• mumblerfish@lemmy.world
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    5 days ago

    In these type of relations I think the swedish language has a great solution:

    • Sambo (tillSAMmans-BOende, “together living”, relatioship where you are living together)
    • Särbo (iSÄR-BOende, “separated living”, relationship where you are living separated)

    And there are all kinds of suggestions for extending this, the most common: mambo - living at your parents (moms) place. So just make up a suiting word for your living situation and add -bo.

    • RushLana@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      5 days ago

      Seems like the French word concubinage which is a couple not legally binded. For example me living with my BF is concubinage but if we register a civil union ( PACs or Marriage in France ) or stop living together we would be in the other categories.

      • jaybone@lemmy.zip
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        5 days ago

        We have the word concubine in English. Concubinage apparently is also a word in English but is not very commonly used. In most common English a concubine would refer to something like a member of a harem. Which I think either member of a modern unmarried couple would not be happy with such a comparison.

    • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.zip
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      5 days ago

      Yes.

      Marriage is to Concubinage, (Noun describing the nature of relationship status)

      as

      Married is to … Concubinary, roughly. (Adjective describing the person in the relationship)

      Its basically just that ‘concubine’ related terminology is quite uncommon in modern English… at least from my personal understanding, the more common, roughly equivalent term is ‘domestic partner’ and its derivatives, to describe people who live together (and often, have done so for a number of years) and are intimate, but not legally married… but that tends to imply a monogamous relationship, where ‘concubine’ tends to imply some kind of polyamorous situation, usually when a man already has a legal wife, and has an additional woman in the home, but also a legal power/status disparity between the man, wife and concubine.

      … The technical legal differences, as well as used terminology, between every kind of relationship status listed in the image… vary significantly from county to country and region to region.

      To illustrate this: I’d never even heard of a ‘free union’ before until I saw this, apparently that is roughly a French/European(?) term/equivalent for ‘domestic partnership’ or ‘common law marriage’ … but not quite…?