The very sound - "kept woman" refers to historical and literary examples of unequal relations between a wealthy man and a poor woman, who sometimes, due to circumstances, sometimes by deceit, switches to his full support.
You should not equate a kept woman and a dissolute woman. One of the legendary kept women was Scheherazade, who forced King Shahriyar not only to provide for her, but ultimately to recognize all her children, born to him during a thousand and one nights spent following fairy tales.
In Japan, there is a saying: a wife is for the house, a prostitute is for sex, a geisha is for the soul. The same definition is true for ancient getters and European courtesans.
The role of a kept woman was not always perceived by a woman as a blessing. An example is the heroine of A. Ostrovsky's play "The Seagull" Larisa Ogudalova. After Paratov refused her legal marriage, she received an offer from the merchant Knurov, in which the key words describing the position of the kept woman were said: “Do not be ashamed, there will be no convictions. There are boundaries beyond which condemnation does not go: I can offer you such an enormous content that the most evil critics of someone else's morality will have to shut up and open their mouths in surprise."
Nevertheless, Larisa's death turned out to be a deliverance from such a fate, as evidenced by her last "thanks" to Karandyshev who shot her.
For some reason, not all women voluntarily go to the maintenance of a man. As a rule, the content assumes the complete power of the “benefactor” over the woman. Moreover, it is in his power to leave the old passion at any time. It is practically unrealistic to change the status of a "kept woman" to the status of a legal spouse, since all "daddies" have legal wives, who are often even informed about the spouses' side women. It is good if, when parting, the benefactor does not deprive the kept woman of material support, or at least does not leave "what she came with." But the habit of receiving everything, giving nothing but their physical and physiological charms, breaks the psychology of a woman. Often she has to look for the next "owner", which is unlikely to be higher in status than the previous one.
In addition, if the illusion of the relationship was maintained during the maintenance, the woman will not be able to leave the relationship without psychological loss.
At the same time, there are precedents when the maintenance of a woman became an honor for a man, and he did his best to keep the relationship at least in the existing format.
Marquise de Pompadour, Emma Hamilton, Mata Hari, Marilyn Monroe, Lilya Brik, Maria Andreeva - an incomplete list of women who were considered happiness to be kept by men.
We are talking about women who are a person. A classic example is the relationship between Marilyn Monroe and US President John Kennady. There are enough examples in history when a woman only with her personal mind and charm made a man lose his head and throw everything that was in the range of his capabilities at her feet. But even such an attitude did not save a woman from the costs associated with the status of a "kept woman." In any case, the same Marilyn Monroe died under very mysterious circumstances, which many historians associate with the president's entourage.
In all likelihood, as long as there are commodity-money relations, and there are men and women, there will also be persons living on the support of men. But even in this format, a woman can count on respect from both men and society. To do this, you need to respect yourself and not consider your dignity as a commodity. The presence of a spectacular and intelligent woman always flatters a man, and the higher his status, the more incomparable a woman should be, claiming his material support.
