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Pilegesh (פִּילֶגֶשׁ, , possibly related to ) is a term from the Hebrew Bible for a concubinage, a female, unmarried sexual slave of social and legal status inferior to that of a wife.
Among the Israelites, some men acknowledged their pilgashím, who thus had the same rights in the home as legal wives.
Despite Maimonides' notable dissension, Jewish textual scholars, including Nahmanides, Jacob Emden and the head of the beth din of Akdamot in Jerusalem, have concluded that taking a woman as a concubine is allowed in contemporary Jewish culture.
In the Modern Hebrew of the contemporary Israel, pilegesh is often used as the equivalent of the English word mistress—i.e., the female partner in extramarital relations—regardless of legal recognition. Attempts have been initiated to popularise pilegesh as a form of premarital, non-marital or extramarital relationship (which, according to the perspective of the enacting person(s), is permitted by Halakha).Adam Dickter, "ISO: Kosher Concubine", New York Jewish Week, December 2006 Suzanne Glass, "The Concubine Connection" , The Independent, London 20 October 1996
There are many definitions for what a pilegesh relationship is. In the Eastern world, pilegesh fit into the complex family organization and the woman had more of a distinct legal and social position, whereas in the later Western world, pilegesh was regarded as a long-term sex companionship between a man and a woman who could not or would not be married.
Since having children in Judaism was considered a great blessing, legitimate wives often gave their maids to their husbands so they could have children with them when those women themselves were childless, as in the cases of Leah and Zilpah and Rachel and Bilhah. Even in the exceptional case of Sarah and Hagar, Abraham would have been obligated to treat Hagar as a full wife and she would have been treated as an equal by Abraham. Sarah's rights would have been regarding the technical legal status of being considered the inheritor and since the other wife and offspring would have been hers by ownership she became the legal albeit not biological mother of Ishmael. Orach Chayim: Laws of the Handmaiden.
Certain rabbis, such as Maimonides, believed that concubines are strictly reserved for , and the am ha'aretz may not have a concubine; indeed, such thinkers argued that commoners may not engage in any type of human sexuality outside of a marriage. Maimonides was not the first Jewish thinker to criticize concubinage; for example, it is severely condemned in Leviticus Rabbah. Leviticus Rabbah, 25 Other rabbis, such as Nahmanides, Samuel ben Uri Shraga Phoebus, and Jacob Emden, strongly object to the idea that concubines should be forbidden.
According to Mnachem Risikoff, the institution of the pilegesh is an alternative to formal marriage, which does not have the requirements for a get upon the dissolution of the relationship, thus negating the issue of the aguna. Between Civil and Religious Law: The Plight of the Agunah in American Society, Irving Breitowitz, Greenwood Press, 1993. By coincidence, Breitowitz's book was reviewed by Risikoff's grandson, Rabbi Steven Resnicoff, in Jewish Action, Winter 1994, Vol. 55, No. 2.
Any offspring created in a union between a pilegesh and a man were on equal legal footing with children of the man and his wife.
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