by saying that
the harlot ministers to pleasure only, the concubine serves, while the wife is for the
purpose of bearing children and acting as the faithful steward of her husband's goods
(
c. Neaer. 122, p. 1386). Thus Antiphon speaks of the
παλλακή of Philoneos as following him to the sacrifice, and also waiting upon
him and his guest at table. If her person were violated by force, the same penalty was
exigible from the ravisher as if the offence had been committed upon an Attic matron; and a
man surprised by the quasi-husband in the act of criminal intercourse with his
παλλακή, might be slain by him on the spot, as in the parallel case.
(See
Adulterium.) It does not, however, appear
very clearly from what political classes concubines were chiefly selected, as cohabitation
with a foreign (
ξένη) woman was strictly forbidden by law,
and the provisions made by the State for virgins of Attic families must, in most cases, have
prevented their sinking to this condition. Sometimes, certainly, where there were several
destitute female orphans, this might take place, as the next of kin was not obliged to
provide for more than one; and we may also conceive the same to have occurred with respect to
the daughters of families so poor as to be unable to supply a dowry. The
dowry, in fact, seems to have been a decisive criterion as to whether the connection between
a male and a female Athenian, in a state of cohabitation, amounted to a marriage. If no dowry
had been given, the child of such union would be illegitimate; if, on the contrary, a dowry
had been given, or a proper instrument executed in acknowledgment of its receipt, the woman
was fully entitled to all conjugal rights. It does not appear that the slave who was taken to
her master's bed acquired any political rights in consequence; the concubine mentioned by
Antiphon is treated as a slave by her master, and after his death undergoes a servile
punishment.
2. Roman
According to an old definition, an unmarried woman who cohabited with a man was originally
called
pellex or
paelex (
Gell. iv. 3), but afterwards by the more decent appellation of
concubina (
Dig. 50, 16, 144).
Concubinatus is
cohabitation other than marriage between free persons who were both unmarried, or between an
unmarried free man and an
ancilla. In the older times this was viewed as
an offence deserving punishment (
Liv.x. 31; xxv. 2); but when the
possibility of a lasting affection between persons who had not
conubium
came to be recognized, the cohabitation of an unmarried man with his
liberta or
ancilla (Plaut.
Epid. iii. 4, 29, 30) was regarded without censure. In Cicero's time
(
De Orat. i.40.183) the name of
concubina would
have applied to a woman who cohabited with a man who had not divorced his wife; but this was
not considered lawful concubinage in after-times. The Lex Iulia de Adulteriis of Augustus
imposed severe penalties on
adulterium, incestus, and
stuprum (q. v.); but by the Lex Iulia and Papia Poppaea
concubinatus was legalized and exempted from the penal provisions of the earlier
statute (
Dig. 25, 7, 3, 1), though an
honesta femina who
wished to become a
concubina was not dispensed from them unless she made
an express declaration of her intention or
testatio (
Dig.
ib. 3, pr.). But a man who already had an
uxor could not have a
concubina at the same time (
Dig. 50, 16, 144), nor apparently
could a man have more than one
concubina at a time; and widowers who
already had children, and did not wish to contract another legal marriage, took a
concubina, as we see in the case of Vespasian (
Suet.
Vesp. 3), Antoninus Pius, and M. Aurelius.
Concubinatus differed from lawful marriage in three especial respects.
- 1. In the relation of the parties, there being no affectio
maritalis (Sent. Rec. ii. 20).
- 2. In the loss of reputation to the woman if honesta. Yet there
is an inscription in Fabretti (p. 337) to the memory of Paullianus by Aemilia Prima, concubina eius et heres, which seems to show that the term concubina was not one that a woman need be ashamed of.
- 3. In its legal effects: it was not a marriage, and therefore the rules as to dos, donatio propter nuptias, donatio inter virum et uxorem, had no
application; nor were the children in patria potestas, though their
paternity was recognized; they could be legitimated, and under the emperors were entitled
to maintenance, even from the legitimate children after the father's death (Nov. 89, 12, 6); also, they had some rights of succession on the
father's dying intestate.
By later emperors
concubinatus was discouraged, but it was not made
generally unlawful until the ninth century, by Leo the Philosopher.
Cohabitation between two slaves was called
contubernium, a name also
applied to that between a slave and a free person (
Paul.ii.
19, 6).
