ABSTRACT
Like many of the other categories in this volume, this grouping resists generalization: while many of these women were coerced by men in superior positions of power or by families who promoted wives or daughters into economically beneficial situations, other women themselves chose to enter into these relationships for emotional gratification or financial security. Nor can we make facile assumptions about the intersection of extramarital relationships and social status, although it is the case that most of the women here designated as mistresses were involved with royal or aristocratic men, reminding us that political power and riches could exert a particularly persuasive influence. Still, some of the women here were “of the middling sort” and their motivations for extramarital relationships were as often emotional and romantic as they were economically driven. In many cases, however, a woman’s role as mistress was inevitably short-lived: pregnancy often brought the relationship to an end, even if the affair had been conducted in relative openness, reminding us that in the early modern period, concerns for legitimate progeny often trumped any other appeal that a sexual or romantic relationship might have held.
