
- 522 pages
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
About this book
"A lively and nuanced look at gender roles as they have been revealed by the lives of concubines and mistresses over the centuries" (
Kirkus).
She exists as both a fictional character and as a flesh-and-blood human being. But who is she, really? Why do women become mistresses, and what is it like to have a private life that is usually also a secret life? Is a mistress merely a wife-in-waiting, or is she the very definition of the emancipated, independent female?
Elizabeth Abbott intelligently examines the motives and morals of some of history's most infamous and fascinating women, from antiquity to today. Drawing intimate portraits of those who have—by chance, coercion, or choice—assumed this complex role,
Mistresses offers a rich blend of personal biography and cultural insight.
"Ms. Abbott is delightfully indiscreet, with an eye for a good story and a colloquial style . . . She has done the ladies a service by bringing them out of the shadows." —
The Economist
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Information
Table of contents
- Cover
- BY THE SAME AUTHOR
- Copyright
- Dedication
- AUTHOR’S NOTE
- INTRODUCTION: Meeting Mistresses
- CHAPTER 1: Love out of Wedlock in the Ancient World
- CHAPTER 2: Eastern Concubines and Harems
- CHAPTER 3: Whose Whore? Europe’s Royal Mistresses
- CHAPTER 4: Marital Arrangements in Aristocratic Circles
- CHAPTER 5: The Clandestine Consorts of (Un) Celibate Clerics
- CHAPTER 6: Conquerors and Their Mistresses
- CHAPTER 7: Interracial Sexual Unions Within the “Peculiar Institution”
- CHAPTER 8: Sexual Unions and the Jewish Question
- CHAPTER 9: Mistresses as Muses
- CHAPTER 10: Mistresses of Men Above the Law
- CHAPTER 11: Mistresses as Trophy Dolls
- CHAPTER 12: Fallen Women: Mistresses in Literature
- CHAPTER 13: The 1960s Transform Marriage and Mistressdom
- Conclusion: Mistresses Met
- Endnotes
- Acknowledgments
- Index
- About the Author