# Single Guy With "Mistress" ? \[Reaper\]
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/single-guy-with-mistress-reaper/512274
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [October 1, 2009, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/single-guy-with-mistress-reaper/512274 "2009-10-01T20:37:20Z")
**Posts on this page:** 2
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Mr.Slant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Slant)
#### Post date: [October 1, 2009, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/single-guy-with-mistress-reaper/512274/1 "2009-10-01T20:37:20Z")
This was inspired by an episode of Reaper.
In the episode, someone referred a woman that the Devil had been romantically involved with [but had not married] for years as his “mistress”.
I’d always been of the belief that a man’s girlfriend wouldn’t count as a mistress unless he was married.
Am I missing a turn of the phrase?
Is the Devil some kind of linguistic exception?
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### Author:  [@Bridget\_Burke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bridget_Burke)
#### Post date: [October 1, 2009, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/single-guy-with-mistress-reaper/512274/2 "2009-10-01T20:54:17Z")
Nope. The more old-fashioned meaning of Mistress is “kept woman.” Or just a single woman in a long-standing sexual relationship with a man to whom she was not married.
Back then, a “girl friend” was somebody you took to the sock hop; maybe you sometimes shared a malt.