Contd...
[...] The formation of mistress relationships, sometimes involving religious or customary marriage rites, provides sex workers with a steady income and a place to live. However, the instability of these relationships often means that for the women a return to sex work is a common outcome. For their foreign ‘husbands’, mistress relationships may be more costly than casual sexual encounters, but the stability and intimacy of a long-term relationship brings with it other benefits, including the health and psychological benefits of regular contact with a single partner as well as social prestige. Many men prefer mistress arrangements because they dislike the negotiations and clear monetary transactions involved in casual paid sex. They may also believe that by having a single partner they are less likely to contract a sexually transmitted disease.
While the men may assume that a mistress relationship implies that they have sole sexual access to their ‘wives’, many women continue to supplement their incomes through paid casual sex with other men. For some women these ‘extramarital’ relationships may act as a safety net in case their primary relationship dissolves. Other women may continue to have sexual relationships with their pre-existing legal husbands, boyfriends or pimps. Although such relationships are clearly based on an economic transaction in which neither partner has an expectation of a permanent arrangement, many couples express genuine affection for each other. At the same time, while the lack of legal standing means that neither the woman nor man can be charged with bigamy, a further implication of these unions is that neither partner has legal recourse in relation to property, custody of children, or maintenance when the relationship ends (see Vasoo and Yap, 1999; Arshad, 2003)[...]