Concubinage

Concubinage is an interpersonal and sexual relationship between two people in which the couple does not want to, or cannot, enter into a full marriage. Concubinage and marriage are often regarded as similar, but mutually exclusive.

Ottoman imperial harem

noble title for wives of Ottoman sultans

Plaçage was a recognized extralegal system in French slave colonies of North America (including the Caribbean) by which ethnic European men entered into civil unions with non-Europeans of African, Native American and mixed-race descent. The term comes from the French meaning "to place with". The women were not legally recognized as wives but were known as placées; their relationships were recognized among the free people of color as mariages de la main gauche or left-handed marriages. They became institutionalized with contracts or negotiations that settled property on the woman and her childr

thumb|The Annunciation by Bartolomé Esteban Perez Murillo|Murillo, 1655–1660, [[Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg]]

'''''' (, , possibly related to ) is a term from the Hebrew Bible for a concubine, a female, unmarried sexual slave of social and legal status inferior to that of a wife.

Classical Islamic law allowed men to have sexual intercourse with their female slaves.

Muslim perspectives on retaining concubines

hierarchy in Imperial China

thumb|Negresse of quality from the Island of Saint Louis in Senegal, accompanied by her slave, Illustration from Costumes civils de tous les peuples connus, Paris, 1788, by . thumb|300px|A Signares ball, with European men.

young Chinese domestic worker girls/women

portion of the Abbasid household

Cassare or calissare (from Portuguese casar, "to marry") was the term applied to the marriage alliances, largely in West Africa, set up between European and African slave traders; the "husband" was European and the wife/concubine African. This was not marriage under Christian auspices, although there might be an African ceremony; there were few clerics in equatorial Africa, and the "wives" could not marry since they had not been baptized. Male monogamy was not expected. As such, concubinage is a more accurate term. The multinational Quaker slave trader and polygamist, Zephaniah Kingsley purcha