Sounding - "kept woman" sends to historical and literary examples of the unequal relations between the wealthy man and rather poor woman who sometimes in accordance with the circumstances, sometimes passes with insidiousness to its full providing.
You should not put an equal-sign between the kept woman and the dissolute woman. One of legendary kept women was Scheherazade who compelled the tsar Shakhriyar not only to provide her, but also finally to recognize all her children born to him during one thousand and one night spent behind fairy tales.
In Japan there is a saying: the wife – for the house, the prostitute – for sex, the geisha – as a hobby. The same definition is fair for antique heteras and the European courtesans.
Not always the role of the kept woman was perceived by the woman as the benefit. The heroine of the play of A. Ostrovsky of "Tea" Larisa Ogudalova can be an example. After Paratov refused to it a legal marriage, she received the offer from the merchant Knurov at whom the keywords characterizing position of the kept woman were told: "Be not afraid of shame, condemnations will not be. There are borders for which condemnation does not pass: I can offer you such enormous contents that the angriest critics of others morality will have to become silent and space out from surprise".
Nevertheless, Larisa death was disposal of such fate what tells it about the last "I thank" to Karandyshev who shot it.
For some reason not all women go voluntarily for keeping of the man. As a rule, contents assumes the full power of "benefactor" over the woman. And within his power and to leave the former passion at any time. To change the status of "kept woman" for the status of the legal wife it is almost unreal as all "dads" have lawful wives who quite often are even informed on collateral women of spouses. It is good if when parting the benefactor does not deprive the kept woman of material security or at least will not leave "in what came". But a habit to receive everything, without giving anything, except the physical and physiological delights, breaks psychology of the woman. Quite often she should look for following "holder" who hardly on the status will be higher than previous. Besides, if at contents the illusion of the relations was supported, the woman will not be able to leave the relations without psychological losses. At the same time, there are precedents when keeping of the woman became honor for the man, and he in every way sought to keep the relations at least in the existing format.
Marquis de Pompadour, Emma Hamilton, Mata Hari, Marilyn Monroe, Lilya Brik, Maria Andreyeva – the incomplete list of women whom men considered to support for happiness.
It is about the women representing the personality. The classical example can be considered the relations of Marilyn Monroe and the U.S. President John Kennadi. In the history there are enough examples when the woman only personal mind and charm forced the man to lose the head and to throw everything that was in the range of its opportunities to her legs. But even such relation did not save the woman from the costs connected with the status of "kept woman". In any case, the same Marilyn Monroe died under very mysterious circumstances which many historians connect with the president's environment. Most likely, so far there are commodity-money relations, and there are men and women, there will be also persons living on keeping of men. But even in such format the woman can count on respect from outside of both the man, and society. For this purpose it is necessary to respect himself and not to consider the advantages as goods. Presence of the effective and clever woman always flatters the man, and, the higher it the status, the more excellently there has to be a woman applying for its material support.