Gratian on Concubinage

In dealing with this subject Gratian found a great deal of ambivalence among his authorities. Concubinage among the laity continued to be common in Gratian’s time and some perfectly respectable sources had held that Christian men were entitled to take a concubine in place of a wife, although all of them condemned men who had more than one concubine at a time or who kept a concubine as well as a wife.⁷⁹ But equally respectable authorities, and more of them, had condemned concubinage as fornication and urged Christians either to termi­nate such relationships or to regularize them by marrying their concubines.⁸⁰

Gratian dealt with concubinage as a type of informal marriage, a de facto union that differed from fornication, say, with a harlot, because the concubine and her lover were bound together by marital affection.⁸¹ Thus Gratian could reconcile the opposing teachings of his authorities even though secular law re­fused to grant union with a concubine the status of a formal marriage.⁸² In this way, Gratian not only harmonized his sources, but he also treated concubinage relationships as permanent and binding unions so far as the Church’s courts were concerned.