Concubine

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As concubines are women referred to a man in a polygynous relationship form in addition to his Wife ( chief wife has). In the Middle Ages or in old Bible translations , these were also referred to as Kebse , and in the Japanese and Chinese empires as concubines . In addition, concubines can also be found in ancient cultures such as Egypt, Greece and the Roman Empire. In the various cultures, concubines were sometimes given fewer rights .

Cultural meaning

In the early Middle Ages , a so-called Kebsehe (Kebse means something like concubine ) could be concluded between a free man and an unfree ( serf ) woman, since the free had any power of disposal over his serfs. It was more of a marriage-like relationship than a real marriage. Several kebes could exist side by side.

Until the time of the kings , concubines were common in ancient Israel. Abraham had taken several concubines, but sent them all back home after the birth of his son Isaac (from whom the descent of a people had been prophesied) ( Genesis 25.6  EU ). King David had at least six wives ( 2 Sam 3.2-5  EU ) and an unknown number of concubines ( 2 Sam 5.13  EU ). Solomon is said to have had seven hundred princely wives and three hundred concubines ( 1 Kings 11.3  EU ), which his God disliked, however, because the women were not Israelites and according to the law of Moses the Israelites were forbidden to take women from other peoples.

The pharaoh in ancient Egypt usually had several wives. His main wife was inherited in her rights by a concubine when she died.

In Islam , the man can marry up to three others in addition to the first wife. This is controversial with regard to the term concubine, since Islam requires the man to treat all wives equally and fairly, which excludes a division into a privileged main and less entitled concubine (s).

In the Japanese Empire, concubines ( 権 妻 , gonsai or 妾 , mekake ) were quite common until 1930. The Shōwa-Tennō († 1989) was the first monogamous ruler. In the “100 laws” ( Buke-hyakkajō ) of the Tokugawa period the following provision is found: “The emperor ( tenshi ) has twelve co-sleepers, the princes have eight, the typhoon five and the warriors two. People of lower standing have only one legitimate wife. "

Gerda Bormann , the wife of Nazi functionary Martin Bormann , developed the idea of ​​Volksnotehe in 1944, with which the increasing war losses of the German population should be compensated. Every worthy male member of society should have the legal right to multiple marriages. The concubines should live under the same legal conditions as the first wife.

See also

literature

  • Rüdiger Peuckert : Family Forms in Social Change , Opladen 1991
  • Raimund Friedl: The cohabitation in imperial Rome. From Augustus to Septimius Severus. Steiner, Stuttgart 1996, ISBN 3-515-06871-6 (= Historia individual writings 989, also dissertation at the University of Tübingen 1994).
  • Elke Hartmann: marriage, hetarianism and concubinage in classical Athens. Campus, Frankfurt am Main u. a. 2002, ISBN 3-593-37007-7 (= campus historical studies , volume 30, also dissertation at the Free University of Berlin 2000).
  • Paul Martin Meyer: The Roman cohabitation according to the legal sources and the inscriptions. Teubner, Leipzig 1895 (reprint: Scientia-Verlag, Aalen 1966).
  • Andreas Tacke (Ed.): "... we want to give space to love". Cohabiting ecclesiastical and secular princes around 1500 , Wallstein, Göttingen 2006, ISBN 978-3-8353-0052-1 (Lectures at the III Moritzburg Conference (Halle / Saale) from March 31 to April 2, 2006).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Duden: concubine
  2. ↑ See also the article Minerehe in Haberkern, Eugen / Wallach, Joseph Friedrich: auxiliary dictionary for historians. Middle Ages and Modern Times . Vol. 2, 5th edition, Munich: Francke Verlag, 1977, p. 427.
  3. ↑ Esmyol, Andrea: Beloved or Wife. Concubines in the early Middle Ages . Cologne / Weimar / Vienna: Böhlau, 2002, pp. 7-10 (supplements to the archive for cultural history. H. 52); also dissertation University of Bremen 2000.
  4. ↑ Web page on the history of ancient Egypt , accessed January 2, 2016
  5. ^ Ramming; Japan manual; 1940, p. 130
  6. ↑ BORMANN: horse without Sunday . In: Der Spiegel . No. 9 , 1962 ( online ).