mistress

[George Thompson]

My notion is, that a mistress is to some degree dependent on the man --
lives in an apartment (love-nest) he pays for, perhaps, or receives an
allowance/uses credit cards from him.  If the woman is independent -- lives
in an apartment with a husband, or paid for from her own income, and is
not otherwise maintained by the man -- then she is his lover, not his
mistress.

GAT

On Wed, Apr 11, 2012 at 2:50 AM, Sarah <puellaest at gmail.com> wrote:

> Jesse can elaborate on this, but he did write an article on the term:
> http://www.slate.com/articles/life/the_good_word/2009/12/tiger_woods_does_not_have_11_mistresses.html
>
> S.
>
>
>
>
> On 2012-04-11, at 12:31 AM, Douglas G. Wilson wrote:
>
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       "Douglas G. Wilson" <douglas at NB.NET>
> > Subject:      Re: mistress
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > On 4/11/2012 1:25 AM, Victor Steinbok wrote:
> >> ....
> >
> >> So my question is 1) is it true that the term "mistress" applies only
> >> to a non-marital partner of a /married/ man?
> > --
> >
> > I don't believe so. I suppose one can discuss at length whether the
> > right word in a given case/society is "[de jure or de facto] wife",
> > "mistress", "second wife", "girlfriend", or whatever, but I think IME
> > wherever this word "mistress" is natural it just means "a man's regular
> > long-term female sex partner who is not the man's wife". I think a man
> > can have wife/wives, or mistress(es), or both (depending on local laws,
> > customs, etc.), or neither.
> >
> > I suppose in many contexts if a man has an acknowledged mistress but no
> > formal/legal wife, it might be natural to consider that mistress really
> > a sort of wife (e.g., "common-law wife" or so) (and therefore not called
> > a "mistress"). But I think -- for example -- hardly anyone would say
> > that a man's mistress stops being his mistress automatically on the loss
> > of his wife (by her death or by divorce).
> >
> > -- Doug Wilson
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>



--
George A. Thompson
Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern
Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much since then.

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org