The Mrs. and the Mistress

I love tracing words through history. Oftentimes, the meaning of a word (or, in this case, an abbreviation) changes so drastically from one generation to another that the original and modern meanings are completely different. In the case of Mrs. being used as an abbreviation, the original word from which is derives is still very much alive. But there's a reason we don't typically hear it unabbreviated in its true form.

When you see "Mrs." written out, or when you address someone and say the abbreviation, what do you say? If you're like most of us, you say "missus," or "misses," depending on the vernacular. However, if you've ever paid attention, there's no "r" in either of those words. So, where does it come from.

Mistress.

I immediately thought of Anna Karenina, for obvious reasons.

Now, that doesn't mean you've been calling married women whores all this time. Mistress used to stand for "a woman who has authority, control, or power, especially the female head of a household, institution, or other establishment," and in fact still does according to the dictionary. But that's not the meaning most people associate with the word. In our modern American society -- which seems to be obsessed with extramarital affairs -- it means "a woman who has a continuing extramarital sexual relationship with a man." So, with that definition embedded in our culture, it's no wonder we have gotten out of the use of calling women "mistresses." 

The origin of the word mistress comes from mister, and it's a simple jump to take from one to the other. So, it makes sense that a "mistress" is the female version of the title of respect. And when people abbreviated the true words, the abbreviations made sense: Mr. and Mrs. Now, however, with the stigma we've attributed to the word -- ever since it fell out of favor in the 14th century and ultimately gained its unfortunate denotation in the 15th century -- we've turned out backs on the truth in this case.

But you can't quite get away with using "Miss" as a way of circumventing the awkward alternation: "miss" also derives from "mistress." So, no matter how hard you try, you're going to deal with perception and connotation. 

Which is kind of how life works, isn't it?

-JJ