I had an interesting correspondance with a reporter from Barcelona, who was analyzing the Elito Spitzer scandal and wanted to know why American wives "stand by their man" after such a betrayal.
Let me share our conversation with you:
Dear Ms. Bright,
My name is Juan Canete. I am the correspondent in Washington DC for
the Spanish daily El Periodico, the most important newspaper in the city of Barcelona.
The Eliot Splitzer scandal has provided us with a familiar picture in American
politics: a politician who appears in front of the press confessing an extramarital affair, and the wife stands next to him, stoically.
I am preparing an story about this "public" ritual. Coming from a Mediterranean country like Spain, it is quite shocking to see the wife standing by "her man."
Juan Caneto
Dear Juan,
Thanks for writing me. I am very interested in this subject too, and I have written before about the plight of the "cuckolded wife."
Let me address your questions:
1.Why do you think these spouses accept this kind of public humiliation?
They have a huge investment in their marriage... it's their career too. Their "family" is a unit that is used in their campaigns to get elected. It's practically a requirement of office here.
2. Why is it so important for the husbands to appear with their wives?
It's contrition for sexual misconduct. She's understood to be the very first victim, and must be the first to forgive him, if he has any chance with the public at all.
3. Why would be wrong for him to appear alone?
It would show that he had utterly failed to keep his marriage together, which again, is used as a symbol of his commitment to everyone else, his constituents.
4. What about her image? What do you think that the public thinks about
the wife when she is standing by her man?
Horrifed sympathy. Nausea. It's the fascination of a auto accident, someone else's tragedy is riveting. Many have fantasies about how she should cut his dick off, but at the same time thinking she's noble to carry on with him, with a shred of dignity. We wondering if she's been paid off. People think Bill Clinton is "making up" to Hillary even now. Everyone feels a little lucky to not be a fat cat's wife.
5. Do you think this is a sexist situation? I mean, do you think that
if a female politician was in the same situation her husband would
stand by her?
That situation you suggest, is so rare as to be irrelevant. I can't think of a single parallel example in US history. And yes, the sexism is so tremendous, that very few women even have the chance to test the waters on this subject. I think among ordinary familes, the husband would go to great lengths to cover it up, because it would reflect badly on his virility, everyone would be worried about "emasculating" him.
Let me ask you... What would such a political wife do in Barcelona— if her husband was caught cheating on her I'm dying to know!
Susie
Dear Susie,
It's hard for me to imagine a political wife in Spain standing by her man in a press conference.
First of all, our politician's private life is not as important as in the US. For instance, the presence of the wife in the election trial is no as usual and constant as here. Recently, the prime minister's wife didn't attend to a royal reception commemorating the king's birthday because she was singing with her choir. She was criticized, but not too much.
Some years ago, an important member of the conservative government left and eventually divorced his wife to marry a twenty-something he met in a party convention. He cheated his wife before leaving her. Later he left this second wife and married a third woman. It was a gossip story for the gossip press, not a politic story for the 'serious' press. He did not resign at all, and nobody asked him to. Both cheated wives gave interviews, to be
sure, but to the gossip media.
I think Spanish people would not see as a good thing for the politician toshow up with his wife in a press conference. They would think something like 'this jerk not only cheats her but humiliates her in public for his own selfish interest'. Probably she would be criticized for accepting to play this PR game.
It is not that Spain is not sexist. It is indeed (at the end of the day we invented the words 'macho' and 'machismo'). But, as you said, in our ancestral catholic culture the woman 'belongs' to the man but the man also must fullfil his duties with her, she has 'some rights'. One of them is to protect her. It is already enough burden for her to have been cheated. She does not need to appear in front the whole country as the humiliated wife. And, quiet frankly, I do not imagine a wife doing this (not mine, for sure!). Call it the 'passionate mediterranian woman', if you want.
Juan
Dear Juan,
I thought of a historical reason for why most American and Spanish attitudes towards a wife's reaction to her husband's betrayal might be different.
This one is the most intriguing of all...
Land in the US that was originally colonized by the Spanish has profoundly different property laws, regarding gender, than the areas taken over by the English.
According to traditional Spanish law, a woman comes into a marriage with her own property, and if something should happen to that marriage, her property stays with her. She could have land in her own name— this was not thought of as "feminist," but merely matralineal. Women's familes counted for something, their historical line.
What this meant in modern American life, is that when the US became independent, the divorce laws followed the tradition set by the original settlers. In California— where I live— because the Spanish tradition is so profound, the divorce laws ALWAYS gave women half of everything earned in the marriage, plus their own property they brought with them into the marriage. Hence, Spanish-tradition states like California were clearly favored by wives, in breakups.
Nowadays, the 50/50 breakup in divorces is much more common, but California and other Spanish-tradition states are still the minority in their property-respect for women's matralineal lines.
In the British Protestant tradition, when a woman leaves her father's household. she leaves everything, and everything she brings into the marriage becomes her husband's. Her lot is cast with him, her identity is subsumed by his. Her maiden name, her family, is irrelevant.
I am describing to you a very old, tradition. I'm sure modern American spouses do not view each other this way, consciously. But there is a sense in WASP culture, unlike the Hispanic Cathoic tradition, that once a woman commits herself to a man, his survival is her survival. That surely must affect how she tries to cope with trauma to their relationship!
Susie
Dear Susie,
On the issue of property laws and how land rights have a matralineal path in the Spanish law, this is still the case in Spain.
In fact, women do not give up their last names when they marry and they keep their family's last names (i.e. in order to be able to trace the family tree). But like you say, this
has nothing to do with giving women their rights but, on the contrary, making sure that family property (i.e. property over which the men have decision making power) can be traced through the generations.
At any rate, I agree with you that these two approaches, which come from long back, do affect how women will react.
One last point: as an ancestral 'machista' society, Spain thinks that whatever happens at home stays at home, even if we are talking about a politician. This means that politicians are seen as such, and not necessarily as how good husbands are. On the other hand, the fact that whatever happens at home stays at home means also that issues like abuse and
domestic violence are mostly hidden and it has taken a lot of time to have laws that consider this abuse as a crime. And above all it was hard (and sometimes it is still) to consider this abuse as something that can and must be rejected and dealt with in the public sphere, not only at home.
Thanks again for your info and comments.
Best regards,
Juan
