The children of such relationships would be regarded as legitimate. The practice of a barren wife giving her husband a slave as a concubine is recorded in the Code of Hammurabi and the Bible, where Abraham takes Hagar as pilegesh. Many Middle Eastern societies utilized concubinage for reproduction. Concubinage was also common in Meiji Japan as a status symbol, and in Indian society, where the intermingling of castes and religions was frowned upon and a taboo, and concubinage could be practiced with women with whom marriage was considered undesirable, such as those from a lower caste and Muslim women who wouldn't be accepted in a Hindu household and vice versa. During the Mongol conquests, both foreign royals and captured women were taken as concubines. A concubine could be freeborn or of slave origin, and their experience could vary tremendously according to their masters' whim. Ĭoncubinage was a formal and institutionalized practice in China until the 20th century that upheld concubines' rights and obligations. Concubinage and marriage are often regarded as similar but mutually exclusive. Concubinage is an interpersonal and sexual relationship between a man and a woman in which the couple does not want, or cannot enter into a full marriage.