Sordidly Scandalous

Women often do find reason to forgive or to overlook promiscuity in their husbands' behaviour.  A marriage generally means that each of the partners has agreed, through convention, expectation and legal precedent, to remain faithful to one another.  Despite which, men and women injure one another often, by straying from the conjugal bed.  Although both men and women seem susceptible to this, it is more generally men who succumb to the wish to experience sex with women other than their wives.

Hillary Clinton knew her husband's proclivities and found it in her to overlook his continual indiscretions, for the most part.  She is a strong, independent woman, fully capable of striking out on her own, as she has more than adequately proven through her high-ranking elected status and her later appointment as Secretary of State for the United States.  She obviously loves her husband despite his wandering eye and interest in other women.

It is precisely because she is a woman of strong convictions and capabilities that she was able to keep her marriage intact.  It is also likely that Bill Clinton had no wish to have his marriage sundered by his wife deciding finally to leave him.  And so, he suffered a penalty over his indiscreet liaisons that embarrassed himself, his presidential office, and his family.  That penalty, without doubt, coming in the nature of an ultimatum.

Which likely had been delivered on previous occasions, but which on this particular one appeared far more persuasive.  And it is entirely possible that as a result the husband of the current U.S. Secretary of State acted in a more responsible manner toward his wife.  His indiscretions were bad enough, although not quite the blatant piggishness of former Italian President Silvio Berlosconi whose wife found she would no longer stand by him because of his sexual excesses.

As though a trend had been discovered, the world has been introduced, one after the other, to larger-than-life characters who, consumed with the powerful status they achieve, believe that nothing should be denied them.  And Dominique Strauss-Kahn emerged as yet another man of international repute and stature besotted with himself and in the process intent on satisfying his satyr's sex drive.

His wife also, an accomplished and worldly professional, accepted a certain amount of extra-marital affairs as inevitable, particularly in a society accustomed to such behaviour on the part of over-achieving, elite men, moving in upscale social, political and business circles.  But as with Silvio Berlusconi's escapades, the more that was revealed of orgies and organized parties that recognized no limits, her patience too wore thin.

A brilliant economist he may be, with a future that once looked as though he would rule France, but his unrestrained ego has led him to a ruinous future instead, one that will not include the faithful attendance of a wife who had suffered the agonies of one more assault too many on the dignity of her person.