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But these causes do not operate to prevent the permission of separations grounded in their proper causes, respecting which see above, n. 252-254; and also of concubinage, respecting which see the second part of this work.
In modern times polygyny still exists among all the Mohammedan peoples and to a greater or less degree among all semicivilized peoples. It exists in China in the form of concubinage.
Her husband was a worthless scoundrel, who had previously abandoned her and betaken himself to Madrid, where he had long lived in concubinage with the notorious she-thug Aurora, at whose instigation he had committed the robbery for which he was now held in durance. "Should your husband escape from Malaga, in what direction will he fly?" I demanded.
My grandfather having, as I have told, a compassion for the silly affection wherewith the honest man of Crail still regarded his wanton wife, told him the circumstantials of his adventure with the stripling; without, however, letting wot he had discovered that the invitation was from her; the which was the case, for the damsel who looked out at the window was no other than the giglet he had seen in her lodging when he went thither with Sir David Hamilton, and he proposed to the disconsolate husband that he should be his friend in the adventure; meaning thereby to convince the unhappy man, by the evidence of his own eyes and ears, that her concubinage with the Antichrist was a blessed riddance to him and his family.
Moreover, there may be domestic reasons, which may make separation from the house unadvisable: as in case there are children, towards whom also the adulteress has natural love; in case they are bound together by mutual services which cannot be put an end to; in case the wife is connected with and dependent upon her relatives, whether on the father's or mother's side, and there is a hope of receiving an increase of fortune from them; in case he lived with her in the beginning in habits of agreeable intimacy; and in case she, after she became meretricious, has the skill to soothe the man with engaging pleasantry and pretended civility, to prevent blame being imputed to herself; not to mention other cases, which, as in themselves they are legitimate causes of divorce, are also legitimate causes of concubinage; for the causes of retaining the wife at home do not take away the cause of divorce, supposing her guilty of adultery.
When it was framed it was not suspected that Mohammedans would ever be subjects of a Christian power, or that the Mohammedan State would ever need to accommodate itself to Christian demands in its internal policy. It contemplated, too, mainly a state of war, and it accepted slavery and concubinage as war's natural concomitants.
The civil law which seeks to eliminate the social evil of prostitution by enactment and process, gives rise, by enactment and process, to another evil almost as widespread. Divorce is a creature of the law, and divorce opens the door to concubinage, legalized if you will, but concubinage just the same.
To adduce slavery and concubinage coupled with polygamy and divorce as further evidence against Arabia is crass absurdity; slaves are far better treated anywhere in Arabia than they were in the States or the West Indies; concubinage and polygamy, as practised by the patriarchs of Holy Writ, are still legal in that part of the world; there is nothing sinful about them in themselves a Moslem might as well rebuke Western society for being addicted to whisky and bridge.
Now they seek the benefits of the social institution of marriage and its train of hallowed relationships: concubinage is becoming quite disreputable; many are seeking to repair their conduct by marriage to their former partners, and no one in any rank of life would be hardy enough to express disapprobation of those who have done or may do so. Kingston, Jamaica, 24th April, 1837.
Erasmus warned his clergy against concubinage. The Abbot of St. Pilazo de Antealtarin was proved by competent witnesses to have no less than seventy concubines. The old and wealthy Abbey of St. Albans was little more than a den of prostitutes, with whom the monks lived openly and avowedly.
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