How to Define “Concubine” in Modern Dating

The Spear­head (ahem) looks at West­ern soci­ety and sees more and more women pur­port­edly choos­ing to become “mod­ern con­cu­bines”:

If one takes a close look at con­tem­po­rary Amer­i­can soci­ety, it appears that con­cu­bi­nage is grad­u­ally reassert­ing itself in West­ern cul­ture and law. This is an inevitable result of the idea that men have an oblig­a­tion to finan­cially sup­port ille­git­i­mate chil­dren; an idea that was rejected by Chris­tians because it fatally weak­ens the incen­tives for women with­out sig­nif­i­cant prop­erty to engage in monog­a­mous mar­riage. In fact, Islam pro­hibits con­cu­bi­nage as well, and dic­tates that although a man may have up to four wives, each one will have the same sta­tus under the law. Abuses have always occurred, but the con­trast between Euro­pean and East Asian soci­ety (Chi­nese in par­tic­u­lar) was stark up until mod­ern­iza­tion in Asia. Rich Chi­nese men often had a “first wife” and vary­ing num­bers of con­cu­bines, the Emperor would have hun­dreds of them, and lots of ordi­nary Chi­nese men had to make do shar­ing pros­ti­tutes or going entirely with­out a woman.

For young women, a life as a con­cu­bine is often prefer­able to being mar­ried to a poor man, and increas­ingly that option is open to them in the US. For the lucky few women – usu­ally the excep­tion­ally attrac­tive and mer­ce­nary – a sex­ual rela­tion­ship with a wealthy busi­ness­man, ath­lete or politi­cian can guar­an­tee decades of sup­port if she man­ages to get preg­nant. Rielle Hunter, John Edwards’ adul­ter­ous lover, is an exam­ple of a woman who pulled it off. Scores of women man­age to hit the jack­pot with young, unso­phis­ti­cated ath­letes; thou­sands upon thou­sands of oth­ers we’ve never heard of take advan­tage of rel­a­tively wealthy men. In these cases, where child sup­port will be enough to live on, the arrange­ment is con­cu­bi­nage in all but name. The only argu­ment against equiv­a­lency is that sex­ual exclu­siv­ity is not guar­an­teed, as it usu­ally was in ancient forms of con­cu­bi­nage, but given that sex­ual exclu­siv­ity is nei­ther guar­an­teed nor enforced in mar­riage any longer and con­cu­bi­nage has always been held to be a lesser alter­na­tive to full mar­riage, it is ful­fill­ing the exact same role the insti­tu­tion did in ancient times. (empha­sis added)

In the post-feminist boom times dur­ing which women have jobs and greater eco­nomic secu­rity, they can lit­er­ally afford to favor other qual­i­ties in poten­tial mates includ­ing appear­ance and social sta­tus. (But as I wrote in a prior essay, older, sin­gle women became vic­tims of their own edu­ca­tions and suc­cesses by wind­ing up pick­ier and alone as a result.)

How­ever, the eco­nomic times have changed as a result of the ongo­ing finan­cial cri­sis that may become worse over time. Women gen­er­ally feel more inse­cure and fear future inse­cu­rity more than men, so they look for more secu­rity as a result. (For the rea­sons explained in this insight­ful essay, men are less risk-averse and have usu­ally been the risk-takers in all soci­eties through­out history.)

Here is a his­tor­i­cal par­al­lel. After the col­lapse of the West­ern Roman Empire, Euro­pean soci­ety descended into chaos, vio­lence, and anar­chy. Through­out the con­ti­nent, peo­ple then grav­i­tated towards the local “strong men” — those who had land, intel­li­gence, strength, and weapons — for pro­tec­tion. Even­tu­ally, the peo­ple became the serfs, and the “strong men” became the nobles and kings.

Some­thing sim­i­lar may be hap­pen­ing today. As I wrote in a prior post on mod­ern polygamy by another name:

I once lived and stud­ied in an closed educational-setting in a par­tic­u­lar coun­try and observed that the mixed-gender set­ting there also served as a con­trolled exper­i­ment on rela­tions between the sexes. The results shed some light on the main prob­lem of post-monogamous dat­ing in the mod­ern world on in lead­ing online dat­ing, an online dat­ing pro­file, and online dat­ing statistics.

There was a group of attrac­tive girls whom every guy asked out. How­ever, they refused every offer because each of them had their fem­i­nine eye on the “alpha male” in the place. As a result, the leader-of-the-male-pack would date one of the girls and then move to another. And he would do so time and time again. The girls did not seem to mind. They were con­tent to “wait their turn” with the top prospect rather then “set­tle” with a so-called lower-status guy.

In a state of nature, women are just as polyg­a­mous as men. After all, every­one has the urge, shall we say, to pro­cre­ate. But the dif­fer­ence is that women are more hyper­g­a­mous than men. In other words, they are usu­ally more con­cerned with dat­ing and mar­ry­ing “up.” Manip­u­la­tive guys use this axiom as part of “Game” the­ory to become a “pick-up artist.”

(If you do not believe me, con­sider this hypo­thet­i­cal sce­nario: Take any female who con­stantly com­plains about being sin­gle. She could visit the near­est comic book or sci-fi con­ven­tion and find hun­dreds of guys who would love to be with a woman — any woman. But she will not do so because those males are viewed as those with the low­est social-status in the male peck­ing order. Note: I remem­ber that another writer has already given this exam­ple, but I can­not remem­ber his identity.)

For untold cen­turies, reli­gion and social sham­ing were two of the items that pre­vented women from debas­ing them­selves by becom­ing noth­ing more than con­cu­bines by another name. The insti­tu­tion of monogamy ensured that nearly all peo­ple would have a spouse. Social sham­ing pre­vented women from act­ing like men at their worst by sleep­ing around with mul­ti­ple partners.

Today, how­ever, these atti­tudes have dis­ap­peared. Young peo­ple are less reli­gious than their older coun­ter­parts. The feminism-inspired ideas of “free love” and “act­ing lib­er­ated by choos­ing to sleep around” have elim­i­nated the idea of social sham­ing since more women are “hooking-up” and putting off seri­ous rela­tion­ships as long as pos­si­ble. (This will undoubt­edly lead to regret later as their male peers use their new­found attrac­tive­ness in their thir­ties to sleep around with girls who are newly twen­tysome­things. In terms of eco­nom­ics, the chart in the lat­ter post shows a shift in the demand curve from left to right since older men and younger women gen­er­ally pre­fer each other.)

Now, the his­tor­i­cal par­al­lels are reassert­ing them­selves in what one Atlantic Monthly writer has called “Dat­ing in the Stone Age.” As a result of the eco­nomic cri­sis, increased inse­cu­rity, and debased morals, more women are grav­i­tat­ing towards the “strong men” of today — those few so-called alpha males who have greater wealth, secu­rity, and social stand­ing than the vast major­ity of men. Even if it means “shar­ing” the alpha males among them­selves by “hook­ing up” with the same men at dif­fer­ent times.

And that, dear read­ers, is noth­ing more than being a mod­ern concubine.

Prior Essays: The Cri­tiques of Fem­i­nism: Argu­ments Against Fem­i­nism Essay and the Ben­e­fits of Mono­gomy. Hat tip: Vox Day.