Concubine?

lolaclare

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My WIP is set in post-Roman dark age Britain and one of my characters is in a long term but non marital relationship with a warlord/tribal leader.

I am struggling to find the right term to use for this. 'Mistress' seems way too modern so I opted for 'concubine'. However, every time I reread what I have written, the word concubine stands out and just doesn't look right.

I realise the people of this time were a generation or two after the Romans had left so might have used a term like concubine. But the connotations of the word are a lot more formal than I want the position of my character to be. He is not a civilised Roman - he is a dark age warrior (although he would be reasonably well educated for the time and would speak Latin at least as a second language). She is his woman who travels about with him and has his children but crucially is not married to him.

Is there another word I could use? Is it just me that thinks the word concubine doesn't fit this situation...? Maybe it is just me and that word - I hate it and find it almost comical. I wish I could use mistress but that makes me think of 19th century and later.

Any advice would be gratefully received!
 

benbenberi

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His woman who travels with him and has his children is his woman.
 

alleycat

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Inamorata would work (even though it's a later word), but I suspect many people wouldn't know the word. Paramour? Kept woman?
 

angeliz2k

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Would "lover" be too loose of a term? I have seen that used in similar contexts, though it usually implies a less committed relationship.

bebenberi might have a point: She might just be "his woman". He would say, "this is Sue, my woman," and it might be said, "Sue is Bob's woman." My impression is that male-female relationships of that time would be one-sided and possessive.
 

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Concubine doesn't bother me. Camp follower might be another option. His woman sounds about right too.

Blessings,

Siri Kirpal
 

DianeL

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There was a germanic and Saxon relationship which was legally recognized, children would be legitimate, and the woman retained standing and consented to the state - the word for this was a friedelehe. I have seen this used on the UK side of the Channel, by Parke Godwin, in the just-post-Norman period, and the relation dates to Late Antiquity. I used it myself in Gaul in the late 5th century period. A friedelehe did not endure the stigma a word like "concubine" connotes, and it was far from a casual "lover" relationhsip. The relationship was recognized and committed, and FREELY entered into by both parties.

Here is the entry I wrote on friedelehe in my author's note: "A concubine with acknowledged status, lacking the full rights of a wife, but holding a legally defined position both with the man to whom she voluntarily bound herself thus, and in his household. Her children would have been legitimate, able to inherit, and would have been viable heirs..."

Not to be a complete jerk, but one thing you said is sticking in my craw - "the connotations of the word are a lot more formal than I want the position of my character to be. He is not a civilised Roman - he is a dark age warrior (although he would be reasonably well educated for the time and would speak Latin at least as a second language)."

This appears to presuppose that Rome = civilization. The term Dark Ages is long since out of use and considered an inaccurate pejorative, and a lot of people these days have pretty valid issues with the image of "barbarians" and the "Dark Ages" as a period of generalized unsophistication, savagery, and lack of civilization and/or learning. The art and culture of this period was absolutely magnificent, and the people of the period, it is important to recall, were PEOPLE. We are not as much "smarter" than human beings of the past as whig historians have so successfully convinced us we are. Late Antiquity was technologically remarkable, with craftsman of every variety, and trade beyond most modern laymen's awareness. A well educated man in the "Post-Roman" (also something of a pejorative term, as it measures Celtic and many other cultures by the presumed ideal of Rome as if that civilization were the only civilization, or the best) would have necessarily been a fairly sophisticated person, and if he were a warrior with much travel to his credit he would have enjoyed diversity and a wealth of instructive experience.
 
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mayqueen

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There was a germanic and Saxon relationship which was legally recognized, children would be legitimate, and the woman retained standing and consented to the state - the word for this was a friedelehe.
This is what I was also going to suggest. I also think referring to her as "his woman" is fine, too.
 

lolaclare

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Not to be a complete jerk, but one thing you said is sticking in my craw - "the connotations of the word are a lot more formal than I want the position of my character to be. He is not a civilised Roman - he is a dark age warrior (although he would be reasonably well educated for the time and would speak Latin at least as a second language)."

This appears to presuppose that Rome = civilization. The term Dark Ages is long since out of use and considered an inaccurate pejorative, and a lot of people these days have pretty valid issues with the image of "barbarians" and the "Dark Ages" as a period of generalized unsophistication, savagery, and lack of civilization and/or learning. The art and culture of this period was absolutely magnificent, and the people of the period, it is important to recall, were PEOPLE. We are not as much "smarter" than human beings of the past as whig historians have so successfully convinced us we are. Late Antiquity was technologically remarkable, with craftsman of every variety, and trade beyond most modern laymen's awareness. A well educated man in the "Post-Roman" (also something of a pejorative term, as it measures Celtic and many other cultures by the presumed ideal of Rome as if that civilization were the only civilization, or the best) would have necessarily been a fairly sophisticated person, and if he were a warrior with much travel to his credit he would have enjoyed diversity and a wealth of instructive experience.

Sorry I just used the term 'dark ages' as shorthand so everyone would know what time period I was referring to.

By not 'civilised Roman', I mean that strict rules and roles of Roman society would not by adhered to by people in this society. Not necessarily that what a Roman considered civilised was superior.

I think I am going to go with 'his woman' - thanks for everyone's input. I did consider it before but was unsure and thought it might not be clear enough.
 

Johncs

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Not to derail, but depending how post Rome you are -- these "not married" women often acted as power brokers/links between various factions.

An example of this is Aelia Galla Placidia consort to Ataulf (among others), King of the Visigoths (succeeded his brother in law Alaric I, who died after his Goths sacked Rome around 410).

Consort might also be a better fit (granted, it is more formal) depending on the amount of politics involved.

Edit

Britain being on the other side of the map might make this example less relevant.
 
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Lil

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Johncs, I think Placidia was married to Ataulf, and later to Constantius. Consort is generally used for the spouse of a ruler, not the unmarried companion.
 

Dave Hardy

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My WIP is set in post-Roman dark age Britain and one of my characters is in a long term but non marital relationship with a warlord/tribal leader.

I am struggling to find the right term to use for this. 'Mistress' seems way too modern so I opted for 'concubine'. However, every time I reread what I have written, the word concubine stands out and just doesn't look right.

I realise the people of this time were a generation or two after the Romans had left so might have used a term like concubine. But the connotations of the word are a lot more formal than I want the position of my character to be. He is not a civilised Roman - he is a dark age warrior (although he would be reasonably well educated for the time and would speak Latin at least as a second language). She is his woman who travels about with him and has his children but crucially is not married to him.

Is there another word I could use? Is it just me that thinks the word concubine doesn't fit this situation...? Maybe it is just me and that word - I hate it and find it almost comical. I wish I could use mistress but that makes me think of 19th century and later.

Any advice would be gratefully received!

Post-Roman Britain can still be broad. Are we talking pagans or Christians? Clearly they're not Latinized Britons, but are they Gaelic Scotti? Picts? Saxons?

In any case, the word might depend on the speaker. A well-educated British clergyman might use concubine (or whatever word was equivalent in Latin or 6th century Welsh), a thuggish war-chief might speak of his woman or "the captive woman" (careful about drifting over into Gor-speak though).

But bear in mind that tribal chiefs in the Dark Ages were pretty punctilious over who was a legitimate heir. Broadly, it appears that social factors such as breeding, distinguished ancestry, or abstract concepts of appropriate sexual relations within sanctified marriage might be less important than being an effective leader, brave in battle, having a mother with the chief's ear, being beautiful, etc.

Which is sort of a roundabout way of saying that the scowling dude sipping wine from the skull of a foe might be really careful about about how he manages personal relationships. The Church-approved wife might be scheming with his jealous brother to seize the throne, the concubine acquired as war-booty might be the mother of a son who turned back certain defeat, and of course any woman might well know how to twist a hard-as-nails warlord around her finger. The honored wife might well get demoted, and the ambitious concubine might take her place.

EDIT: Have you looked at Gildas? In The Groans of the Britons he spends most of chap 35 lecturing Maglocune on his inappropriate liaisons with various women.
 
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Sonsofthepharaohs

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I think you're right that concubine sounds wrong. It reminds me of royal harems, such as those of the Ottoman empire. Strictly speaking it just means someone in an ongoing matrimonial relationship with someone they aren't legally married to, but I think you're right that the word suggests some sort of established political identity within a court, and is therefore too formal for your tribal culture.

I've seen similar stories where they've just been called 'his woman,' 'mate' or 'bedmate' - although the last two seem a bit derrogatory to me, as they're more sexual than political or matrimonial.

But as for using terms like 'friedelehe', I'd really be cautious about that. You don't want to drag in a whole discourse on Germanic socio-political status if that's not what your novel is about.

And inamorata is just far too Italian renaissance.
 

Johncs

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Johncs, I think Placidia was married to Ataulf, and later to Constantius. Consort is generally used for the spouse of a ruler, not the unmarried companion.

You're right. Thought of that after I had left the house(doh).

Only point I might add is if she's doing much of anything political-- or if those children are recognized for succession (and such a thing matters), then the term might fit, "legit marriage" or not.
 

Nekko

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Someone at AW once suggested the term "favorite" to me.

She pointed to this reference in Wiki - which has a citation from a legit publication.
A favourite (British English[1]), or favorite (American English), was the intimate companion of a ruler or other important person. In medieval and Early Modern Europe, among other times and places... [2] The term is also sometimes employed by conservative writers who want to avoid terms such as "royal mistress", or "friend", "companion" or "lover" of either sex.
 

lolaclare

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Post-Roman Britain can still be broad. Are we talking pagans or Christians? Clearly they're not Latinized Britons, but are they Gaelic Scotti? Picts? Saxons?

I'm looking at few generations down the line from the Romanised Britons. So the influence of the Roman way of life is gradually disappearing. They are Christians.

EDIT: Have you looked at Gildas? In The Groans of the Britons he spends most of chap 35 lecturing Maglocune on his inappropriate liaisons with various women.

I love Gildas! It was reading his Groans of the Britons while doing some research for something else that got me so interested in this time period in the first place. Maglocune/Maelgwyn will actually be a minor character in my WIP. There is probably a very interesting story to be written about each of his five kings/tyrants.
 

Sonsofthepharaohs

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concubine is from the 1300's

Delicatae is ancient Roman for kept mistress

Beware the online etymological dictionary. it also says this:

hetaera (n.) 1820, "mistress," from M.L. hetaera, from Gk. hetaira "female companion," in Athens opposed to "lawful wife," and thus embracing everything from "concubine" to "courtesan;" fem. of hetairos "comrade, companion," from PIE *swet-aro-, suffixed form of root *s(w)e- (see idiom).


Now I happen to be somewhat versed in the role of an ancient Athenian hetaira (I reenact one in my spare time - not, ya know, literally, but for a reenactment group) and I can tell you that the above definition is so generalised and paraphrased as to be meaningless. Also, it gives no citation for the 1820 date - what does that refer to?

In general, I find this dictionary to be useful for answering questions in a pub quiz, but of little academic value. If you want to know whether a specific word or term was in use in your period, I'd suggest doing proper research rather than a quick google.
 

lolaclare

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"Leman," although obscure, seems to be the concept you are talking about.

I've never heard of "Leman" before - you're right, it is obscure. That is the concept, but if there's an equivalent in Latin or 6th century Welsh, that would be better. Not asking for much, am I...?

I am thinking lover or 'his woman' is as close as I'm going to get.

It is hard though when you're writing about a time and about characters who did not speak English. Technically every English word would be wrong. But the trick is in finding either an authentic sounding English equivalent term or a word in the other language that will work and be vaguely understandable...
 

hrj

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I've never heard of "Leman" before - you're right, it is obscure. That is the concept, but if there's an equivalent in Latin or 6th century Welsh, that would be better. Not asking for much, am I...?

I am thinking lover or 'his woman' is as close as I'm going to get.

It is hard though when you're writing about a time and about characters who did not speak English. Technically every English word would be wrong. But the trick is in finding either an authentic sounding English equivalent term or a word in the other language that will work and be vaguely understandable...

A bit belated here, but you've rather hit the nail on the head. You might be able to use the exact right technical term in the culture of your setting ... and it would be just random gibberish to all but that one reader who happens to be as much of a history geek as you are.

But since you mention 6th century Welsh ....

The surviving linguistic evidence doesn't go quite that far back. The earliest Welsh texts using a word for "wife" are legal tracts dating to the 12th century. At this time, the word for "wife" is identical to the word for "woman". There were various ways of adding modifiers to emphasize which of the various possible quasi-legal male-female partnerships was specifically intended. But if someone simply said "She's his [woman/wife]" there wouldn't be a clear distinction between "primary legal spouse" and "less formal relationship". At roughly the same period (although not in the law texts) we also find a word clearly specifying an irregular relationship in the lover/adultress/paramour/concubine/whore range of meanings. The underlying derivation of the word is something like "favorite, one who is has been elevated or chosen". But in the law texts when a wife is being contrasted with a woman involved in a less formal relationship, the same word is used for both.

Now it's quite possible that in earlier centuries there were more specific distinctions made. By the time we have surviving copies of the Welsh laws, the possible classifications of relationships have dwindled down to three or four distinctions. In contrast, the earliest surviving copies of Irish law preserve an earlier stratum specifying 9 different types of marriage-like union, with several distinct terms for women involved in them (as well as some indicated by modifiers). So it's possible that 6th c. proto-Welsh included more specific terminology for the various types of unions than the 12th century language did.

But in any event, you'd still be stuck with the problem that the specific terminology would either need to be translated in your text or would be a big chunk for your readers to swallow.

In summary, there's at least some evidence (although from half a millennium after your setting) that simply using "woman" and letting the nature of the relationship be ambiguous, would be historically accurate for your story.
 

Flicka

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Yes, I was going to suggest "woman" too, not because I know anything about 6th century Wales, but because in many societies, there is no hard line between "married" and "living together". In some societies, living together is actually what constitutes marriage, not a specific ceremony, and I suspect that would be reflected in the language. One need to remember that the modern Western attitude to marriage is fairly uncommon, historically speaking. Anyway, I don't think anyone would raise an eyebrow or miss the point if she was referred to as "his woman", even if he did have a "wife" as well. It's a fairly simple way of making the point perfectly clear.

Randomly, in French, to this day, "femme" means both "woman" and "wife", and in Scandinavia, "kone" (Norwegian) means wife, but "kona" is also an old word for "woman" in both Norwegian and Swedish (after what I've read, the same female "kon-" is also the root for a certain English word for the female genitalia, albeit spelled with a "c") and I suppose that reflects a shared past (without knowing anything about ancient Norse).