A History Of Marriage by Elizabeth Abbott

Husbands and wives “were not expected to quiver at each other’s touch, to adore one another or to fulfill each other’s emotional needs,” she writes. Historically, families around the world have arranged marriages primarily for political or economic reasons. That’s because the idea of a romantic marriage is a relatively modern one. Since Hagar’s era, however, a handful of women have learned to parlay their scandalous relationships into positions of power-and some have changed history in doing so.Ībbott begins her collection of biographies with an important caveat: Mistressdom hasn’t always been as stigmatized as it is today.

Several millenniums later, the mistress remains a tenuous position, as historian Elizabeth Abbott explores in her new book, Mistresses: A History of the Other Woman, out this week. The mistress’s pride was no match for the wife’s wrath. Her lesson: Any power she had ever acquired was ephemeral, contingent on factors beyond her ability to please her lover or bear him a healthy son. In an instant, Hagar was banished a second time. “Cast out this slave woman with her son!” she demanded of Abraham. (An angel of God eventually persuaded a chastened Hagar to return to the couple.) Several years later, after God restored Sarah’s fertility and she gave birth to Isaac, Sarah began, once again, to fiercely resent her husband’s concubine. When Hagar became pregnant with Ishmael-who would become Abraham’s heir-the formerly submissive servant turned haughty and began to treat Abraham’s lawful wife with “contempt.” Sarah punished Hagar for her attitude and sent the slave packing. *Īccording to the Bible, Hagar was an Egyptian slave sent to the bed of her master, Abraham, by his barren wife, Sarah. Before Monica Lewinsky, Camilla Parker Bowles, or Marilyn Monroe, there was Hagar-the world’s first known mistress.

A History Of Marriage by Elizabeth Abbott