What Is Concubineage?

Bede: In early Anglo-Saxon law, wives were sort of chattel under the law. Women weren't full persons under the law, but rather they were subservient and existed under the protection of the men in their lives. For example, a man could abduct another man's wife, pay the husband the appropriate wear a guild, and buy him a new wife. And then he could keep the stolen wife as his own now. Romantic.