History Main / TheMistress

* This is discussed in the first chapter of ''Fanfic/{{Fake}}'' due to the fact Sachiko is marrying a gay man. She guesses that Suguru will have his own lover, but wonders who will be her own. Sei is her first option for a mistress. Not because of the sex (Youko would be better for just that), but because she would kindly reject her advances.

* ''Film/{{The Other Woman|2009}}'': Emilia, plays the eponymous role.

* In ''Film/TheBigclock'', Pauline York is Earl Janoth's mistress. When Janoth sees Stroud leaving her apartment, he assumes she is cheating on him and murders her during the subsequent argument.

* UsefulNotes/SimonBolivar has an interesting variant. While he was only ever married for less than a year (to the Venezuelan aristocrat María Teresa del Toro) in 1802-03, he swore an oath after her sudden death that he would never remarry. Since if Simón Bolívar swears something, [[IGaveMyWord he always does it]] (or at least tries his utmost), he never did remarry...but that didn't keep him from having several long-term mistresses--most famously Manuela Sáenz--and many other, shorter affairs. What makes this so much like a classic affair with a married man is that the long-term ones at least all probably hoped that Bolívar would break his vow and actually marry her, but he never did. The case with Sáenz can also be seen as an inversion, since throughout the relationship, she was married to (if estranged from) one James Thorne, an Englsh expat merchant based in [[UsefulNotes/{{Peru}} Lima]]. (Compounding this, Bolívar made extensive use of the networks Manuela had developed in Lima as Thorne's wife--at Manuela's own insistence.[[note]]Note that these Lima networks were purely through Manula's status as Thorne's wife; she was originally from [[UsefulNotes/{{Ecuador}} Quito]] and knew nobody in Lima until her husband introduced her.[[/note]])

** Battler's stepmother, Kyrie, was this to his father Rudolf before the death of Battler's mother, Asumu. They even got pregnant around the same time.

----> "Good people, you are mistaken; I am the ''Protestant'' whore."

* Looking through the history of any European country, the amount of mistresses the royalty and nobility kept on hand is staggering. Special mention to UsefulNotes/LouisXIV, who was still sleeping around at 70, and [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augustus_II Augustus II of Poland]], who ended up with ''350 '' children, of which ''one'' was legitimate.

** And of course, [[UsefulNotes/TheBritishRoyalFamily Prince Charles]] famously had an affair with Camilla Parker-Bowles for many years throughout their respective first marriages, off and on from ''1971'', before finally marrying her in 2005, by which time the sting of his ex-wife Diana's death wasn't so fresh. Interestingly, Camilla's great-grandmother (mother of her maternal grandmother Sonia Cubitt) was none other than Alice Keppel.

* ''Series/YTheLastMan'': Hero had been in a long-term relationship with her partner Mike, who's married. After he lied about having finally left his wife for her, Hero flew into a rage.

* ''Series/TheWarOfTheWorlds'': Amy starts out this way, as George is revealed to have a wife already. He never gets formally divorced, though he later says Amy is his wife. She later expresses guilt about their affair. His wife thinks he did this because she can't give him a child, and so he's moved on to a woman who can, though he insists it's because Amy is his soulmate. True of his motive or not, Amy does give birth to their baby later.

** UsefulNotes/HenryVIII, Edward IV's grandson, had two confirmed mistresses, Elizabeth Blount and Mary Boleyn (yes, sister to Anne Boleyn). He ''may'' have had other mistresses and considering his personality that wouldn't be surprising but beyond Elizabeth and Mary it is purely speculation. Of course, Anne herself was his quasi-mistress while he went through that whole "divorcing Catherine of Aragon" debacle. Indeed, it seems that Henry was a fan of marrying the mistress. Jane Seymour was his mistress (in the same, not-so-fully-consummated way that Anne had been) while he was married to Anne Boleyn, and went on to become his third wife. Catherine Howard, wife number five, was his mistress while he was married to Anne of Cleves (with whom he never consummated his marriage).
** [[UsefulNotes/TheHouseOfStuart King Charles II of England, Scotland, and Ireland]] was known as "the Merry Monarch" for his free-living lifestyle, and is famous for having twelve acknowledged illegitimate children by seven mistresses -- with no less than five of the children being by Barbara Palmer, Countess of Castlemaine -- and no children at all by his legitimate wife, Catherine of Braganza. Many of Charles' bastards have prominent descendants, with one of them (Diana Spencer) marrying the Prince of Wales (making Princess Di), and thus probably finally getting one of Charles' descendants in line for the throne.

** George II, son of George I, is an interesting case: while he enjoyed a good relationship with his wife, Caroline of Ansbach, he also had a roving eye and had a succession of mistresses during her lifetime--but none without his wife's approval. Indeed, Queen Caroline personally vetted and (it seems) ''interviewed'' the ladies in question to ensure that their personalities were suitable for the role of royal mistress and also that they had no political opinions or associations that would put the King in an awkward position (Caroline was very perceptive and astute in court politics and her husband relied on her judgment in such matters even outside of his mistresses). When Queen Caroline was on her deathbed, she urged George to remarry after her passing; the grief-stricken George refused, famously saying, ''"[[GratuitousFrench Non, j'aurai des maîtresses]]!"'' ("No, I shall have mistresses!") (implying that no other woman could replace her as his wife). (He proceeded to have several mistresses after her death, but true to his word, he never remarried.) Just goes to show that if you're in the right century, ''England'' is another planet.

*** Prince Augustus Frederick, Duke of Sussex, had two marriages declared invalid because his father hadn't given him permission, though this didn't keep him from living with them as man and wife anyway. (Queen Victoria liked her eccentric old Uncle Sussex and, not caring about the lack of permission, made his second wife a duchess in her own right so Sussex and his wife could sit together at royal dinners and other functions.)

*** Prince Augustus Frederick, Duke of Sussex, had two marriages declared invalid because his father hadn't given him permission, though this didn't keep him from living with them as man and wife anyway. (Queen Victoria liked her eccentric old Uncle Sussex and, not caring about the lack of permission, made his wife a duchess in her own right so Sussex and his wife could sit together at royal dinners and other functions.)

* ''VideoGame/PrincessMaker'':
** The second game as a possible ending with the girl as the lover of a local landlord as well. Said landlord [[ChekhovsGunman can potentially show up earlier]] and make the girl his lover if she has high Charisma with low Morals -- it's not recommended to just let her be, though, as she'll get a rather nice allowance from him every month but her stats and overall rep will go lower.
** In said second game the King of the Land also has a royal concubine, and the daughter can speak to her. She seems to be a pretty but deadly bored woman rather disenchanted with the life of the court, but unwilling to leave it due to the benefits it still gives her.

Compare TheUnfairSex, OopsIForgotIWasMarried (if the mistress does not know about the other's family), DarkMistress (who is not an evil version of this, despite the name). Many a TrophyWife starts out this way, although it is by no means guaranteed that she'll eventually become his wife...or, for that matter, that every (usually second or third) marriage between [[MayDecemberRomance an older (and usually rich) man and a younger woman]] started out this way. A RoyalHarem is an officially established and sanctioned legion of mistresses. When the mistress has kids, and the man helps her raise them behind his wife's back, that's SecretOtherFamily. See also GoodAdulteryBadAdultery. And if you can think of a perfectly equivalent, accurate term with the exact same connotations for the [[DistaffCounterpart Spear Counterpart]], please let us know -- society has yet to come up with one.

* ''Manga/RosarioToVampire'' makes use of it overtly; in the case of those seeking Tsukune's love only one has expressed real interest in marriage, with the others either outright saying they want to be something else to him, or simply showing no great interest either way. However more subtly [[spoiler:when we finally discover the full picture of the Shuzen family, we learn that not only was [[DisappearedDad Issa]] casually polygamous, but it is implied that among his partners, Moka's mother [[LadyOfWar Akasha]] [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast Bloodriver]] is Issa Shuzen's mistress rather then his wife. This despite also being a Shinso vampire and one of the Three Dark Lords, who control/watch over Japan.]]

Compare TheUnfairSex, OopsIForgotIWasMarried (if the mistress does not know about the other's family), DarkMistress (who is not an evil version of this, despite the name). Many a TrophyWife starts out this way, although it is by no means guaranteed that she'll [[RemarriedToTheMistress eventually become his wife]]...or, for that matter, that every (usually second or third) marriage between [[MayDecemberRomance an older (and usually rich) man and a younger woman]] started out this way. A RoyalHarem is an officially established and sanctioned legion of mistresses. When the mistress has kids, and the man helps her raise them behind his wife's back, that's SecretOtherFamily. See also GoodAdulteryBadAdultery. And if you can think of a perfectly equivalent, accurate term with the exact same connotations for the [[DistaffCounterpart Spear Counterpart]], please let us know -- society has yet to come up with one.

Compare TheUnfairSex, OopsIForgotIWasMarried (if the mistress does not know about the other's family), DarkMistress (who is not an evil version of this, despite the name). Many a TrophyWife starts out this way, although it is by no means guaranteed that she'll eventually become his wife...or, for that matter, that every (usually second or third) marriage between [[MayDecemberRomance an older (and usually rich) man and a younger woman]] started out this way. A RoyalHarem is an officially established and sanctioned legion of mistresses. When the mistress has kids, and the man helps her raise them behind his wife's back, that's SecretOtherFamily. See also GoodAdulteryBadAdultery. And if you can think of a perfectly equivalent, accurate term with the exact same connotations for the [[DistaffCounterpart Spear Counterpart]], please let us know -- society has yet to come up with one.