The Bolivar bulletin. [volume] (Bolivar, Hardeman County, Tenn.) 1865-1888, 1879-10-30
Mr., Mrs, and Mrs.

Richard Grant White writes to the
New York Times: l am asked when it
became the custom to call married
women Missiz,' instead of ''Mis-
tress." l believe that it would be diff
cult to fix upon a time when this de-
plorable change in pronunciation took
place, and, indeed, l am very sure that
the clipped and degraded form of mis-
tresS made its way slowly among the
folk who were born to speak English,
and did not prevail until some genera
tons had passed away after it came
into Il certain vogue. In fact, mistress
is not yet absolutely driven from the
field, for there are peOple-both in Eng
land and America who disclaim 73isSiz,
and cling to the old, full-sounding, dig
nified mistress. But although the ques-
ton propounded to me can not be ex-
actly answered, it gives us good. Occa-
sion to glance at the history of our most
commonly used titles of respect.
Mister is, like MiSSiz, a degraded form
of a better word, Master, and Master it
self is the product of a gradual decay of
the Latin n1dgiSter, both words having
the same meaning. Master, however,
is not directly derived from nldgiSter.
The Latin word, in the course of those
centuries which we call the Dark Ages,
dropped the q and became master, OF
7llaistre, in old French. In this form it
passed into Old English, in which it is
found always, or almost always, written
either with at or az, and there is no
room for doubt that the pronunciation
of the word was the same both in Eng
land and in France.
Our wretched little NjsSiz has the
same noble descent as Mister. The
E.,
and the latter word naturally soon fol-
lowed the former into use. At first it
had a like application, and was given to
women who were only maisteresses.
But it lost this elevation much sooner
than its masculine counterpart did. The
desire to please the vanity Of women,
sometimes called chivalric, sometimes
gallant, which has done much greater
harm, did some harm in leading quickly
to the application of this title to all
ladies-that is, all gentlewomen, who
had no other Sooner than master, too,
it lost its both in pronunciation and in
spelling Mistress is a much older Eng
fish sound than Mister.
Mistress was given as a title of honor
to young girls as well as to matrOns early
in the sixteenth century, II not before
that time. OF its use in this manner in
the time of Elizabeth, Shakspeare's
q Mistress - Anne Page, in the Windsor
comedy, is an example. lime Page was
a mere slip of a girl, but being the
daughter of gentleman, she was ''NIis-
tresSed. - This use of Mistress prevailed
until about the reign of Queen Anne.
Until the end of the seventeenth cen
turv unmarried ladies we're called
Mistress-Mistress Mary, Mistress Betty,
and so forth. As their mothers
were also called Mistress, the
fashion makes some confusion for the
modern reader of old-time literature,
particularly in the old English comedies.
In the drG9Rutis persona of these there
will be half a dozen ladies, all styled
- Mrs, - of whom some will be married
women, and others young, unmarried
girls. 1t is not always easy to discover
the exact position of these ladies, even
by their manners, particularly when the
Mrs. is a widow.
Miss, as a title of respect, is the most
modern of the three common titles of
our day. Two hundred years ago it
was a title of positive disrespect, and
was applied only to Unchaste women.
1t came to be thus generally used in the
time of Charles II. In a well known
passage in q Evelyn's Diary" of the
date Of 1912, he records: In this acted
We faire and famous comedian call'd
Roxalana, from We part she performed;
and | think it was the last, she being
taken to be the Earle of OXford's misSe,
Gas at this time they began to call lewd
women).'' This shows good reason
why young unmarried ladies of charac-
ter were not then - Misses The prac-
tice in question did not, however, pre-
vail very long; it only lasted through
the Stuarts, and went out of England
with them. We are able to trace the
history of this word by the help of the
comedies of the time. Those exemplary
gentlemen, William Wycherley, Sir
John Vanbrugh, and William Congreve,
have left unmistakable evidence upon
the subject. How and why was it that
Mss so suddenly and so thoroughly
changed its grade and its significance,
nothing remains to show. We only
know that the change was made, and
that the title, which was one of disre-
spect under Charles II. and James II,
became one of respect under William
and Mary and Anne.