History Of Mistresses

She has been known as the ''kept woman'' the ''fancy woman'' and the ''other woman''. She is both a fictional character and flesh-and-blood human being. But who is she really? What do Madame de Pompadour Heloise Marilyn Monroe Jane Eyre and Camilla Parker-Bowles have in common? 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 modern emancipated independent female? In A History of Mistresses Elizabeth Abbott intelligently probes the motives and morals of some of history''s most infamous and fascinating women. Drawing intimate portraits of those who have - either by chance coercion or choice - assumed this complex role from Chinese concubines and European royal mistresses to mobster molls and trophy dolls A History of Mistresses offers a rich blend of history personality and cultural study.