Somome I know has rather strange domestic arrangements. He is unmarried and he has a lady (“Mrs Q”) whom he keeps (in a different town) in a house and generally provides for her upkeep. She is a widow and has two children, presumably by the gentleman in question as they were born after her husband was killed. He stays there whenever hebis in town. I have been to this house for dinner parties and Mrs Q acts as hostess.
Now I am no one to judge and ask the obvious question (why does he not marry her) but what would you call Mrs Q in relation to him. He is unmarried so mistress seems out. She is most certainly a kept woman, but again this seems inappropriate. Domestic Partner; they do not live together. My preferred term is concubine, but for some reason I got stares from others when I stated that.
Significant Other, or SO. It’s nicely generic, so can be used to apply to pretty much any relationship no matter how oddball it is. And it doesn’t have unfortunate associations like your “concubine” or “kept woman”.
Girlfriend, partner, and SO are all used today to describe such as woman. Mistress, is what she would have been called in bygone times whether the fellow was married or not.
They live in different cities for their own reasons, which really aren’t anyone else’s business.
Terms such as “kept woman” and “concubine” are loaded terms, and while you claim to not be in a position to judge, it certainly comes across as such.
Which begs the question of why you remain friends and why you would feel the need to use loaded, insulting terms to describe the hostess of parties you attend.
No, I thought they lived in different cities for shits and giggles.:rolleyes:
I am not his friend. I am a professional acquaintance and I have had the honour of dining at their house. I don’t see any of those terms as “insulting” and It is a different type of situation than the usual and where several adjectives normally employed (like girlfriend) don’t quite fit or the ones that do might be (wrongly IMO) disapproved of.
Well trust me, they are. They imply that the woman’s sole/primary purpose is for sex. Going with the more juvenile-sounding-to-some “girlfriend” is assuredly a step up. Call her his “friend” if you can’t think of a suitable alternative.
Does he ONLY visit when he’s in town for another unrelated reason?
Does she see or sleep with any other men in his absence?
Do they act like a mature couple, or like teenagers when together? (is it meaningful or shallow)
If the answers are yes, yes, and shallow then I would say that’s just one of his bitches, nothing more nothing less.
Now, if it’s a case of where they don’t want to alarm the children with a new man, because he can’t be around full time to be a father figure, then it’s his girlfriend.
Whoever said that was juvenile is being juvenile. “Partner” is juvenile. It’s a politically correct term to give some elasticity to ‘significant other’ because apparently that’s too serious, and it also exists to encompass homosexual relationships.
“Concubine” implies an arranged sexual relationship where the woman plays a very passive role. Historically, concubines have basically been property, without choice in the matter and without other prospects in life. Nobody wants to be a “concubine”, and nobody wants to think of their partner as that.
“Mistress,” in modern usage, implies that the male is getting some extra-marital action. It’s not a complimentary term, and nobody wants to be referred to as such. .
If they have an exclusive loving relationship, the only correct thing to do is refer to them by the same term you’d use for a more traditional partnership: boyfriend/girlfriend, SO or partner. You do not get to include commentary on someone’s love life at their dinner party.
This strikes me as the situation for which SO/Significant Other was invented. The relationship is clearly significant, without falling into any other obvious category.