What's the difference between concubine and wife?

Concubine


Definition:

  • (n.) A woman who cohabits with a man without being his wife; a paramour.
  • (n.) A wife of inferior condition; a lawful wife, but not united to the man by the usual ceremonies, and of inferior condition. Such were Hagar and Keturah, the concubines of Abraham; and such concubines were allowed by the Roman laws. Their children were not heirs of their father.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Carwyn Jones will remain first minister but his anointment threatened to be overshadowed by a sexism row after Ukip’s leader at the assembly, the former Tory MP Neil Hamilton , branded two senior female assembly members “political concubines” and called Plaid a “cheap date”.
  • (2) Winnie, meanwhile, raged ineffectually against the emotional cunning of the woman she called "that concubine".
  • (3) Abraham had only two concubines, where Solomon had 300, along with his 700 wives.
  • (4) Of the non-English language films that have won the Palme d'Or since 1990, only Amour has won the Academy award, while Farewell My Concubine , The Class and The White Ribbon have achieved a shortlist nomination.
  • (5) His mother had distant aristocratic origins, being descended from one of the sultan of Jogjakarta's concubines some generations back.
  • (6) The Old Testament is replete with stories of men like King Solomon who had 700 wives and 300 concubines.
  • (7) He is best known for a 1968 historical drama called The Eunuch, about concubines and emasculated servants unable to consummate their secret love.
  • (8) One should remember that enslaving the families of the kuffar [non-believers] and taking their women as concubines is a firmly established aspect of Islamic law,” the article said.
  • (9) If he pays her father to take her away, she is his concubine.
  • (10) Was Ramsay Snow’s concubine running away from a pack of slavering dogs or Iwan’s album listening party?
  • (11) 59% of the patients were between 20 and 29 years old (Table 1) and 74% were married (only 23 of these did not share their husbands with other wives or concubines) (Table 2).
  • (12) Responding to a tide of online criticism about his slave comments, Muthana wrote: "When I spoke about slave everyone jumped on me muslims and non muslims alike … so I stayed quiet and will stay quiet but everyone will soon find out when I get my own concubines lool, slave markets are on full blast."
  • (13) For slaves, concubines, gold and castles of ancient and medieval times, read private jets, holiday islands and football and baseball clubs of the contemporary era.
  • (14) Anti-government rebels from the Lord's Resistance Army in the most northerly districts of Uganda swept along and across it, fighting and stealing children - boys for soldiers and girls for concubines.
  • (15) The Chinese were the 1st to record the practice of induced abortion, with this operation being administered to royal concubines recorded at 500-515 B.C.
  • (16) A few weeks later an Isis pamphlet detailed how followers should treat these “concubines”, with special reference to virgins and underage girls.
  • (17) Pretty girls were often forcibly taken as wives or concubines.
  • (18) The award-winning films that heralded its 1990s renaissance, such as Zhang Yimou's Raise the Red Lantern and Chen Kaige's Farewell My Concubine, were banned in China.
  • (19) In this drama centered on the concubines of a Liberian rebel commander, making its New York debut at the Public Theatre, Lupita Nyong’o of 12 Years a Slave plays the newest abducted “wife”.
  • (20) There are other spots worth visiting outside the centre; notably the exquisitely glazed 17th-century Abak Khoja Mausoleum, also known as the Tomb of the Fragrant Concubine in honour of a consort of Emperor Qianlong.

Wife


Definition:

  • (n.) A woman; an adult female; -- now used in literature only in certain compounds and phrases, as alewife, fishwife, goodwife, and the like.
  • (n.) The lawful consort of a man; a woman who is united to a man in wedlock; a woman who has a husband; a married woman; -- correlative of husband.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) At the time, with a regular supply of British immigrants arriving in large numbers in Australia, Biggs was able to blend in well as "Terry Cook", a carpenter, so well in fact that his wife, Charmian, was able to join him with his three sons.
  • (2) The highest rate of discontinuation occurred when method choice was denied in the presence of husband-wife agreement on method choice, and the lowest rate occurred when method choice was granted in the presence of such concurrence.
  • (3) This study reports the analysis of a transvestite man through focusing on his marital interaction and his wife's complementary behavior to his perversion.
  • (4) The young European idealist who helped Leon Brittan, the British EU commissioner, to negotiate Chinese entry to the World Trade Organisation, also found his Spanish lawyer wife in Brussels.
  • (5) Another, discussing public attitudes towards the police, said: "I've lost count of [the number of] people who said: 'It's only cos you've got a uniform … if you didn't have the uniform on, I'd come and fuck you and this, that and the other … I hope your wife dies of cancer and your kids die of cancer.'"
  • (6) Scott was born in North Shields, Tyne and Wear, the youngest of the three sons of Colonel Francis Percy Scott, who served in the Royal Engineers, and his wife, Elizabeth.
  • (7) The arrest of the Washington Post’s Tehran correspondent Jason Rezaian and his journalist wife, Yeganeh Salehi, as well as a photographer and her partner, is a brutal reminder of the distance between President Hassan Rouhani’s reforming promises and his willingness to act.
  • (8) Five days later a French "honeymoon" couple, Alain Jacques Turenge and his wife Sophie Turenge, were arrested.
  • (9) Originally, it was to be named Le Reve, after one of the Picassos that Wynn and his wife own; but, as of last month, it is to be called Wynn Las Vegas, embodying a dream of a different kind.
  • (10) I haven't had to face anyone like the man who threatened to call the police when he decided his card had been cloned after sharing three bottles of wine with his wife, or the drunk woman who became violent and announced that she was a solicitor who was going to get this fucking place shut down – two customers Andrew had to deal with on the same night.
  • (11) Facebook Twitter Pinterest Joe Davis protests against his wife Kim’s jailing.
  • (12) FBI assistant director David Bowdich said that Syed Farook, 28, and his wife Tashfeen Malik, 27, were radicalized long before they went on a rampage at a community center in southern California last Wednesday, but would not specify whether he meant months or years.
  • (13) The education secretary's wife, Sarah Vine, a columnist, said her son William, nine, and daughter Beatrice, 11, now realise how much their father is hated for his position in government because other children tell them in the playground.
  • (14) Sharif Mobley, 30, whose lawyers consider him to be disappeared, managed to call his wife in Philadelphia on Thursday, the first time they had spoken since February and a rare independent proof he is alive since a brief phone call with his mother in July.
  • (15) Alfred Liyolo, 71, one of Congo’s leading sculptors , sold several bronzes to the palace in Gbadolite and designed a church and tomb for Mobutu’s first wife; all were lost or destroyed in the looting.
  • (16) The author discusses marriages in which a basically insecure husband plays a god-like role and his wife, who initially worshipped him, matures and finds her situation depressing and degrading.
  • (17) Andrew and his wife Amy belong to Generation Rent, an army of millions, all locked out of home ownership in Britain.
  • (18) Dr Fiona Stewart, a public health sociologist and Nitschke’s wife, told Guardian Australia she had replaced Nitschke as Exit International’s director.
  • (19) "I rang my wife to tell her," he says, "and she just laughed."
  • (20) (BBC) "I received the letter two months ago and was told to keep quiet about it or it might be taken away, so my wife and I kept quiet about it.