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There isn't really any "typical" usage of the word alone. The word tends to be always contextualized, and the contexts can be very different from each other. -- Grufo ( talk) 07:48, 26 October 2021 (UTC) reply

According to ... what source exactly? And in what context? In academic literature, or in more general usage? Iskandar323 ( talk) 10:32, 26 October 2021 (UTC) reply

The source for this is The Oxford Encyclopedia of Women in World History, which is a pretty reliable source. VR _talk 14:09, 26 October 2021 (UTC) reply

Having a source might not be enough, especially when a sentence lowers down the quality of an article. What one thinks when they hear the word concubine is inherently a subjective thing, and we tend not to hear the word alone. I am honestly unable to imagine an example of a sentence where the word concubine appears without being contextualized, either explicitly or implicitly. If a woman says today "I am a concubine", the first thing I will think will be the oddity of the sentence, the second thing I will think will be that she lives with the boyfriend, the third think I will do will be asking "What do you mean?". -- Grufo ( talk) 15:03, 26 October 2021 (UTC) reply

It strikes me that the statement is at once correct and incorrect on both counts. Conceptually, a concubine is more bonded than a mistress but freer than a slave. Genghis Khan had concubines whose power and status exceeded that of some of his lesser wives, just as court eunuchs have become grand viziers. The great modern fallacy of interpretation is to impose our moral values on historical situations that we can barely grasp the implications of. Iskandar323 ( talk) 15:14, 26 October 2021 (UTC) reply

It is really subjective, Iskandar323. When I hear the word concubine alone there will no meanings at all until I am able to contextualize. I would definitely not think about Genghis Khan, since I never think about Genghis Khan, and the last thing I will think about will be Islamic Harems. If you really force me to think about something (but you have to force me), I will likely think about European aristocratic persons from the past, and the concubine will be aristocratic too. -- Grufo ( talk) 15:40, 26 October 2021 (UTC) reply

I think we are have our biases, but ultimately we have to go with what sources say. If there are sources that say other things, they can be included. But a high-quality academic source should be complemented by another high-quality academic source. Don't use a WP:PRIMARY source to say "Academic source says X, but primary source says Y". That's an example of WP:FALSEBALANCE. VR _talk 15:47, 26 October 2021 (UTC) reply

We don't automatically use what sources say if a statement is inherently subjective, we are free to omit it ( WP:UNDUE) -- Grufo ( talk) 16:03, 26 October 2021 (UTC) reply

Wikipedia:Neutral point of view (NPOV) applies: "Achieving what the Wikipedia community understands as neutrality means carefully and critically analysing a variety of reliable sources and then attempting to convey to the reader the information contained in them fairly, proportionately, and as far as possible without editorial bias." Omitting those truths that do not suit an editor's point of view is not consistent with NPOV.-- Toddy1 (talk) 16:27, 26 October 2021 (UTC) reply

A subjective statement is not a “truth”. It is also not a secondary source in this case, since it does not interpret what a primary source says. Regarding this specific sentence the The Oxford Encyclopedia of Women in World History becomes a primary source and offers no means for WP:V. -- Grufo ( talk) 16:41, 26 October 2021 (UTC) reply

Why are you calling an encyclopedia a primary source? That's ridiculous. An encyclopedia is almost the most secondary type of source you can get - as with Wikipedia, typically collating the input of legions of other secondary sources to come up with fair, balanced and neutral definitions. It's not primary because you don't like it. Iskandar323 ( talk) 06:54, 27 October 2021 (UTC) reply

I got this slightly wrong. Since encyclopedias are derived from secondary sources, Wikipedia considers them one step further still for the purposes of source categorisation, labelling them WP:TERTIARY. Iskandar323 ( talk) 12:41, 27 October 2021 (UTC) reply

You are not free to omit anything simply because you 'think' it is subjective, unless of course there are no objections from any other editors or of course you achieve a consensus in talk that something is indeed WP:POV. Iskandar323 ( talk) 06:56, 27 October 2021 (UTC) reply

I actually came here to question the same phrase. Reviewing three modern dictionaries, ( Merriam Webster, Cambridge, Collins) two of them include "mistress" as a common meaning or synonym, and all of them mention social status, but none of them mention slavery. BilledMammal ( talk) 05:01, 6 December 2021 (UTC) reply

"Can refer to" is not the same as "defined as". I think the Oxford source is saying some concubines in the 21st century happen to be sex slaves, not that that's how the term is defined. Also the Collins source you mentioned does say the concubine is regarded as "sexually subservient". VR _talk 05:06, 6 December 2021 (UTC) reply

The article reads "it typically refers" rather than "can refer to", but if we clarified the "sex slave" part of that sentence as "can refer to" then my objections would be resolved. As for Collins, "sexually subservient" and "sex slave" are not synonyms. BilledMammal ( talk) 05:45, 6 December 2021 (UTC) reply

I quote the rather pertinent tertiary source cited by VR on Talk: Sexual slavery in Islam: "Voluntary concubinage should be distinguished from involuntary concubinage. In the latter the woman is sold, usually by her family. As a concubine she is rarely a slave, at least legally...yet in practice, the life of an involuntary concubine may look very much like a slave." The Oxford Encyclopedia of Women in World History. The reality is that the concepts of freedom and slavery were often greyer and more blurred in the ancient and medieval world. A concubine, who may well be "sexually subservient" to a master, and even sold by their parents, might still not be legally classified within society as a slave. This a rather good illustration of the oversimplicity that can creep in when a reductive approach is taken to define a term. Iskandar323 ( talk) 10:08, 6 December 2021 (UTC) reply

I think you are slightly mistaken about the topic we are discussing; we are discussing "In the twenty-first century, it typically refers explicitly to extramarital affection, "either to a mistress or to a sex slave", without the same emphasis on the cohabiting aspect of the original meaning", which is about how the word is used in the twenty-first century, not how it was used in the ancient or medieval world. BilledMammal ( talk) 10:27, 6 December 2021 (UTC) reply

I would say that the way in which the term is used differs depending on whether it is being used to refer to events in the 21st-century or events in the distant past. In any case, the definition of "either to a mistress or to a sex slave" also encapsulates the way in which the term can refer to range of roles where a participant may be free or very much enslaved. Iskandar323 ( talk) 10:44, 6 December 2021 (UTC) reply

In any case, would you object to the clarification that VI seemed to propose, using "can refer to"? BilledMammal ( talk) 23:23, 6 December 2021 (UTC) reply

Grufo recently added a large section called jurisdictions at the very top of the article. To me this makes little sense. For one it is totally WP:UNDUE here and most articles on concubinage either barely mention 21st century legal implications or don't mention them at all. Secondly, this section seems to be sourced to dictionaries [1] [2] and what appears to be a blog [3]. The secondary sources it does cite seem to say that "concubinage" is not actually used in the present day. So why are we giving so much weight to this? VR _talk 20:39, 31 October 2021 (UTC) reply

So yes, they copied that (unattributed) from the Concubinage (legal term), which I created specifically as a catchall for this sort of pre-modern to modern legal trivia to remove the necessity for it on the main Concubinage page. On the note of legal blogs, I would note that blogs in general are not automatically considered to be unreliable, and in the case of legal blogs, not only do lawyers not tend to misrepresent legal facts, but these types of blogs are typically less blog and more a place where reliable legal opinions or perspectives are posted. If you check the blog post, you will also note that it is heavily referenced, so in of itself is an invaluable reference for anyone seeking more detailed information. But as you note, from my initial reading, few legal systems lend much weight to the specific term "concubinage" - largely because it is obviously mildly offensive by modern standards as a term for cohabitation (when you can just say cohabitation). For some reason the precise etymology of concubinage appears to be missing even from the concubinatus page, but it is from Latin concubina, from con- ‘with’ + cubare ‘to lie’ - so explictly sexual in nature, as compared to the more agnostic 'cohabitation'. Iskandar323 ( talk) 06:23, 1 November 2021 (UTC) reply

With this edit, Editor Toddy1 reverted a Monkbot with the edit summary unhelpful. it is a recipe for cite conflicts. Explain how that is, please.

Before the Monkbot edit, this article was (and now is again) a member of Category:CS1 maint: ref duplicates default. Articles are listed in that category when the value assigned to |ref= in a cs1|2 template (in this case {{ cite encyclopedia}}) is the same as the value that the cs1|2 template would create for itself. Here is the original {{cite encyclopedia}} template with |ref={{sfnRef|Rodriguez|2011}}:

{{cite encyclopedia |title=Slavery in the Modern World: A History of Political, Social, and Economic Oppression |entry=Concubines |editor-first1=Junius P. |editor-last1=Rodriguez |page=203 |publisher=[[ABC-CLIO]]| year=2011| ref = {{sfnRef|Rodriguez|2011}}}}

Rodriguez, Junius P., ed. (2011). "Concubines". Slavery in the Modern World: A History of Political, Social, and Economic Oppression. ABC-CLIO. p. 203.{{ cite encyclopedia}}: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default ( link)

When Module:Citation/CS1 (the engine that underlies all cs1|2 templates) is finished processing the template, this is what it hands-off to MediaWiki for final rendering:

'"`UNIQ--templatestyles-00000025-QINU`"'<cite id="CITEREFRodriguez2011" class="citation encyclopaedia cs1">Rodriguez, Junius P., ed. (2011). "Concubines". ''Slavery in the Modern World: A History of Political, Social, and Economic Oppression''. [[ABC-CLIO]]. p.&nbsp;203.</cite><span title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Abook&rft.genre=bookitem&rft.atitle=Concubines&rft.btitle=Slavery+in+the+Modern+World%3A+A+History+of+Political%2C+Social%2C+and+Economic+Oppression&rft.pages=203&rft.pub=ABC-CLIO&rft.date=2011&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fen.wikipedia.org%3ATalk%3AConcubinage" class="Z3988"></span><span class="cs1-maint citation-comment"><code class="cs1-code">{{[[Template:cite encyclopedia|cite encyclopedia]]}}</code>: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default ([[:Category:CS1 maint: ref duplicates default|link]])</span>

Here is the same {{cite encyclopedia}} template after the monkbot edit:

{{cite encyclopedia |title=Slavery in the Modern World: A History of Political, Social, and Economic Oppression |entry=Concubines |editor-first1=Junius P. |editor-last1=Rodriguez |page=203 |publisher=[[ABC-CLIO]]| year=2011}}

Rodriguez, Junius P., ed. (2011). "Concubines". Slavery in the Modern World: A History of Political, Social, and Economic Oppression. ABC-CLIO. p. 203.

and what Module:Citation/CS1 hands-off to MediaWiki:

'"`UNIQ--templatestyles-00000029-QINU`"'<cite id="CITEREFRodriguez2011" class="citation encyclopaedia cs1">Rodriguez, Junius P., ed. (2011). "Concubines". ''Slavery in the Modern World: A History of Political, Social, and Economic Oppression''. [[ABC-CLIO]]. p.&nbsp;203.</cite><span title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Abook&rft.genre=bookitem&rft.atitle=Concubines&rft.btitle=Slavery+in+the+Modern+World%3A+A+History+of+Political%2C+Social%2C+and+Economic+Oppression&rft.pages=203&rft.pub=ABC-CLIO&rft.date=2011&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fen.wikipedia.org%3ATalk%3AConcubinage" class="Z3988"></span>

The output from both versions of the template is exactly the same except for the TemplateStyles stripmarkers and the original has the link to Category:CS1 maint: ref duplicates default. Note that the <cite> tag content is exactly the same in both versions of the template:

<cite id="CITEREFRodriguez2011" class="citation encyclopaedia cs1">

The id=CITEREFRodriguez2011 attribute is automatically created when |ref= is omitted or is empty. |ref={{sfnRef|Rodriguez|2011}} is redundant in this case because it creates the same value for the id= attribute:

CITEREFRodriguez2011 ← {{sfnRef|Rodriguez|2011}}

Please explain how the Montbot edit was unhelpful. Please explain how the Monkbot edit is a recipe for cite conflicts.

— Trappist the monk ( talk) 18:06, 21 November 2021 (UTC) reply

I don't get the explanation, but I was also wondering why it was unhelpful. Incidentally, how and why do these |ref= functions appear in the templates in the first place? Iskandar323 ( talk) 18:54, 21 November 2021 (UTC) reply

What about the explanation above don't you get?

Before the 18 April 2020 update to Module:Citation/CS1, cs1 templates required |ref=harv or |ref={{ sfnref|...}} or |ref=CITEREF... (plaintext) to create id=CITEREF... anchor id attributes suitable for use with {{ sfn}} and the {{ harv}} family of short-form templates. From 18 April 2020, all cs1 templates automatically create id=CITEREF... anchor id attributes from the first four names in the contributor-, author-, or editor-name lists (in that order; names from different lists not mixed) and year from |year= or |date=.

For this particular example, the original citation had |ref={{sfnRef|Slavery in the Modern World: A History of Political, Social, and Economic Oppression|2011}} which was created at this edit. That template was replaced with |ref={{sfnRef|Rodriguez|2011}} at this edit.

— Trappist the monk ( talk) 19:33, 21 November 2021 (UTC) reply

Ah ok, there was an update that obseleted the old function. Thanks. Iskandar323 ( talk) 20:25, 21 November 2021 (UTC) reply

Because Editor Toddy1 has declined to participate in this discussion, I have restored the monkbot edit that that editor reverted.

— Trappist the monk ( talk) 17:12, 25 November 2021 (UTC) reply

I'm removing the recently added section on the Latter Day Saint movement for a few reasons:

1. The principal reason is that it is using a single primary source. What we need are secondary sources, which leads into the next concerns I have...
2. Right now it seems like it fails WP:UNDUE, which is actually really hard to gauge based solely on a primary source since the weight should reflect the weight in secondary sources. I also don't think that the Latter Day Saints are unique in saying OT figures had concubines. I'm pretty sure that other Christian groups use or have used similar verbiage for most if not all of these individuals, so why is it important to single out Latter Day Saints? Again, secondary sources would help.
3. Context feels like it is an issue. The paragraph is based on the occurrence of the word/concept in the movement's scriptures which themselves are commenting on occurrences in the ancient world. But does that mean that it belongs in a the New World section that also tends towards the modern era? This isn't really a New World occurrence of the practice of concubinage. I am uncertain where it makes sense for this mention to occur or if it even should occur, again largely without secondary sources to put the mention in Latter Day Saint scripture in context.

Which brings me back to the first point - we need reliable, secondary sources to really answer the other concerns, imo. -- FyzixFighter ( talk) 23:20, 4 May 2022 (UTC) reply

I agree that secondary sources would be better. Altanner1991 ( talk) 03:43, 5 May 2022 (UTC) reply

Why there is no mention of indonesia on this article despite it has undocumented infos of concubine system? Eg yogyakarta concubinage in pre modern age. 2404:8000:1027:2C72:C42A:D8CC:B3DA:AF04 ( talk) 11:05, 26 August 2023 (UTC) reply