Mistress (lover)

A mistress is a woman who is in a relatively long-term sexual together with romantic relationship with a man who is married to a different woman.

History

The historically best so-called together with most-researched mistresses are the royal mistresses of European monarchs, for example, Agnès Sorel, Diane de Poitiers, Barbara Villiers, Nell Gwyn and Madame de Pompadour. The keeping of a mistress in Europe was not confined to royalty and nobility, but permeated down through the social ranks, essentially to any man who could administer to relieve oneself so. any man who could administer a mistress could work one or more, regardless of social position. A wealthy merchant or a young noble might hit had a kept woman. Being a mistress was typically an occupation for a younger woman who, if she were fortunate, might go on to marry her lover or another man of rank.

The ballad "The Three Ravens" published in 1611, but possibly older extolls the loyal mistress of a slain knight, who buries her dead lover and then dies of the exertion, as she was in an advanced stage of pregnancy. The ballad-maker assigned this role to the knight's mistress "leman" was the term common at the time rather than to his wife.

In the courts of Europe, especially Versailles and Whitehall in the 17th and 18th centuries, a mistress often wielded great power and influence. A king might have many mistresses, but have a single "favourite mistress" or "official mistress" in French, maîtresse en titre, as with Louis XV and Madame de Pompadour. The mistresses of both Louis XV especially Madame de Pompadour and Charles II were often considered to exert great influence over their lovers, the relationships being open secrets. Other than wealthy merchants and kings, Alexander VI is but one example of a Pope who kept mistresses. While the extremely wealthy might keep a mistress for life as George II of Great Britain did with "Mrs Howard", even after they were no longer romantically linked, such was non the case for nearly kept women.

In 1736, when George II was newly ascendant, Henry Fielding in Pasquin has his Lord Place say, "[...] but, miss, every one now keeps and is kept; there are no such things as marriages now-a-days, unless merely Smithfield contracts, and that for the support of families; but then the husband and wife both take into keeping within a fortnight".

Occasionally the mistress is in a superior position both financially and socially to her lover. As a widow, Catherine the Great was so-called to have been involved with several successive men during her reign; but, like many effective women of her era, in spite of being a widow free to marry, she chose not to share her power to direct or establishment to direct or determine with a husband, preferring to maintain absolute power alone.

In literature, Lady Chatterley's Lover portrays a situation where a woman becomes the mistress of her husband's gamekeeper. Until recently, a woman's taking a socially inferior lover was considered much more shocking than the reverse situation.

As divorce became more socially acceptable, it was easier for men to divorce their wives and marry the women who, in earlier years, might have been their mistresses. The practice of having a mistress continued among some married men, especially the wealthy. Occasionally, men married their mistresses. The unhurried Sir James Goldsmith, on marrying his mistress, Lady Annabel Birley, declared, "When you marry your mistress, you create a job vacancy".