Help:Assertions of family outside marriage

Upper class males historically have often maintained family relationships outside of one with a formally married wife. WeRelate observes the practice of creating a family page to indicate such a relationship (particularly if it results in children) regardless. There is, however, no standard way to indicate that the relationship is not simply a marriage where the date of ceremonies is unknown. Worse - the woman is sometimes given a title of concubine or mistress. While strictly correct, in common use such terms carry inadvertent (and probably unfair) value judgements.

Instead of using the terms "mistress" or "concubine" for the woman, a more objective and accurate approach is to create a standard fact template to apply to the Family page. The template, CohabitationWithoutFormalities, is applied to a non-marital relationship by being placed in the description field for the Family "Marriage" event. The woman in such relationships is not indicated as a mistress or concubine, but simply in the ordinary way by name. If the woman's name is unknown, then she is simply an unknown person.

Examples

• Pepin of Herstal and Alpaide, James IV of Scotland and Janet Kennedy - Both parties are known and named, the relationship is simply indicated as not involving a formal marriage.
• Robert II of Scotland and Unknown, Stephen II, Count of Blois and Unknown - Instead of creating a useless page carrying a name such as "Unknown Mistress", the person (of whom nothing is known) is simply omitted.