Mistress Versus Concubine - was Schwarzenegger Born at the Wrong Time?

Making headlines this week is the news Arnold Schwarzenegger's infidelity. TMZ reports Arnold had an affair with his housekeeper Mildred Patricia Baena about fourteen years ago. Patty, as she is called, worked as a domestic servant who took care of the Schwarzenegger's family for the last twenty years.

Patty did not tell Arnold about the son he sired until his son was a toddler. Since then, Arnold has been generous with gifts.

Unfortunately, his wife Maria Shriver just found out about it but no one in the news is reporting whether the affair was the cause of the divorce, or if the news surfaced out of a financial analysis of their assets - which is normal when a couple decides to divorce. Maria Shriver is not taking interviews but I can only imagine how she must have felt after hearing about the secret for so many years after it occurred. Would it have been better and easier to deal with if she had known right away?

Today's terms

In the United States, we use the words prostitute or whore to label a temporary sexual servant. We use the terms other woman, mistress, or kept woman to indicate the more permanent relationship of a woman who has had a long-term relationship with a married man. When children are born outside of the realms of marriage, they are referred to as bastards.

In the past

A concubine was a sexual servant. According to the "New World Encyclopedia," rich or elite men took concubines as secondary wives for the sole purpose of procreation and sexual pleasure. The word concubine has historically included both voluntary and forced sexual servitude. It has also been used to indicate both temporary and permanent relationships.

In some cases, in China, pre-1949, concubines were considered second wives or permanent mistresses and had legal status. Their children shared almost the same status as the first wife's children and were direct heirs of their father. If the first wife died, the second wife would change roles, taking over the first wife's duties.

Status

In all cases, men who kept lovers were expected to take care of them and provide for them financially. A poor man would not be able to afford the services of a concubine.

In Roman times, marriage was for procreation purposes only. The marriage date was normally marked by the day of the first birth of a child. Consequently, men who chose women who could not bear children were free to move on to another woman. At the time of the marriage, most often the woman would lose all inheritance and rights to her natural family, and become the property of her husband and his family.

Polygamy and community living

In Islam societies, states Mary Amir Ali, in the white paper "Who Practices Polygamy" the Qur'an has explicitly given permission for a man to marry "two or three or four" wives. Of course, the Qur'an also cautions men that caring for multiple wives can be trying and to only take a wife if he can afford one. In the United States, it is up to the states to determine marital law. As of today's writing, there is only one state that currently allows temporary concubinage (prostitution) and that is limited to just a few counties in Nevada. Permanent long-term relationships such as concurrent polygamy or bigamy are illegal in the U.S.

Serial Polygamy

Serial polygamy means having multiple marriages sequentially. Elizabeth Taylor was a famous serial polygamist, have had many husbands over the course of her life. Printed by the Huffington Post, Taylor is quoted as once saying, "I think I ended up being the scarlet woman partly because of my rather puritanical upbringing and beliefs," she once said. "I couldn't just have a romance; it had to be marriage."

How costly is that to be married and divorced, married and divorced? Who is making out with this system - certainly not those getting married and divorced?

Points to ponder

In the U.S., according to the CDC (Centers for Disease and Control), marriages are failing at a rate of about 50 percent. A very common reason for divorce is that one or both of the partners cheated or had an affair with someone outside the boundaries of his or her marriage.

We live three times as long as our ancestors did. We are more mobile than in any time in history. Maybe a mistress, concubine, bastard or cheater are the right labels, but I think we can do better, because this negative language affects families and impacts our children.

Isn't it time we change the laws to reflect a more loving, mobile and less restrictive society and stop beating ourselves up for our times?

Sources:

TMZ

Huffington Post