The English Gentleman's Mistress

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In undertaking to write a treatise on the English Gentleman's Mistress, one is immediately faced with an almost insuperable difficulty. It is that there is a generally accepted belief that English gentlemen do not have mistresses. This is a defensive smokescreen invented by the Victorians and, by and large, English gentlemen have been puffing out the smoke ever since.
Now, if the subject had been the French Gentleman's Mistress it would have involved a lifetime sifting the information available, while in America the entire researches of Dr Kinsey into sexual aberrations would have been a mere footnote to the truly vast subject of the heterosexual infidelities of the American male.
The only alleviating factor in attempting my difficult task in the case of the British is the certain knowledge that, if the Islamic penalty of decapitation for adulterers was applied to the English upper classes, there would be the greatest difficulty in making up a mixed foursome at the average... Tovább

Fülszöveg

á
In undertaking to write a treatise on the English Gentleman's Mistress, one is immediately faced with an almost insuperable difficulty. It is that there is a generally accepted belief that English gentlemen do not have mistresses. This is a defensive smokescreen invented by the Victorians and, by and large, English gentlemen have been puffing out the smoke ever since.
Now, if the subject had been the French Gentleman's Mistress it would have involved a lifetime sifting the information available, while in America the entire researches of Dr Kinsey into sexual aberrations would have been a mere footnote to the truly vast subject of the heterosexual infidelities of the American male.
The only alleviating factor in attempting my difficult task in the case of the British is the certain knowledge that, if the Islamic penalty of decapitation for adulterers was applied to the English upper classes, there would be the greatest difficulty in making up a mixed foursome at the average tennis party on the vicarage lawn.
The point is that, however permissive our society has become in places like Putney, Purley and Penge, in the more stately homes of England the eleventh commandment, 'Thou shalt not be found out', is still assiduously observed.
I should make it clear here that this slim volume does not pretend to be the definitive work even in such a highly specialized field. That must remain a task for someone more intellectually and physically qualified than myself. My only aim is to provide a guide book for the dedicated ornithologist as an aid to identifying this particular rara avis. If any of my readers should be successful in this, my advice would be to run for his life.
continued from front Jlap]
Douglas Sutherland was brought up in Scotland in the strict John Knox porridge-'n-prayers-for-breakfast tradition. It therefore came as a considerable shock to him, perusing the morning papers in the prefects' study at school, to learn that his mother was in the process of divorcing his father for adultery. He immediately sent his fag for a dictionary so that he could look the word up.
This has had a traumatic efTect on his later life. As his various marriages reached the inevitable stage, sometimes rather loosely described as 'the seven year itch', he did not, as did so many of his contemporaries, seek solace in extramarital dalliance. Instead he sternly divorced (or, more frequently, was sternly divorced by) his current spouse and immediately set about the task of discovering a successor.
He is singularly reticent on the subject of whether time has mellowed this uncompromising attitude, largely on the grounds that he has no wish to disturb the tranquillity of his current marriage of eighteen years' standing.
For the benefit of any lonely hearts who might pick up this book, however, he admits to being an extremely active sexagenarian who still enjoys riding, communion of the mind, and having his back scratched.
Other books in this series also published by Debrett:
The English Gentleman The English Gentleman's Wife The English Gentleman's Child

Debrett's Peerage Ltd 73-77 Britannia Road London S.W.6
ISBN 0 905649 45 1 Vissza