xpresses a criminal or Concubinage prohibited commerce between the two sexes; in which sense it comprehends adultery, incest, and simple fornication.

In its more restrained sense, concubinage is used to signify the state of a man and woman cohabiting together as married persons, without having passed through the ceremony of marriage.

Concubinage was anciently tolerated. The Roman law calls it an allowed custom, licita consuetudo. When this expression occurs in the constitutions of the Christian emperors, it signifies what we now sometimes call a marriage in conscience.

The concubinage tolerated among the Romans in the time of the republic and of the heathen emperors, was that between persons not capable of contracting marriage together; nor did they even refuse to let inheritances descend to children which sprung from such a tolerated cohabitation. Concubinage between such persons they looked on as a kind of marriage, and even allowed it several privileges; but then this concubinage was confined to a single person, and was of perpetual obligation as much as marriage itself. Hottonian observes, that the Roman laws had allowed concubinage long before Julius Caesar made the law by which every one was allowed to marry as many wives as he pleased. The emperor Valentinian, Socrates tells us, allowed every man two.

Concubinage is also used to signify a marriage performed with less solemnity than the formal marriage; or a marriage with a woman of inferior condition, and to whom the husband does not convey his rank or quality. Cujas observes, that the ancient laws allowed a man to espouse, under the title of concubine, certain persons, who were esteemed as unequal to him, on account of the want of some qualities requisite to sustain the full honour of marriage; and he adds, that though concubinage was beneath marriage, both as to dignity and civil effects, yet was concubine a reputable title, and very different from that of mistress among us. The commerce was esteemed so lawful, that the concubine might be accused of adultery in the same manner as a wife.

This kind of concubinage is still in use in some countries, particularly in Germany, under the title of a half marriage, or marriage with the left hand; alluding to the manner of its being contracted, namely, by the man giving the woman his left hand instead of the right. This is a real marriage, though without solemnity; and the parties are both bound for ever, though the woman be thus excluded from the common rights of a wife, for want of quality or fortune.

The children of concubines were not reputed either legitimate or bastards, but natural children, and were capable only of donations. They were deemed to retain the low rank of the mother; and were on this ground not qualified for inheriting the effects of the father.