Last week we learned that Arnold Swarzenegger fathered a child with his former housekeeper and kept it secret for 10 years. To add insult to injury, the child was born just five days Arnold’s fourth child with his wife Maria Shriver. Apparently the unknowing wife regularly interacted with Arnold’s mistress and lovechild, and she was even photographed at the mistress’s baby shower while both women were pregnant with Arnold’s kids. Sleezy behaviour indeed. And while I don’t condone the deception or the betrayal, I suspect that American cultural norms surrounding electoral politics and protocol are at least partly to blame for this situation.
Of the 44 men who’ve held the office of the President of the United States, only one, James Buchanan, was a bachelor. And he left office 140 years ago. For those of us who live in countries not founded on a putrid cocktail of imperialist encroachment and puritan fanaticism (Canada only qualifies in one of those categories), this seems like a bizarre prerequisite for public office. Since reconstruction, there have been more black presidents than single presidents. That’s saying something. In fact, part of what made Obama palatable to socially conservative white voters was his traditional “family man” persona. Voters could feel confident they wouldn’t have to worry about any babymamas coming out of the woodwork later on down the road.
In America, not only does a politician need to have a spouse, but that spouse also becomes a de facto running mate, giving speeches at campaign stops and doing media interviews. By contrast, most Canadians, myself included, would be hard-pressed to name the wife of our current prime minister, even though she’s apparently been living rent-free at 24 Sussex Drive for more than five years now. And quite frankly, that’s the way I like it.
Far from being simply an outdated cultural relic, the unwritten marriage requirement has hurt America in the sense that many supremely talented men have been precluded from running because of it. The other by-product of this archaic constraint is that men are forced to stay in bogus marriages just to try to pursue their political ambitions. New revelations suggest that this may have been the case for Swarzenegger, as a friend of his former mistress claims that he used to complain incessantly to the housekeeper about his sexless marriage.
The same is likely true of former Democratic presidential candidate, John Edwards. In early 2008 he was one of three frontrunners in the race for the Democratic nomination. Six months later he was a national pariah, who couldn’t get elected to be president of the PTA. By then it had been confirmed that Edwards had had an affair with a former campaign staffer and had fathered a daughter with her. All this information came to light while Mrs. Edwards was battling stage IV breast cancer.
If Edwards had divorced his wife, especially after she’d been diagnosed with cancer, his immediate political aspirations would have been dead in the water. One can’t say for sure that this is what kept him in the marriage, but it’s unfortunate that this should have even been a consideration. It’s especially disheartening considering that, of the three front runners in the 2008 Democratic primaries, Edwards was the most liberal and his platform was a noticeable contrast from the centrist policies of Clinton and Obama. If the news of his infidelity had broken just a few months earlier, his voice would have been absent from the campaign altogether, and the millions of Americans whose political views are to the left of the corporatist mainstream of the Democratic Party would have been even more disenfranchised.
It’s anyone’s guess as to when Americans will outgrow this preoccupation with their politicians’ family lives. But I wouldn’t be shocked if we see an openly gay president before we see another bachelor POTUS. Of course, he or she would have to come from a state that allows gay marriage.
