TWINNING... wait, there’ s more
Elizabeth Taylor
Elizabeth Taylor became the mistress of Eddie Fisher whilst he was still married to Debbie Reynolds. He consoled her after the death of her third husband Mike Todd, to whom he had stood as best man at their wedding and Debbie Reynolds was their matron of honour. Following his divorce Eddie Fisher’ s career nosedived whilst Debbie Reynolds saw a meteoric rise boosted by the scandal. Debbie was America’ s sweetheart so Elizabeth Taylor became the most hated woman in America. Eddie was married to Liz for 5 years before she met and married Richard Burton. After seven years Debbie Reynolds held out the olive branch to Elizabeth Taylor. They became good friends again and in later life Debbie used to visit Liz and they’ d sit on her bed and reminisce whilst eating pumpkin pie. Elizabeth left Debbie a legacy of jewellery in her Will which she inherited on Elizabeth’ s death in 2011.
Eastern Suburbs NWR meeting on Mistresses- 6th May
Although it did not generate the amount of interest that was evident in our last twinning topic, those who participated learnt worthwhile things when social pages were opened. I include a section from my introduction.
“ Although the concept of mistresses tends to evoke images of the gutter press unlocking salacious tit bits its worth thinking about it in the context of sex and power. Our Macquarie Dictionary defines“ mistress” as‘ a woman who has a continual sexual relationship with one man outside marriage.
I brought some concubine tea for“ health and beauty” for supper [ purchased while @ a tea tasting in China ]. With changes in recent times to an understanding of de facto relationships I turned to the Family Law Act. Before the 1975 Family Law Act, divorce was difficult and so perhaps there were more mistresses. De facto relationships, especially concerning property, if the relationships broke down and needed dispersion, had been recognized in the 70’ s & 80’ s in most states. Between the 70’ s and the 90’ s family law matters were handled at a state level. However in 2009 the Federal courts were given the responsibility and they officially recognised de facto relationships. Today we recognize the roles of husband, wife & mistress as clearly as our ancestors did more than 200 years ago.
23 of our members attended on a crisp autumn evening. Many chose mistresses with whom they had a cultural link. Here are their snippets!
Madame Francois de
Maintenon [ Louis XIV 1700’ s ] Madame Francois d’ Abigne was originally married to an older French poet who died when she was 25. She then became governess to Louis XIV’ s children, some of whom were born from his previous mistresses. He was attracted to Francois and consequently elevated her to the nobility. She converted to Catholicism and was secretly married to King Louis in 1683. However she could not be publicly accepted as she was a commoner. She founded a school for noble girls who would not otherwise have had an education. Because of her influence King Louis revoked the Edict of Nantes, which forced Hugenot protestants to leave France subsequently starting the watch industry in places like Geneva. This was a point not lost on Monique our Swiss presenter.
Lady Hamilton [ Lord Nelson 1800’ s ] Emma was born in a village near Sue Perkin’ s parents in Chester. She was the daughter of a poor blacksmith but at age of 12 worked as a nurse maid and was then sought out by a brothel keeper. She posed as a model for photographs but then her current partner left her. When Lord Hamilton first saw her in Naples he was smitten. Lord Hamilton and Nelson were close friends and in fact Hamilton so enjoyed and revered Nelson’ s company he was prepared to turn a blind eye to their affair and live as a ménage a trois when he was not at sea. Emma died at 50 and she and Nelson had a daughter Horatia but never married. All over Portsmouth both Nelson and Emma are revered in spite of the fact that she was not allowed to go to Nelson’ s funeral.
Henry Parkes Henry was the Father of Federation of Australia and father of 17 children. He was a self-educated figure whose natural talents helped him embark on a political career. However the doors of Government house were soon closed to him because of his second wedding to his previous mistress, Clarindah. His 3rd mistress, Nellie Dixon later became his wife and she remained with him until he died in 1896.
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