concubinage

American  

[kon-kyoo-buh-nij, kong-] / kɒnˈkyu bə nɪdʒ, kɒŋ- /

noun

1. cohabitation of a man and woman without legal or formal marriage.

2. the state or practice of being a concubine.

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concubinage British  

/ kɒnˈkjuːbɪnɪdʒ /

noun

1. cohabitation without legal marriage

2. the state of living as a concubine

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Etymology

Origin of concubinage

Middle English word dating back to 1350–1400; see origin at concubine, -age

Example Sentences

Nhu has banned polygamy, concubinage, dancing, and even fighting fish.

From Time Magazine Archive

Three years ago, the National Assembly passed her family bill, which banned polygamy and concubinage, set up stiff penalties for adultery, outlawed divorce except by permission of the President.

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

The law banned compulsory arranged marriages, concubinage, child betrothal and interference in the remarriage of widows.

From Time Magazine Archive

Those who have no liking for the friars, censure them as egoists and buffoons; as living in concubinage; as gamblers and usurers; as arrogant, and ambitious for power.

From The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 — Volume 28 of 55 1637-38 Explorations by Early Navigators, Descriptions of the Islands and Their Peoples, Their History and Records of the Catholic Missions, as Related in Contemporaneous Books and Manuscripts, Showing the Political, Economic, Commercial and Religious Conditions of Those Islands from Their Earliest Relations with European Nations to the Close of the Nineteenth Century by Blair, Emma Helen