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Pilegesh (Hebrew: פִּילֶגֶשׁ) is a Hebrew term for a concubine with similar social and legal standing to a recognized wife, often for the purpose of producing offspring.
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The Torah may distinguish concubines and "sub-standard" wives with the prefix "to" (e.g., lit. "took to wives").
Etymology
The term pilegesh comes from a non-Hebrew, non-Semitic loanword deriving from the Greek word pallakis (Greek παλλακίς) meaning a mistress staying in house; there is a common but unfounded view that it derives from the Aramaic phrase plag isha, meaning half-wife.
Ancient Sanskrit texts use the word "Palagali" (Sanskrit पालागलि) to denote a Sudra (out of caste) wife.
In contemporary Israeli Hebrew, the word "pilegesh" is often used as the equivalent of English "mistress"—i.e. the female partner in extramarital relations even when these relations have no legal recognition.
Legal characteristics
According to the Babylonian Talmud (Sanh. 21a), the difference between a pilegesh and a full wife was that the latter received a marriage contract (Hebrew:ketubah) and her marriage (nissu'in) was preceded by a formal betrothal ("kiddushin"), which was not the case with the former. According to R. Judah, however, the pilegesh should also receive a marriage contract, but without including a clause specifying a divorce settlement.
Certain Jewish thinkers, such as Maimonides, believed that concubines are strictly reserved for kings, and thus that a commoner may not have a concubine; indeed, such thinkers argued that commoners may not engage in any type of sexual relations outside of a marriage.
Maimonides was not the first Jewish thinker to criticise concubinage; for example, it is severely condemned in Leviticus Rabbah. Other Jewish thinkers, such as Nahmanides, Samuel ben Uri Shraga Phoebus, and Jacob Emden, strongly object to the idea that concubines should be forbidden.
Any offspring created as a result of a union between a pilegesh and a man were on equal legal footing with children of the man and his wife. The only exception was the unique relationship between Abraham, Sarah, Hagar, and Isaac and Ishmael.
According to Rabbi Mnachem Risikoff, the institution of pilegesh is an alternative to formal marriage which does not have the same requirements for a Get upon the dissolution of the relationship.