A concubine is a woman who is not legally a wife but lives with a man and has a recognized position in his household. Ususally the man would seek out a concubine to satisfy his pleasures because his wife wasn't able to.
Yes in those days it was common for kings to have concubines, David had a few but Solomon had it in hundreds.
The honor goes to King Solomon; if the biblical record is to be believed, he had 700 wives and 300 concubines.
I don't think they were named in the Bible and Absalom did not seem to know them, the way he blatantly took his father's concubines. (2Samuel 16.22)
Officially no.
Bilhah and Zilpah were concubines of Jacob, not his wives. They were given to Jacob by his wives Leah and Rachel to bear children on their behalf.
Call the collection a harem.
a butt load
Qianlong Emperor, who ruled from 1735 to 1796, had multiple wives. His primary consort was Empress Xiaoshengxian, but he also had several secondary consorts and concubines, with historical records suggesting he had around 60 concubines in total. The Qing dynasty's imperial practice allowed emperors to have many wives and concubines, reflecting their status and the dynastic customs of the time.
Basically they were the rulers girlfriends after he marries his wife.
The spelling is harem, meaning a collection of wives or concubines.
King David had a total of multiple wives and concubines, as described in the biblical texts. While the exact number of concubines is not definitively stated, 2 Samuel 5:13 mentions that he took more concubines and wives in Jerusalem after becoming king. Overall, his relationships were part of the customs of the time, reflecting the social and political dynamics of ancient Israel.
The number varied according to the desire of the emperors. Emperors such as Sui Wen Di (Yang Jian, around A.D. 7th Century) had only one wife, but some emperors had thousands of concubines