Beyond extreme
insecurity over their appearance, I have also noticed interesting dynamics in the
relationships of European couples. With respect to the couples I have known, the
men seemed to call the shots disproportionately. While women worked hard to not get fat and to
dress in an impressive manner, many of the men I met overlooked anniversaries,
said unkind things about their wives’ appearance (even in front of other people),
and felt free to wander from their relationships. And much more so than in the United States, I
have known a lot of Europeans in May-December romances. It seemed to me to be tough to be a middle-aged
European woman.
I didn’t
understand why the European women I knew put up with such ca-ca. And I often thought that the American women I
knew would not put up with it.
Certainly,
things are not perfect on this side of the pond. Plenty of American women complain that their
partners are not always thoughtful. And
infidelity also occurs in the United States.
But when I’ve known American men who leave their wives for another
woman, in some ways it wasn’t a shock.
Either the men were always jerks and their wives were saints to put up
with them. Or the men had some mental
illness or addiction such that they weren’t acting rationally.
By
contrast, I’ve just been shocked by otherwise kind and generous European men I’ve
known who were without any mental illness or addition but who’ve suddenly left
marriages or other long-term relationships without any real reason or even
warning. And at least in my observation,
their partners seem to not be terribly upset or shocked by such things. Maybe they are, but they hide it well. Maintaining dignity seemed to be a huge
priority to the European women I knew.
The attitude I observed was if a man got bored or was no longer
interested, so be it. That happens. No crying over spilt milk. Don’t let them see you sweat. As an American, I found this a curious
response. In my observation, American
women are more likely to raise a fuss and not take it lying down.
Also
insightful, in the 1990s, when I lived with a French family for a year, I
remember comments about how Europeans don’t understand Americans’ fascination
with political candidates’ spouses. It
really annoyed them apparently. Hillary
Clinton was first lady at the time, so the issue was a big deal back then for
the Europeans I knew.
I began to
think about why we Americans pay attention to political spouses—apparently more
than Europeans. After reflecting on the
difference, I have come to suspect that it has something to do with our American
attitude that families are a unit and a central part of our lives. In that context, marriages are
partnerships. As such, a candidate’s
spouse is an important reflection of the candidate and may also be an informal
advisor behind the scenes.
By
contrast, the Europeans I knew explicitly and emphatically told me they thought
the candidates’ spouses were irrelevant in politics. They told me family was separate from how one
did one’s job in office. I thought that
delineation was odd. I couldn’t imagine
such a complete lack of integration of one’s private and public life.
In the
1970s, I grew up with Rosalynn Carter as first lady. She used to attend her husband’s cabinet
meetings. She took her role as helpmate
very seriously. In my teen years, Nancy
Reagan had been first lady. She was known
for playing an active role in her husband’s work. She reportedly had great influence in the
people with whom he surrounded himself, as well as the schedule he kept. Barbara Bush had been first lady when I was
an undergrad and had a more hands-off approach, but that was a brief anomaly in
my view. When Bill Clinton ran for president,
he suggested it was a “2 for 1” deal because we’d get brilliant, articulate Hillary
for free. Indeed, at least initially
during her time as first lady, Hillary took an even more formal role in
advising her husband.
But in
Europe, the idea that a spouse may give advice (official or unofficial) to a
politician was rejected out of hand by the people I knew. Indeed, several French women told me that
Francois Mitterand’s wife, Danielle, was an ideal political spouse because she “stayed
out of the way.” That sounded rather
dismissive and insulting to me, but at the time I didn’t know much about
Danielle Mitterand.
However, not long thereafter, Mr. Mitterand
died and like many Americans I was horrified that next to Danielle and her
children were Mr. Mitterand’s shadow family (i.e., his long-time lover and her
children with the former president). To
me, that familial structure spoke volumes about the low status of women in
France. Perhaps polygamy was not legally
permissible, but it was apparently practiced in a de facto manner.
That was a
while back, but more recently Nicolas Sarkozy was elected to the same office
and displayed similarly repulsive attitudes towards marriage—and arguably by
extension similarly repulsive attitudes towards women generally. Already divorced once when he was elected to
the presidency, Mr. Sarkozy and his second wife, Cecilia, were viewed initially
as a power couple. She actually had a
role in his administration as a chief aide.
However, she left him in 2005 and they divorced in 2007, not long after
he was elected president. Less than a
month later, Sarkozy met a singer/model, Carla Bruni, whom he married the next
year. Cecilia Sarkozy was about the same
age as Nicolas; Carla Bruni was over a decade younger than her husband.
I doubt an
American president would ever do such a thing.
He would be reviled for it and it would ruin his political career. I know plenty of American women who loathed
Bill Clinton after it became known that he had cheated on his wife during his
White House years. As if his infidelity
was not bad enough, the lying was worse.
Who can forget Hillary defending her husband and blaming right wing
conspiracies on national television? To
betray and humiliate a women of such high intelligence and compassion is pretty
horrific. I actually know women who were
so deeply repulsed by Bill Clinton’s disgusting behavior that it prompted them
to leave the Democratic Party and refuse to vote for Democratic candidates in
the future. Imagine how much worse the
reaction would have been if the Clintons’ marriage had ended and Bill had married
Monica Lewinsky or another young woman.
Matthew 5:28
But I say to you that
every man who looks at a woman
lustfully has already committed adultery in his heart.
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