concubinage
Americannoun
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cohabitation of a man and woman without legal or formal marriage.
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the state or practice of being a concubine.
noun
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cohabitation without legal marriage
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the state of living as a concubine
Etymology
Origin of concubinage
Middle English word dating back to 1350–1400; see origin at concubine, -age
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Japanese women, awakening from their sheltered stupor, had elected 38 of their number to the Diet, were agitating for an end to concubinage, for liberalized divorce laws, for equal legal treatment.
From Time Magazine Archive
In 1958 she rammed through the Assembly her controversial Family Bill, which made adultery a prison offense and outlawed polygamy, concubinage, and—except by special presidential dispensation—divorce.*
From Time Magazine Archive
There is, for example, the concubinage of inherited wealth.
From Time Magazine Archive
The law banned compulsory arranged marriages, concubinage, child betrothal and interference in the remarriage of widows.
From Time Magazine Archive
In such a form of marriage the Roman law saw lack of affectus maritalis and of deligere honore pleno; hence the union was concubinage, not marriage.
From Folkways A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals by Sumner, William Graham
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
