Marriage Myths, Part 4 - More Concubines, Please!

 

Just at the mere mention of the word concubine, I doubt many readers of this blog would conjure up an image other than that of a “sex slave” or “prostitute”. My guess is, at this minute, you may even be thinking about a large harem of girls that a king kept - for sex, of course! What other purpose could it serve for a man to have multiple women serving him?

The persistence of imagery like this associated with ancient culture is part of why ancient marriage like this seems repulsive when we first discover them in the Bible. We are left to imagine such a radically different world in the past, where men acted more like monkeys and women were innocent victims. But have you considered exactly where you got all these notions and stereotypes of ancient marriage from? You turned to the works of scholars, writing about ancient culture and history from the library - right?

Of course not. You barely had time to pass your civics course in High School, and saw little purpose in reading material any further. You weren't even interested in history. When it came to understanding it, you trusted what few resources you were exposed to. You assumed, whether for entertainment or other purposes, the stereotypes you received were rooted in some accurate portrayal of the past. You knew people making movies on historical matters worked hard to portray things more accurately than you could! You aren't to blame!

Unfortunately, the problem is you accepted a lie from a most egregious distorter of reality. You fell victim to the penultimate peddler of faux intellectualism. You listened to the media machine whose goal is to bring mankind further from what it sees as a brutish past, pushing everyone towards a perfectly polite future. For, like the elitists that thrive on such stereotypes, the version of concubinage you were presented projected modern values on this most ancient of cultural practices.

Would it surprise you to learn that there were other purposes to this kind of arrangement than sex? And at that, purposes that might even be more important? If you’ve read Part 3 of this series, maybe it's not too much a surprise to you that concubines might have served a non-sexual purpose. But I’m sure you’re still trying to figure things out in your mind. Unlike levirate marriage, after all, there is no blood or family relationship involved. How can something like concubines serve a positive purpose for society?

The answer is actually rather simple. Much like levirate marriage, concubinage served as a great system for surrogate motherhood. We see the best glimpse of this in Abraham’s story (the first name mentioned in the graphic) You see, Sarah had been unable to give children for some time - at least 10 years since having settled in Canaan! (Gen 16:3) Many people today would have simply given up! This was clearly not an easy decision, and even resulted in some turmoil between Sarah and Hagar (Gen 16:5-6).[1]

So, whether a desirable thing or not, being a concubine was a great way to honor a wife who could not bear children and provide husbands with descendants. As noted previously in this serious, having children was absolutely critical with high death rates (one reason why children became a sign of status). In this sense, concubinage was very practical. Remember there were no adoption agencies or sperm banks, and in-vitro fertilization had yet to be invented. It's hard to imagine a better system, in this author's humble opinion.

More than just considerations of motherhood, however, it’s important to consider why else women would accept this arrangement. Was there anything to gain but children? As a matter of fact, yes. For women who had nowhere to turn to for financial support, concubinage would be an honorable way to embed in a male and receive such support. In that sense, you might say being a concubine was better than the most likely alternative - prostitution. If you could find someone, you may not be offered marriage but would certainly fall under the male’s umbrella of responsibility to provide for.






 

So, considering that concubinage may have had some reasonable purpose, what about how concubines were treated? Aren’t the stereotypes ones of women being subject to mental abuse, slavery and a life of boredom and mindless servitude? Of course they are – after all, what could be worse than being forced to live with, have sex or be married to someone you don’t “love”? This sounds like a lifetime of trauma and suffering. But is it that simple?

As the information provided by the Jewish Encyclopedia bears out, the reality, at least as the Bible is concerned, is far less dramatic and may surprise you. In its entry on the word pilegesh, the Hebrew for concubine, it notes that concubines enjoyed the same rights and respect as a wife. [2]  Similarly, their children were treated as if they had been born from the wife. This is anything but barbaric or oppressive.

In fact, it turns out it was extremely dishonorable for the concubine to be mistreated. For instance, look at these examples from the Bible:

1. Reuben sleeps with Jacob’s concubine (Gen 35:22), and Jacob later assails him for the deed as he is giving blessings to the remainder of his sons (Gen 49:3-4).
2. After Gibeah raped a concubine (Judges 19:25-26) and left her for dead, 400,000 armed men from Israel took up swords (Judges 20:2) and plotted to punish him. A skirmish ensued and over 25,000 Benjamites (Gibeah was of this tribe) died (Gen 20:35).
3. Absalom took David’s concubines (2 Sam 16:20-22) as part of his attempt to usurp the throne from David. Let me repeat – stealing David’s concubines was seen as a sign of threatening his power and position.

Concubines were clearly a serious matter to Israel. This seems even more so as we get closer to the period of Israel’s kings, such as David and Solomon (who had over 300 concubines). While it seems absurd that kings would have so many concubines, it may also be another indicator that concubines were more than “sex slaves”. As Glen Miller points out from Jack Sasson’s Civilization of Ancient Near East, a harem could include "women of the king', who lived in their own building and who were assisted by a group of officials...These women were sometimes placed in charge of important sectors of palace work, especially the manufacture of textiles.'” [3]  In other words, concubines were often trusted to take care of the palace for the king. Implied by this is that such women were actually of significant reputation or class (or they would not be trusted to work for the king).

So, rather than seeing concubines as helpless female slaves, perhaps it is more prudent to see them as highly prized and important individuals. Whether they were women hired by the king for work (receiving special treatment), or surrogate mothers for ancient patriarchs, the record is clear. They were anything but helpless, neglected or abused.

In the West, of course, we have no need for such arrangements. Surrogate mothers rarely need or seek support from their partner families with modern wages and government systems. The hiring of labor is also a very formal process, governed by law, which ensures the right workers are used in a job regardless of background. We can achieve all these things without marriage, so to presume concubinage should remain in practice to keep consistent with living by the Bible's standards is to clearly miss the point.

None of what I write is to deny that concubines may have been used for sex, or that the practice itself didn’t degenerate into abuse for sexual purposes. But the reality is it was not a system setup for that purpose, and any abuse of this did not originally go unpunished. There is nothing to show that the Bible’s mention of concubines is something to be embarrassed about or looked down on. It was a fact of life then, as it was for many eastern cultures, and may have eventually become something honorable. Being a concubine may have eventually meant you were part of an elite class of kingdom workers. Is this really something that we should find so objectionable?

Below is the TektonTV video on this subject.

 

[1] Note in this saga that, in contrast to popular stereotypes about patriarchal society, it is Sarai (the female) who was given permission to treat Hagar as she saw fit,. Any harsh treatment towards Hagar was actually done by Sarai. It is many chapters later that Abraham, on seeking advice from God, cools the situation and releases Hagar. Clearly, as a man he was no pusher, but a peacemaker.

[2] "JewishEncyclopedia.com." PILEGESH -. Web. 05 Mar. 2012. http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/12148-pilegesh

[3] Sasson, Jack M. Civilization of Ancient Near East. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1995. 1224. Print.