In addition to their official wives, it was also very common for men to take on multiple concubines. According to Adam of Bremen, a man could essentially have as many concubines as he was able to afford, meaning that nobles and leaders often had many. Furthermore, children borne of concubines were considered legitimate.[20] Simpson distinguishes the wife from the concubine by asserting that the wife was the one who held possession of the ‘bride-price’ paid to her by her husband, as well as the dowry paid by her father, in the event of divorce.[21] This suggests that they had a lower status than the official wife, which Oxenstierna confirms: “Concubines were customary, but they were always of the lowest social class. A wife could tolerate them because they never endangered her marriage; they went with the mixture of monogamy and polygamy which made up her husband’s character.”[22] Simpson and Oxenstierna offer clear insight into the differing positions of, and relationship between, wives and their husband’s respective concubines, but, unlike Foote and Wilson, they fail to comment on the ostensible double-standard at work here: “A wife’s adultery was a serious crime, so much so that some provincial laws gave a husband the right to kill her and her lover out of hand if they were caught together. A man, on the other hand, was not penalized if he kept a concubine or had children outside marriage.”[23]Arnold makes almost the exact same statement regarding this double-standard, but is clearer in interpreting it as a fundamental inequality between men and women for the tolerance allowed men who broke what was the theoretically fatal crime of adultery just because it was so prevalent.[24]
Szerszen napisał(a):Ino pamiętaj też, że ta żona miała prawo się z nim rozwieść jak za bardzo się rozhulał... a wtedy ostawał się z połową majątku (i jeśli był możny to tylko połową drużyny).
Tak więc nie szarżowałbym z tą poligamicznością.
Użytkownicy przeglądający ten dział: Brak zidentyfikowanych użytkowników i 1 gość