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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by BilledMammal (talk | contribs) at 23:23, 6 December 2021 (→"In twenty-first-century parlance, 'concubine' refers either to a mistress or to a sex slave.": rp). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Template:Vital article

Gay concubinage

The first sentence refers to "a man and a woman", yet Mexican states recognise gay concubinage. So we can either say that the meaning of the formerly cognate word in Mexico has diverged, at the very least, from its English meaning, or this is outdated. Given that the page is still linked to that of the Spanish word, which does not include this stipulation, I think the latter is more reasonable. Also, the term in popular parlance does not evoke "a" man and "a" woman, singular.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 101.112.242.20 (talk) 11:30, 1 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Problem with sourcing the gender neutral concubinage

I have changed “… interpersonal and sexual relationship between a man and a woman in which the couple …” into “… interpersonal and sexual relationship between two persons in which the couple …”, as many countries today recognize homosexual concubinage (e.g.: France, Mexico). However we should change the source used for the first sentence, as the The Oxford Encyclopedia of Women in World History does not cover this (and probably still the majority of the sources). --Grufo (talk) 03:10, 23 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia policy is that articles should be based on what reliable sources say.-- Toddy1 (talk) 21:28, 23 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
“Two persons” does not really contradict “a man and a woman”, and could survive well also with the Oxford. However it is never bad to add sources. I will see what I can do. --Grufo (talk) 19:51, 24 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Grufo you added this source. Who is publisher of this or is it WP:SELFPUB? Do you think it is a WP:RS? VR talk 20:07, 24 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
It is a well-known law dictionary maintained by Lloyd Duhaime, used in plenty of Wikipedia articles and suggested by the Oxford Bodleian Libraries. --Grufo (talk) 20:12, 24 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
What its saying does contradict other sources I've read on the topic, so I wonder if this definition is more modern or limited to certain countries. If so, we should make that clear. Although I'm not sure if the lead is for this, maybe we should have a section called "Definitions" or "Overview" that explains what concubinage is before we cover its long history.VR talk 00:36, 25 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
It is definitely very modern (21st century). From a legal point of view concubinage holds a strange position, because it has often been used to label all relationships not covered by marriage, so it was often an umbrella term (and therefore in the past often used with negative connotations – you can see these negative connotations still today in the documents produced by Christian churches). This changes from country to country though, because in France it has been a legal term since Napoleon, and many countries (if not most? I really don't know) tend to have some laws about concubinage – even just for forbidding it (homosexual or even heterosexual). I am really not an expert on law, but realities where you will use the term for homomosexual couples do exist. --Grufo (talk) 04:13, 25 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I'll add a section called "Overview" with definitions and characteristics on concubinage based on sources I found and you can integrate the sources you found.VR talk 04:31, 25 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I am not sure creating an Overview section about definitions is a good idea. All definitions of concubinage are quite alike, the only rarity is homosexual concubinage. --Grufo (talk) 04:53, 25 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The purpose of the lead is to summarize the article. Currently the lead gives an overview of concubinage (something that is then never repeated in the article) but it doesn't summarize the practice of concubinage in various parts of the world (to which most of the article is devoted). If the lead is 4 paragraphs, then at most 1 should be on the overview and the other 3 should be on summarizing the rest of the article. Further details on the overview should go in a section called "Overview".VR talk 05:05, 25 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Seen it. For once that is not bad. I would just remove the word “scholars”: concubinage being an open term makes it impossible to have “concubinage scholars”. I will try to reformulate that sentence. --Grufo (talk) 05:13, 25 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I have done a bit of review and moved some paragraphs from the lead to the new section. Important notes:
  • I have changed “Concubinage is” to “The historical meaning of concubinage is”, or this will conflict with the lead – if you have alternative solutions feel free to add
  • I have only moved paragraphs from the lead to the new section with virtually no changes, but some of the paragraphs that I moved look pretty bad and would need to be rewritten
--Grufo (talk) 06:12, 25 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. I think the whole lead needs to be rewritten, I have only kept the bare minimum in the lead for now.VR talk 12:36, 25 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

This article appears to have been rewritten to promote a non-mainstream point of view. It gives WP:UNDUE prominence to this point of view.-- Toddy1 (talk) 14:27, 25 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. The intro section now poorly relates to the article, in violation of the purpose of WP:SUMMARY. Iskandar323 (talk) 12:50, 27 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Changing text without changing sources

Grufo here you changed the text of a sentence without adding a new source. The result is that we have a sentence containing information that can't be verified in the subsequent inline citation. This is a WP:V problem. I'm making a section out of this because this is the second time you've done so this week (this was the first time). In the future please also change the source to reflect the text changes. Alternatively, if you can't find a source please add the text to talk requesting someone else to find the source.VR talk 12:22, 25 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

It is a complicate subject, Vice regent. We are talking about a term which was both institutionalized by the Roman law and still used with its original meaning (“concubinus” / “concubina” literally means “co-sleeper”, “friend with benefits”, and Romans used it in all situations where they needed to talk about “friends with benefits”, but also “boyfriend”, “girlfriend”, etc.). To express it simply, the Roman Law at some point created the institution of concubinatus (i.e. civil union), but the usage of “concubinus” / “concubina” was already widespread as umbrella terms. Furthermore, although the relationship was mutual, the society was still patriarcal (the decision to marry or not was ultimately a man's decision). According to Roman jurists a man's lack of intention to marry was the only distinctive factor which allowed to define a relationship a “concubinatus” (Stocquart discusses extensively about this). Furthermore, besides the “concubinatus” institution, “concubinus” / “concubina” retained their umbrella meanings (and yes, they were used also for homosexual relationships; In Catullus 61, for example, a bridegroom must break up with his “concubinus” – “male lover” – because time has come to grow up and marry a woman – and although the term “concubinus” is used, we are definitely not talking about the institution of “concubinatus” there). Since I know that the situation is really complex, I have been careful to phrase my sentence in the right context, which is the Roman Law, which did not really care if one was rich and one was poor, or if one was freed or freeborn; the only thing the law cared about was that both lovers were Roman citizens and they were not married. In that context the relationship was as much mutual as it could be: identical to marriage but without the intention to marry (and jurists are very clear about this). In Roman society a lot of “informal concubinages” existed too (i.e., persons cheating on their spouses with stable lovers), but these were not protected by the law, as this required monogamy. I will do a literature review later, but not now, I don't work full time for Wikipedia. --Grufo (talk) 17:20, 25 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
It is worth remembering that English-language words do not always have the same meaning as the Latin words they descended from - the obvious example is prevent (from the Latin word prevenio). The Roman use of various Latin terms is relevant to this article, but does not define what a concubine is in English.-- Toddy1 (talk) 13:46, 26 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
When you talk about Rome yes, you tend to stick to the meaning that it had there. A good example is the word “prince”, which in English is used for rulers' children, but when you discuss about Rome it goes back to its original meaning “princeps”, and you form sentences like “Prince of the Senate”. --Grufo (talk) 16:35, 26 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
As Toddy1 notes, we should not be using the Roman meanings of Latin-derived origins words as the definitions of a concubine in English. That is just etymology. Only where Roman institutions bear resemblance to the standard English definitions of concubinage should they be referenced in the rest of the article. Looking at the intro and the bits about civil unions, it looks like much of the article has become mixed up in this basic lack of distinction. Concubinatus has its own article. Concubinage in English is not about the union of free citizens. Iskandar323 (talk) 18:07, 26 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Looking at this in a bit more detail, it seems there are two definitions of concubinage, and they represent a fundamental split in meaning. One pertains to living arrangements and is sometimes used as a matter of law, and this seems more akin to the Roman concubinatus, and then of course we have concubinage as in the keeping of concubines, which is what I had assumed this article was about (and it appears to be about, at least for the main part). Given how these are two fundamentally different subjects, perhaps a content split is required to create an article that can tackle modern legal uses modelled on the Roman meaning, as in cohabitation etc., to be named Concubinage (legal), or similar. Iskandar323 (talk) 18:18, 26 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Or we can have a WP:hatnote at the top of the article that directs the reader to Cohabitation. I think what Grufo is referring to is better covered there.VR talk 18:20, 26 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Well, perhaps, but it does look like there are some oddly specific uses of "concubinage" as terminology in at least some legal systems, [1] with France and the Philippines popping up immediately in search. But yes, something has got to give. at the moment we have a bizarre intro about cohabitation and talk about civil unions fronting an article about medieval mistresses. Iskandar323 (talk) 18:23, 26 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Here is a source that explains that modern cohabitation is monogamous, while a concubine was in addition to a wife and the concubine was also regarded as inferior in many ways (the source mentions how a man couldn't promote concubine to a wife, but in cohabitation the couple can get married if they so choose).VR talk 18:28, 26 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Polygamy is irrelevant in this context. Marriages can be polygamous too, but that does not affect the usage of the word. --Grufo (talk) 18:34, 26 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
There is not a split in meaning, concubinage means marriage-like cohabitation in all sources (if an editor thinks a split is present, they are invited to explain how it manifests). The main difference with Latin is that the English term concubinage does not require that both members are free (non-slave) citizens like the Latin did, and so we don't require that either (unless we talk about Rome). --Grufo (talk) 18:31, 26 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Both myself and Vice Regent have just explained how it differs. Most encyclopedia definitions for concubinage provide two separate definitions [2]: 1. Law Cohabitation without legal marriage. 2. The state of being a concubine. You can't confuse both in one article. And to be honest, I think the meaning relating to concubines is the more obvious one. I had never heard use of the word in relation to cohabitation before I saw this article, because the word cohabitation already exists in normal usage, and concubinage is clearly only used to refer to cohabitating situations where it pertains to matters of law. The source that Vice Regent found [3] differentiating between modern cohabitation and concubinage is also not irrelevant. However, your point is. It doesn't matter if marriages can be polygamous. What matters is that there is a clear definition, from a social perspective, between modern monogamous cohabitation, and ancient concubinage, which is in fact entirely separate - involving multiple wives and concubines, sometimes living together, but often not, and, as Vice Regent crucially states, quite often with no route to marriage, which stands in stark contrast to any form of modern cohabitation. As Vice Regent notes, any content that is purely about cohabitation should be moved to the cohabitation page (perhaps under history), and content on modern legal practices that utilise the terminology "concubinage" should go into a separate article entitled Concubinage (legal). I was thinking that the material might actually need some sort of triple split earlier, but Vice Regent has now made this absolutely clear. Iskandar323 (talk) 04:48, 27 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
This is pure WP:OR. Being a concubine means being in a concubinage. Being in a concubinage means making love and cohabiting together without the rights that marriage offers (often inheritance). Thus being a woman in a concubinage (“the condition of being a concubine”) means making love with a man without too many certainties about the future. What this meant concretely changed from society to society. In patriarchate, concubinage meant very few rights for the woman. There are not two different definitions that I am aware of, and the only differentiation I have seen is that when concubinage becomes too close to sexual slavery the sources start to use “slave”, “sex slave”, “slave-concubine” instead of plain “concubine”. --Grufo (talk) 05:51, 27 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
It's not WP:OR - it is what the sources say, and a little bit of WP:COMMONSENSE. The dictionary definition I've provided literally states that the use of the term concubinage to mean "cohabitation" is strictly a legal definition. The non-legal definition is a setup involving concubines. This is why the definitions are labelled (1.) and (2.) - and you are blurring these two definitions. As you have said, no one says "I am a concubine" to mean "I live with my partner." These ideas are worlds apart. Yes, concubinage from antiquity through to early modern times came with a scale of meanings, from sex-slave through to mistress, but none of these ideas come even close to ideas such as a legal term for cohabitation or anything to do with civil unions. The point that almost defines concubines is that their relationships are typically outside of normal unions or marriage. Iskandar323 (talk) 06:48, 27 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
“A setup involving concubines”? Is that your alternative definition of concubinage? Does concubinage have to be polygamic according to you? If this is not WP:OR I don't know what WP:OR is. You could have just given a look at the first encyclopedias that appear on Google (#1, #2, #3, #4). If you are Christian you could have read the definition of concubinage according to the Catholic Church, and if you read Arabic I believe that the Arabic Wikipedia page for concubinage can be interesting to read (Google Translate). Just out of curiosity, what did you think that concubinage was before reading this article? I am sorry if I sound harsh, Iskandar323, but I can't do this, not again. --Grufo (talk) 10:45, 27 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Chill Grufo. I'm allowed to paraphrase in a talk page discussion. That isn't a phraseology that I have added, unsourced to the article. You can choose to pretend to be blankly unaware of the points that every single other editor is trying to make to you in this discussion, but dwelling on turns of phrase isn't the same as making a compelling case. Before I read this article, I obviously thought (and still think) that concubinage refers to the keeping of concubines, or the state of being a concubine. I repeat. Obviously. The endless parade of weird definitions to do with cohabitation, civil union and now catholic terminology are frankly all odd and clearly niche. Most of these definitions also only apply to the term in the narrowly defined context of the legal system of a single country, such as cohabitation in France, or a narrowly defined form of adultery in the Philippines. These are all comparatively fringe definitions relative to the more obvious meaning of "pertaining to concubines". I'm definitely not interested in whatever weird Catholic definition of the term can be derived from the New Advent website, which I have checked for in the WP:RS archive and of which it has been noted that it only ever seems to crop up in relation to the citation of the Catholic Encyclopedia. I'm calling that unreliable until proven otherwise. Iskandar323 (talk) 10:59, 27 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Please note that "concubine" redirects to this page. There is no other page about concubines on Wikipedia. If you want to insist on talking about concubinage in terms of narrowly defined legal terms, perhaps it would be better to simply rename this page "Concubine" and then you can take your Roman law elsewhere. Iskandar323 (talk) 11:08, 27 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Please browse any encyclopedia: this page does exactly what most encyclopedias do with concubinage. --Grufo (talk) 11:17, 27 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Look at the sources in the "Overview" section. The only legal definitions of concubinage exist in France (still in use) and the US (obselete). These are not broad definitions. They are highly specific. They come from the legal sections of encyclopedias, and source either French or US legal books. Iskandar323 (talk) 11:44, 27 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Do you see the blue in this map? These are all the countries that have laws about concubinage that come straight from the Roman Law. To those you have to add some US states, Scotland, Quebec, South Africa, and probably some other country. --Grufo (talk) 11:53, 27 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I think you must have linked to the wrong map - File:Map of the Legal systems of the world (en).png does not mention what you say.-- Toddy1 (talk) 12:05, 27 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Of course it doesn't. That page mentions the countries that apply the Civil law system. You can check individually on each of these countries (I won't do that for you), but you might have to use Google with the local translation of concubinage. If you are curious to know how Roman laws ended up in modern countries, Corpus Juris Civilis is the page for you (boring page if you ask). --Grufo (talk) 12:12, 27 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Now THIS Grufo is WP:OR - assuming that because legal systems are very distantly derived from Roman Law that they still contain specific provisions related to concubinage. That is unambiguous conjecture and WP:SYNTHESIS. Iskandar323 (talk) 12:39, 27 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
If you don't want to use Google you can directly click on the “Languages” section on the left bar of the Wikipedia “concubinage” article and check via Google Translator if they mention anything concerning the law of their country. It's definitely not a conjecture and I know what I am talking about. --Grufo (talk) 12:45, 27 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
In most languages, the corresponding article is no more than a stub, but there is an interesting note in German: "While the term is generally out of date in German-speaking countries, it has remained alive in Switzerland and is also used for current unmarried couples." So, dead in Germany, but we can possibly add Switzerland to the list. Iskandar323 (talk) 13:11, 27 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The list is virtually all the countries that apply the Civil law system (concubinage is part of that system) – plus the other countries I mentioned above. In Germany is outdated in the spoken language, but not in the law. --Grufo (talk) 13:16, 27 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
All you are really doing here is proving that there is a distinct legal meaning that is totally separate from the definition of practices regarding concubines and justifying my call for an article split. Iskandar323 (talk) 13:41, 27 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
There is not a distinctive meaning. The meaning is just one: quasi-marriage without all the additional rights and status that come from marriage (this of course concretely meant very different things depending on the context and the epoch). If you think differently you are free to make a counter-example where this definition does not apply. --Grufo (talk) 13:45, 27 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Umm, that's just a map of law in general. It bears absolutely zero relevance to this discussion. Iskandar323 (talk) 12:06, 27 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Grufo, you did something similar again. Here you provided this as a source for the text "From this traditional meaning found in Roman law comes the contemporary usage of concubinage as a synonym for civil union, used in civil law." But nowhere do I see this source saying that the contemporary meaning of concubinage is being derived from Roman law. I don't know if what you wrote is true, but its not supported by the sources you provided.VR talk 14:51, 26 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Then you had put {{cn}} in the wrong place. I saw it after “concubinage as a synonym for civil union, used in civil law.” and I replaced it with a source that shows the usage in civil law. What else did you want a source for? --Grufo (talk) 16:27, 26 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Lead rewrite

I think the lead should be rewritten. Probably the simplest way to rewrite is to have the following summary format of paragraphs:

  1. gives overview of concubinage (reflection section "Overview")
  2. summarizes "In Europe" and "In the Americas", this is where we can mention the Latin roots of the word
  3. summarizes "Ancient Near East", "In Judaism" and "In Islam and the Arab world"
  4. summarizes "In Asia"

The lead shouldn't have more than four paragraphs (MOS:LEADLENGTH).VR talk 12:41, 25 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Toddy1, Grufo, and Iskandar323: what do you think of this proposal? VR talk 16:19, 30 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I am not sure I understand the proposal well enough to comment. For example, (2) "summarises "In Europe" and "In the Americas", this is where we can mention the Latin roots of the word" Do you mean in 20th/21st Century Europe/the Americas?
For most of history China, India, and the Middle East have been the three centres of civilisation on this planet. So surely they should come before anything on Europe and the Americas.-- Toddy1 (talk) 16:51, 30 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
No, I meant historic Europe (including ancient Greece and Rome) and colonial Americas where concubinage was widely practiced. All of this is already in the article, it just needs to be summarized for the lead.VR talk 17:31, 30 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The lead as it is now has two good characteristic: it is short and well phrased. I am for leaving it like this and avoid disputes. --Grufo (talk) 17:12, 30 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
No the lead needs to summarize the body as per WP:LEAD.VR talk 17:31, 30 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed it does that. --Grufo (talk) 17:32, 30 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
It does not, it merely defines concubinage. If this article is about the history of its practice, there is nothing in the lead regarding that.VR talk 17:42, 30 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
No, the article is about what concubinage is. The fact that we decide to give much space to history is simply due to the personal preferences / personal expertise of the editors who wrote the various parts. But it remains an article called “Concubinage”, and not “History of concubinage”. It might well expand to “Views on concubinage”, “Concubinage in various countries”, “Legal history of concubinage”, and so on. Usually when you have an article “X” and a section named “History of X” the lead does not summarizes the history. --Grufo (talk) 17:51, 30 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The present lead is POV and does not summarise the article.-- Toddy1 (talk) 18:25, 30 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The present short description: "Interpersonal relationship in which the couple are not or cannot be married" is much worse. For example: I have a long-standing friendship with an antiquarian bookseller. Does that mean that I am his concubine? It is an interpersonal relationship. We are not married. No, I am a customer of the bookshop he owns! The present short description omits key features of concubinage that do not apply to being a customer of his bookshop. I suggest: "Concubinage is a durable male-female sexual relationship where the female concubine lives under her man's roof, but the concubine and her man are not married."-- Toddy1 (talk) 18:25, 30 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
To be absolutely precise, and encompass the multiple current meanings in the article, the current short description would need to be something like: "A legalised form of male-female relationship outside of marriage in the ancient world, or, a pre-modern to modern legal term and framework for cohabitation by a couple without marriage" Iskandar323 (talk) 20:10, 30 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The present short description Problem solved --Grufo (talk) 20:13, 30 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Only in your mind Grufo - there are two key distinctions between the two definitions: ancient concubines (as far as I am aware always female) did not necessarily cohabit with their male partner - take, for example, Ottomoman concubines, who lived separately in the Haremlik. And while their children might be legitimised, their station offered little by way of legal rights. The pre-modern to modern legal terms and legislative frameworks convey rights to partnerships between cohabiting equals, of any gender. Quite a few differences there. Iskandar323 (talk) 20:51, 30 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that using concubinage for sex slaves is “forcing it”. But you all know that. We refer anyway to dictionaries, especially for short descriptions. --Grufo (talk) 20:56, 30 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The simple fact of that matter is that concubinage has been used historically to refer to main situations that you, from your lofty and highly judgmental modern perspective might consider to be sexual slavery. It is not forcing anything. This article is about a term, "concubinage", and all of the uses of that term - not a select few, or those that you find most palatable. Iskandar323 (talk) 21:48, 30 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Iskandar323: P.S. Do you want to know why I am so much against using concubinage for sexual slavery? I, for example, am one of those who did not know that Ottomoman concubines were required to be sex slaves. I used to think “Yeah, they had polygamous marriages, concubinage is a lesser marriage, thus Ottoman concubinage was a lesser polygamous marriage”. Wrong, of course. If I remember well (but don't ask me the page), Jonathan Brown in Slavery and Islam complains about something similar. He asked his students about the status of one of Mohammad's sex slaves often presented as “concubine”, and everyone answered “she was one of his wives”. Duh. Using concubinage for sexual slavery is inherently misleading/apologetic/obfuscating/unclear. --Grufo (talk) 21:22, 30 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Concubine is simply a label for a position within a household - in different times and different cultural settings, it could entail a range of roles, responsibilities and power. As I have said, Concubines in Mongol society could often rise higher than lesser wives. In the Ottoman Imperial Harem, some concubines were slaves (sometimes also called slave-concubines), but others were free women who entered concubinage as a means to climb the social ladder. The problem is that you are trying to condense a highly varied set of circumstances from a huge slice of human history and various geographies into some sort of catch-all, narrow definition. Iskandar323 (talk) 21:41, 30 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Besides the fact that “condensing a highly varied set of circumstances … into some sort of catch-all, narrow definition” is like the definition of what a short description is meant to do, my dictionaries' definition is an open definition, which means that you can actually force slavery into it. What you and Vice regent are trying to do instead, in spite of the fact that “concubinage” has been used for almost two millennia only for defining Roman-like quasi-marriages (and only with modernity adapted to non-European cultures) is forcing Wikipedia to ignore the actual meaning of the word and POV-push “sexual slavery in history” as its main meaning. Who said that this page should be almost only about history in the first place? And why should a page about quasi-marital relationships focus on sex slaves? What about like 90% of the world that uses the word today and in the past with its actual meaning? --Grufo (talk) 05:40, 31 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

That is such a patronising, western orientalist perspective. You think concubinage Mongol culture, Chinese culture, any other Asian culture I care to recall just rubbed off from the Romans? I think not. In fact, I rather suspect Imperial China probably had concubines long before the rise of the Romans. What you continue to do is confuse the fact that "concubine" has become general terminology in the English language, with the idea that because that term is derived from Latin in English, that any iteration of concubinage that uses these terms has to, on some level, be derived from Roman practice. The first order of business is really to get around your mental block on this. Iskandar323 (talk) 07:17, 31 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I've written the paragraphs for Asia and for Middle East and Africa in my sandbox. Feedback welcome. Is Grufo interested in writing the paragraph for Europe? If not, I'll do that too.VR talk 22:02, 30 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

This page focuses already too much on history, Vice regent. I propose to split the history into separate articles, like the ones that we already have Concubinatus, Concubinage in China, Ōoku, etc., and leave only the bare essential history here. Europe could potentially be one of the biggest chapters. It would start after the fall of the Roman empire with a millenary battle between secular law (which kept improving the rights of concubinage) and Church (which wanted to abolish concubinage). Clerical concubinage is a big chapter, so as aristocratic concubinage. Then there is concubinage between Europeans and people from colonized lands who were not considered not suitable for marriage. I doubt you can find a single source that covers the entire history of European concubinage. A simple Google Search on “clerical concubinage” will give you an idea of the amount of literature you will have to deal with. Don't forget that the word concubinage has been used by Europeans for almost two millennia with its actual meaning, and only with modernity it has been adapted to non-European societies. Feel free to write that if you want. But do not POV-push the usage of “concubinage” for meaning sex slaves, because that is really not what it meant there. --Grufo (talk) 05:40, 31 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
A lead is supposed to reflect what the page already focuses on. You can propose a split below and see if there is consensus. But until then the lead needs to reflect the rest of the article. Do you want to write a paragraph on history of European concubinage or shall I?VR talk 06:55, 31 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Although interesting, I don't have the time to do that. --Grufo (talk) 08:06, 31 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
This may, perhaps ultimately be a better approach - an umbrella article on concubinage in general, in its various forms, and separate further explanatory articles on, say: Concubinage in Europe, Concubinage in the Middle East, Concubinage in East Asia, etc. It would certainly be more digestible. Iskandar323 (talk) 07:29, 31 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I.e.: in the style of Concubinage in China, as you have helpfully pointed out, Grufo - see, we can agree! Iskandar323 (talk) 07:30, 31 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I have created that page, as I have created also concubinatus and contubernium – but only contubernium is entirely mine. Concubinage in China was born as a split from this page and other parts of Wikipedia. Chinese concubines did not need to be slaves. --Grufo (talk) 07:55, 31 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
From my research Chinese concubines could be of either slave or freeborn origin.VR talk 08:07, 31 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
There is no consensus for Grufo's revert. I think there is a consensus for the improved lead section, which addresses both the POV problem with Grufo's rewrite of the lead, and also provides much-needed summary of the article. Well done.-- Toddy1 (talk) 20:00, 31 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
A revert of a disputed content does not need consensus. What we usually do in that case is leaving the status quo and beginning a dispute – although it is really the last thing I want to do. I have now also added to the page content from Vice regent's new page Concubinage (legal term), so that we can balance the current unbalance problem of giving too much weight to history. --Grufo (talk) 20:19, 31 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I have never even edited Concubinage (legal term).VR talk 20:22, 31 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Ever Grounded, if you feel that some sentences should be reworded, please could you use this talk page to propose changes.-- Toddy1 (talk) 21:04, 31 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

"In twenty-first-century parlance, 'concubine' refers either to a mistress or to a sex slave."

There isn't really any "typical" usage of the word alone. The word tends to be always contextualized, and the contexts can be very different from each other. --Grufo (talk) 07:48, 26 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

According to ... what source exactly? And in what context? In academic literature, or in more general usage? Iskandar323 (talk) 10:32, 26 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The source for this is The Oxford Encyclopedia of Women in World History, which is a pretty reliable source.VR talk 14:09, 26 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Having a source might not be enough, especially when a sentence lowers down the quality of an article. What one thinks when they hear the word concubine is inherently a subjective thing, and we tend not to hear the word alone. I am honestly unable to imagine an example of a sentence where the word concubine appears without being contextualized, either explicitly or implicitly. If a woman says today "I am a concubine", the first thing I will think will be the oddity of the sentence, the second thing I will think will be that she lives with the boyfriend, the third think I will do will be asking "What do you mean?". --Grufo (talk) 15:03, 26 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
It strikes me that the statement is at once correct and incorrect on both counts. Conceptually, a concubine is more bonded than a mistress but freer than a slave. Genghis Khan had concubines whose power and status exceeded that of some of his lesser wives, just as court eunuchs have become grand viziers. The great modern fallacy of interpretation is to impose our moral values on historical situations that we can barely grasp the implications of. Iskandar323 (talk) 15:14, 26 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
It is really subjective, Iskandar323. When I hear the word concubine alone there will no meanings at all until I am able to contextualize. I would definitely not think about Genghis Khan, since I never think about Genghis Khan, and the last thing I will think about will be Islamic Harems. If you really force me to think about something (but you have to force me), I will likely think about European aristocratic persons from the past, and the concubine will be aristocratic too. --Grufo (talk) 15:40, 26 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I think we are have our biases, but ultimately we have to go with what sources say. If there are sources that say other things, they can be included. But a high-quality academic source should be complemented by another high-quality academic source. Don't use a WP:PRIMARY source to say "Academic source says X, but primary source says Y". That's an example of WP:FALSEBALANCE.VR talk 15:47, 26 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
We don't automatically use what sources say if a statement is inherently subjective, we are free to omit it (WP:UNDUE) --Grufo (talk) 16:03, 26 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia:Neutral point of view (NPOV) applies: "Achieving what the Wikipedia community understands as neutrality means carefully and critically analysing a variety of reliable sources and then attempting to convey to the reader the information contained in them fairly, proportionately, and as far as possible without editorial bias." Omitting those truths that do not suit an editor's point of view is not consistent with NPOV.-- Toddy1 (talk) 16:27, 26 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
A subjective statement is not a “truth”. It is also not a secondary source in this case, since it does not interpret what a primary source says. Regarding this specific sentence the The Oxford Encyclopedia of Women in World History becomes a primary source and offers no means for WP:V. --Grufo (talk) 16:41, 26 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Why are you calling an encyclopedia a primary source? That's ridiculous. An encyclopedia is almost the most secondary type of source you can get - as with Wikipedia, typically collating the input of legions of other secondary sources to come up with fair, balanced and neutral definitions. It's not primary because you don't like it. Iskandar323 (talk) 06:54, 27 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I got this slightly wrong. Since encyclopedias are derived from secondary sources, Wikipedia considers them one step further still for the purposes of source categorisation, labelling them WP:TERTIARY. Iskandar323 (talk) 12:41, 27 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
You are not free to omit anything simply because you 'think' it is subjective, unless of course there are no objections from any other editors or of course you achieve a consensus in talk that something is indeed WP:POV. Iskandar323 (talk) 06:56, 27 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I actually came here to question the same phrase. Reviewing three modern dictionaries, (Merriam Webster, Cambridge, Collins) two of them include "mistress" as a common meaning or synonym, and all of them mention social status, but none of them mention slavery. BilledMammal (talk) 05:01, 6 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
"Can refer to" is not the same as "defined as". I think the Oxford source is saying some concubines in the 21st century happen to be sex slaves, not that that's how the term is defined. Also the Collins source you mentioned does say the concubine is regarded as "sexually subservient".VR talk 05:06, 6 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The article reads "it typically refers" rather than "can refer to", but if we clarified the "sex slave" part of that sentence as "can refer to" then my objections would be resolved. As for Collins, "sexually subservient" and "sex slave" are not synonyms. BilledMammal (talk) 05:45, 6 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I quote the rather pertinent tertiary source cited by VR on Talk: Sexual slavery in Islam: "Voluntary concubinage should be distinguished from involuntary concubinage. In the latter the woman is sold, usually by her family. As a concubine she is rarely a slave, at least legally...yet in practice, the life of an involuntary concubine may look very much like a slave." The Oxford Encyclopedia of Women in World History. The reality is that the concepts of freedom and slavery were often greyer and more blurred in the ancient and medieval world. A concubine, who may well be "sexually subservient" to a master, and even sold by their parents, might still not be legally classified within society as a slave. This a rather good illustration of the oversimplicity that can creep in when a reductive approach is taken to define a term. Iskandar323 (talk) 10:08, 6 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I think you are slightly mistaken about the topic we are discussing; we are discussing "In the twenty-first century, it typically refers explicitly to extramarital affection, "either to a mistress or to a sex slave", without the same emphasis on the cohabiting aspect of the original meaning", which is about how the word is used in the twenty-first century, not how it was used in the ancient or medieval world. BilledMammal (talk) 10:27, 6 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I would say that the way in which the term is used differs depending on whether it is being used to refer to events in the 21st-century or events in the distant past. In any case, the definition of "either to a mistress or to a sex slave" also encapsulates the way in which the term can refer to range of roles where a participant may be free or very much enslaved. Iskandar323 (talk) 10:44, 6 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
In any case, would you object to the clarification that VI seemed to propose, using "can refer to"? BilledMammal (talk) 23:23, 6 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Merging sections

I think the sections on "Ancient Near East", "Judaism" and "Islam" should be merged into one section "Middle East" that contains the history of concubinage from ancient Mesopotamia to the Muslim world. Any objections?VR talk 15:46, 30 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

It does not seem a good idea. The current structure encourages people to add material on cultures in the ancient near east when they find good sources. A merged section would encourage Wikipedia's many Islamic fanatics to overwhelm it with the sort of rubbish that they always add.-- Toddy1 (talk) 16:09, 30 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

"Concubinage (legal term)" created

I have created the page Concubinage (legal term) as a location where the more recent pre-modern and modern legal definitions of concubinage can be fleshed out based on the available information on different jurisdictions. It is currently still very much a stub, with only the applications in France, the US and the Philippines (albeit the jurisdictions where the term seems to have had the most usage) expanded. Iskandar323 (talk) 19:43, 31 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Why didn't you add any categories? Dimadick (talk) 19:59, 31 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, not sure, just slipped my mind! But I wouldn't have thought of 14th-century neologisms without your help anyway! Iskandar323 (talk) 20:04, 31 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

"Jurisdictions"

Grufo recently added a large section called jurisdictions at the very top of the article. To me this makes little sense. For one it is totally WP:UNDUE here and most articles on concubinage either barely mention 21st century legal implications or don't mention them at all. Secondly, this section seems to be sourced to dictionaries[4][5] and what appears to be a blog[6]. The secondary sources it does cite seem to say that "concubinage" is not actually used in the present day. So why are we giving so much weight to this? VR talk 20:39, 31 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

So yes, they copied that (unattributed) from the Concubinage (legal term), which I created specifically as a catchall for this sort of pre-modern to modern legal trivia to remove the necessity for it on the main Concubinage page. On the note of legal blogs, I would note that blogs in general are not automatically considered to be unreliable, and in the case of legal blogs, not only do lawyers not tend to misrepresent legal facts, but these types of blogs are typically less blog and more a place where reliable legal opinions or perspectives are posted. If you check the blog post, you will also note that it is heavily referenced, so in of itself is an invaluable reference for anyone seeking more detailed information. But as you note, from my initial reading, few legal systems lend much weight to the specific term "concubinage" - largely because it is obviously mildly offensive by modern standards as a term for cohabitation (when you can just say cohabitation). For some reason the precise etymology of concubinage appears to be missing even from the concubinatus page, but it is from Latin concubina, from con- ‘with’ + cubare ‘to lie’ - so explictly sexual in nature, as compared to the more agnostic 'cohabitation'. Iskandar323 (talk) 06:23, 1 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Edit warring

I have brought the current edit warring to Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Edit warring. --Grufo (talk) 21:48, 31 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

For the record, Grufo was blocked for 72 hrs for bringing this vexatious complaint to WP:AN3 in a case of WP:BOOMERANG. Iskandar323 (talk) 06:07, 1 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

revert

With this edit, Editor Toddy1 reverted a Monkbot edit with the edit summary unhelpful. it is a recipe for cite conflicts. Explain how that is, please.

Before the Monkbot edit, this article was (and now is again) a member of Category:CS1 maint: ref duplicates default. Articles are listed in that category when the value assigned to |ref= in a cs1|2 template (in this case {{cite encyclopedia}}) is the same as the value that the cs1|2 template would create for itself. Here is the original {{cite encyclopedia}} template with |ref={{sfnRef|Rodriguez|2011}}:

{{cite encyclopedia |title=Slavery in the Modern World: A History of Political, Social, and Economic Oppression |entry=Concubines |editor-first1=Junius P. |editor-last1=Rodriguez |page=203 |publisher=[[ABC-CLIO]]| year=2011| ref = {{sfnRef|Rodriguez|2011}}}}
Rodriguez, Junius P., ed. (2011). "Concubines". Slavery in the Modern World: A History of Political, Social, and Economic Oppression. ABC-CLIO. p. 203.{{cite encyclopedia}}: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link)

When Module:Citation/CS1 (the engine that underlies all cs1|2 templates) is finished processing the template, this is what it hands-off to MediaWiki for final rendering:

'"`UNIQ--templatestyles-00000027-QINU`"'<cite id="CITEREFRodriguez2011" class="citation encyclopaedia cs1">Rodriguez, Junius P., ed. (2011). "Concubines". ''Slavery in the Modern World: A History of Political, Social, and Economic Oppression''. [[ABC-CLIO]]. p.&nbsp;203.</cite><span title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Abook&rft.genre=bookitem&rft.atitle=Concubines&rft.btitle=Slavery+in+the+Modern+World%3A+A+History+of+Political%2C+Social%2C+and+Economic+Oppression&rft.pages=203&rft.pub=ABC-CLIO&rft.date=2011&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fen.wikipedia.org%3ATalk%3AConcubinage" class="Z3988"></span><span class="cs1-maint citation-comment"><code class="cs1-code">{{[[Template:cite encyclopedia|cite encyclopedia]]}}</code>: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default ([[:Category:CS1 maint: ref duplicates default|link]])</span>

Here is the same {{cite encyclopedia}} template after the monkbot edit:

{{cite encyclopedia |title=Slavery in the Modern World: A History of Political, Social, and Economic Oppression |entry=Concubines |editor-first1=Junius P. |editor-last1=Rodriguez |page=203 |publisher=[[ABC-CLIO]]| year=2011}}
Rodriguez, Junius P., ed. (2011). "Concubines". Slavery in the Modern World: A History of Political, Social, and Economic Oppression. ABC-CLIO. p. 203.

and what Module:Citation/CS1 hands-off to MediaWiki:

'"`UNIQ--templatestyles-0000002B-QINU`"'<cite id="CITEREFRodriguez2011" class="citation encyclopaedia cs1">Rodriguez, Junius P., ed. (2011). "Concubines". ''Slavery in the Modern World: A History of Political, Social, and Economic Oppression''. [[ABC-CLIO]]. p.&nbsp;203.</cite><span title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Abook&rft.genre=bookitem&rft.atitle=Concubines&rft.btitle=Slavery+in+the+Modern+World%3A+A+History+of+Political%2C+Social%2C+and+Economic+Oppression&rft.pages=203&rft.pub=ABC-CLIO&rft.date=2011&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fen.wikipedia.org%3ATalk%3AConcubinage" class="Z3988"></span>

The output from both versions of the template is exactly the same except for the TemplateStyles stripmarkers and the original has the link to Category:CS1 maint: ref duplicates default. Note that the <cite> tag content is exactly the same in both versions of the template:

<cite id="CITEREFRodriguez2011" class="citation encyclopaedia cs1">

The id=CITEREFRodriguez2011 attribute is automatically created when |ref= is omitted or is empty. |ref={{sfnRef|Rodriguez|2011}} is redundant in this case because it creates the same value for the id= attribute:

CITEREFRodriguez2011 ← {{sfnRef|Rodriguez|2011}}

Please explain how the Montbot edit was unhelpful. Please explain how the Monkbot edit is a recipe for cite conflicts.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 18:06, 21 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I don't get the explanation, but I was also wondering why it was unhelpful. Incidentally, how and why do these |ref= functions appear in the templates in the first place? Iskandar323 (talk) 18:54, 21 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

What about the explanation above don't you get?
Before the 18 April 2020 update to Module:Citation/CS1, cs1 templates required |ref=harv or |ref={{sfnref|...}} or |ref=CITEREF... (plaintext) to create id=CITEREF... anchor id attributes suitable for use with {{sfn}} and the {{harv}} family of short-form templates. From 18 April 2020, all cs1 templates automatically create id=CITEREF... anchor id attributes from the first four names in the contributor-, author-, or editor-name lists (in that order; names from different lists not mixed) and year from |year= or |date=.
For this particular example, the original citation had |ref={{sfnRef|Slavery in the Modern World: A History of Political, Social, and Economic Oppression|2011}} which was created at this edit. That template was replaced with |ref={{sfnRef|Rodriguez|2011}} at this edit.
—Trappist the monk (talk) 19:33, 21 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Ah ok, there was an update that obseleted the old function. Thanks. Iskandar323 (talk) 20:25, 21 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Because Editor Toddy1 has declined to participate in this discussion, I have restored the monkbot edit that that editor reverted.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 17:12, 25 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

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