WAIT HOLD THE FUCK UP
IS ‘MRS’ JUST MR’S
LIKE BELONGING TO MR
OMG
Mr comes from the French monsieur, which I think literally translates as ‘my lord’ and basically just means master, and Mrs comes from maistre which is the feminine form of master, so actually—for once—no.
This was an extremely relevant comment and I thank you for educating me
Well, not quite, though the end result is right. :)
For the man:
magister->maegster->master/mister->mr
Magister is a Latin noun and title for a man of authority and knowledge - obviously maester in Game of Thrones is derived from this too - and we have some other cognates still in modern English, as for example magistrate, and the verb to master (a subject or another person).
Maegster is the old English with a similar meaning, derived directly from the Latin - so, pre-dating the Norman Conquest and the influx of French influence into the language.
French monsieur, by contrast, has nothing to do with magister - it's a compound word, the possessive mon (my) + sieur/sire/segneur - just my lord. Ma+dame (or ma+damoiselle) is the feminine equivalent.
For the woman:
magistrissa/magistressa->maistresse/mestresse->maistresse->mistress->mrs
Magistr[e/i]ssa is post-classical Latin, and is simply the feminine form of magister. Maistresse/mestresse is the Old French and Anglo-Norman (the variety of French spoken in England after the Norman conquest), and maistresse is the usual version of the form that made it into Middle English - so, this one did come into English via the French.
Maistre/maître, however, is masculine - maistresse/maîtresse is the feminine.
But the end point is - yes, they mean exactly the same thing! Both of them signify, conceptually, the married man and woman who rule the household or estate - but we had to wait until the 14th century to get the Latin-derived version for a woman, because Latin took a long time to come up with one.
Incidentally, given pre-Norman England (ie, Anglo-Saxon England, the guys who spoke Old English) let women inherit and hold land in their own right and have full legal status in dealing with that land, I'm sure Old English had a perfectly functional equivalent term of their own.