That simultaneous concubinage, or concubinage conjoined with a wife, is polygamy, although not acknowledged to be such, because it is not so declared, and thus not so called by any law, must be evident to every person of common discernment; for a woman taken into keeping, and made partaker of the conjugial bed is like a wife.

Concubinage was, in fact, the regular thing.

That this concubinage is not a separation from conjugial love; for when causes legitimate, or just, or really excusatory, arise, and persuade and compel a man, then, conjugial love with marriage is not separated, but only interrupted; and love interrupted, and not separated, remains in the subject.

Like Maintenon, Héloïse was willing to seem what she was not,only to be explained on the ground that concubinage was a less evil, in the eyes of the Church, than marriage in a priest.