Concubinage

Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)

the act or state of living with one of the opposite sex without being legally married. Concubinage was tolerated among the patriarchs (Gen. xxv: 6) and by the Mosaic law (Exod. xxi: 9-12; Deut. xx: 14), and was largely practiced by Solomon (I Kings xi: 3). It was tolerated also among most if not all other Oriental nations, as well as among the Greeks and the Romans to the time of Constantine. The laws of the various States of the United States generally sanction only proper marriage; but on the Continent of Europe morganatic or left-handed marriages sometimes contracted by royal personages are essentially the same as the concubinage of the old Romans. CONDÉ (kôn-da'), the name of French family, the younger branch of the Bourbons, who took their name from the town of Condé, department of CONDÉ Nord. One Godfrey de Condé, about 1200, was in possession of a part of the barony of Condé. His great-granddaughter, Jeanne de Condé, married in 1335, Jacques de Bourbon, Comte de la Marche, and the barony of Condé went to their second son, Louis de Bourbon, Comte de Vendôme, whose great-grandson, Louis de Bourbon, Prince of Condé, in virtue of his blood-relationship to the royal family, assumed the title of Prince, and is regarded as the founder of the new house of this name. Its more celebrated members in history are the following: CONDÉ, LOUIS I. DE BOURBON, PRINCE DE, son of Charles, Duke of Vendôme; born in 1530. He married the grandniece of the Constable de Montmorenci. He served his early campaigns in Piedmont, but first distinguished himself at the defense of Metz, besieged by Charles V. in 1552. Affronted at court, and hated by the Guises, he joined his brother, the King of Navarre, at Nérac, and became a Protestant. In 1560 he was arrested and sentenced to death, but was discharged after the death of Francis II. He soon after appeared as head of the Protestants, and was defeated and captured at the battle of Dreux. He was again wronged by being refused the office of lieutenant-general of the kingdom, to which he was entitled. In 1567 he fought the battle of St. Denis. Two years later the Protestants were defeated, and Condé was slain at Jarnac.