I'm currently reading in my history text book (Give me liberty, by Eric Foner) about titles given in colonial New England, one of which is mistress (the female equivalent of master). In modern American English this normally refers to a woman involved in an extramarital affair with a man. When did the change in the meaning of the word occur? Was there any justification of why the meaning changed?
Thanks!
I'm going to cite the OED on this one:
7. A woman other than his wife with whom a man has a long-lasting sexual relationship. In early use: †a woman notorious for some act (obs.).
▸?a1439 Lydgate tr. Fall of Princes (Bodl. 263)i. 2566 Callid..a fals traitouresse..Off newe diffamed, and named a maistresseOff fals moordre.
1611 R. Johnson tr. G. Botero Relations Famous Kingdoms World (new ed.) 213 Euery man hath his Mistris, with Instruments of Musicke, and such like pleasures [etc.].
a1631 J. Donne Serm. (1959) V. 302 Those women, whom the Kings were to take for their Wives, and not for Mistresses, (which is but a later name for Concubines).
1675 W. Wycherley Country-wife i. i. 5 And next, to the pleasure of making a New Mistriss, is that of being rid of an old One.
1732 Pope True Narr. what passed in London in Swift et al. Misc.: 3rd Vol. 272 They took to Wife their several kept Mistresses.
The first one is debatable as it also lines up with the meaning "A woman loved and courted by a man" .
Making it more complex during the 17th- 19th century it also meant wife.
But the short version is the 17th century, with it shedding many of its other meanings except that of an extra-marital sexual relationship by the 19th century.