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What was the now-obsolete meaning of being the favourite of a lady, or to receive her favours?

Perhaps I’m too innocent. I’d always thought of it as close, warm friendship and trust; a confidante. This passage from Gulliver’s Travels makes me think it means “admission to her bedroom and bed.” I don’t find that in OED, but I do find it in dictionary.com.

What’s your understanding?
    [To raise money, it was proposed] to Tax those Qualities of Body and Mind for which Men chiefly value themselves, the Rate to be more or less according to the Degrees of excelling, the decision whereof should be left entirely to their own Breast. The highest Tax was upon Men who are the greatest Favourites of the other Sex, and the Assessments according to the Number and Natures of the Favours they have received; for which they are allowed to be their own Vouchers.
 
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I didn't realize that "favors" meaning sexual favors, was obsolete. The OED Online does include this definition.

quote:
favour, favor, n
2 d.
Euphemistically. Formerly also the last favour (= Fr. les dernières faveurs).
1676 WYCHERLEY Pl. Dealer V. iii, She..granted you the last favour, (as they call it).
1695 CONGREVE Love for L. III. xiv, You think it more dangerous to be seen in Conversation with me, than to allow some other Men the last favour.
1824 MEDWIN Convers. Byron (1832) I. 87 One who had bestowed her favours on many.

And under favourite
And this quote seems suggestive.
quote:
favourite, favorite, n. and a.
1838
LYTTON Leila II. i, The king smiled slightly at the ardour of the favourite of his army.

And this article talks about Tony Augarde's Oxford Guide to Word Games
quote:
Tony Augarde - author of the Oxford Guide to Word Games (available at Vancouver Public Library) and an Internet Wordplay column - says our almost-anything-goes society has rendered the once-indelicate acceptable, leaving the stamp of taboo on only a brace of four-letter words.

For classy examples of the real thing, he cites the novel Moll Flanders where author Daniel Defoe "... avoided calling his heroine big-breasted by describing her as 'well-carriaged,' while Moll herself calls sexual intercourse 'the last favour.' "

Look at the list of euphemisms at the end of the article. I like the last one.

Moll Flanders, paragraphs 105 and 106
quote:
We had not sat long, but he got up, and, stopping my very breath with kisses, threw me upon the bed again; but then being both well warmed, he went farther with me than decency permits me to mention, nor had it been in my power to have denied him at that moment, had he offered much more than he did.

However, though he took these freedoms with me, it did not go to that which they call the last favour, which, to do him justice, he did not attempt; and he made that self-denial of his a plea for all his freedoms with me upon other occasions after this. When this was over, he stayed but a little while, but he put almost a handful of gold in my hand, and left me, making a thousand protestations of his passion for me, and of his loving me above all the women in the world.


Laura Betzig talks about "British Ploygyny" in Human Biology and History ,edited by Malcolm T. Smith
quote:
  • Page 42
    Swift suggests 5 guineas for a squeezed breast, and 100 guineas at least for 'the last favour' if not a settlement of £20 a year for life.
  • Page 45
    Moll got 5 guineas for the first 1 5 minutes' foreplay, a handful of gold for going further, and 1 00 guineas for doing 'the last favour'.


Swift is quoted by Sir Walter Scott in The Works of Jonathan Swift, containing additional letters, tracts and poems not hitherto published, 2nd edition. 1824.
quote:
Page 445
In this case, take care to get as much out of him as you can; and never allow him the smallest liberty, not the squeezing of your hand, unless he puts a guinea into it; so, by degrees, make him pay accordingly for every new attempt, doubling upon him in proportion to the concessions you allow, and always struggling, and threatening to cry out, or tell your lady, although you receive his money: five guineas for handling your breast is a cheap pennyworth, although you seem to resist with all your might; but never allow him the last favour under a hundred guineas, or a settlement of twenty pounds a-year for life.

Don't take this too seriously. After all, he also said, on page 404, "You need not wipe your knife to cut bread for the table, because in cutting a slice or two it will wipe itself."

This message has been edited. Last edited by: tinman,
 
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