A few years ago, I was quite pleased that no one in Ireland seemed too bothered that our married but separated prime minister Bertie Aherne lived with his mistress/girlfriend/partner and even brought her on foreign trips. Bertie hasn’t given me a lot of joy overall, but it was nice to think that the Irish public had better things to do than worry about his marital status. (A couple of years previously, a government front-bencher had been apprehended by the police in a park at night, in an area popular with rent boys and their clients. The media unsuccessfully tried to whip up a moral panic, and within 24 hours most callers to talk radio shows were expressing sympathy to the man’s family but saying the issue wasn’t of enormous public interest.)
My idea of our newfound sophistication was punctured by a couple of Brussels diplomats. The French were particularly annoyed as they felt everyone should understand the mistress’s carefully delineated position. It was just gauche, they thought, to bring one’s mistress to an official dinner and expect other people’s wives to sit down beside her. Soon enough, Bertie dumped poor Celia – and the press did take a great interest in that – and began to go to official functions by himself.
But now the French are hoisted on their own petard! Sarkozy’s man-eating girlfriend, who happens to be the spit of his recent ex-wife, might accompany him on a state visit to India next week. And because the Indians are particularly conservative when it comes to recognising non-marital relations, they don’t know where to seat Ms. Bruni for dinner or where she should sleep. It really is a bit rude to put your hosts in such a quandary. So much for Sarko being anything but gauche.
{ 24 comments }
P O'Neill 01.18.08 at 10:10 pm
It’s an interesting comparison given that Mitterand was Charlie’s role model in so many respects, although Charlie never had an official residence that he could deposit Ms whoever it was into. So Charlie was following the traditional French model while Bertie took the new approach.
As for Bertie, one of the lingering questions is exactly what role his unorthodox living arrangements — and the financial aspects of his separation from Miriam — are playing in his complicated evidence to the Mahon tribunal. Mitterand and Sarko have in their separate ways managed to avoid such entanglements with their women. At least so far.
Kieran Healy 01.18.08 at 10:26 pm
Ms whoever it was
No worse fate for a gossip columnist, I suppose. Mrs Keane.
nick s 01.18.08 at 11:11 pm
Would “I married her to sort out the seating arrangements” be considered déclassé?
Antti Nannimus 01.18.08 at 11:13 pm
Hi,
Well, of course we put her in the adjoining guest room as usual. Have the Indians now forgotten ALL of the protocols of the Late Empire?
Have a nice day!
Antti
Mike Otsuka 01.18.08 at 11:21 pm
And because the Indians are particularly conservative when it comes to recognising non-marital relations, they don’t know where to seat Ms. Bruni for dinner or where she should sleep. It really is a bit rude to put your hosts in such a quandary. So much for Sarko being anything but gauche.
If a head of government brought along a same-sex partner (whether of not legally married), a conservative host might be made deeply uncomfortable and not know where to seat or house him or her. I hope, Maria, that you wouldn’t describe this person as gauche and rude for nevertheless bringing his or her partner along. So why describe someone as gauche and rude for bringing along his unmarried partner of the opposite sex? Are we supposed to kowtow to socially conservative hang-ups in the one case but not the other?
Maria 01.18.08 at 11:49 pm
It’s your rhetorical question, Mike. You answer it.
novakant 01.19.08 at 12:14 am
So how are the mayors of Paris and Berlin handling this situation?
marcel 01.19.08 at 12:26 am
I recall reading in the last week that Sarkozy and Bruni (I assume that is the woman to whom you refer, that Sarkozy has not already found a new mistress) had quietly wed. Is this not the case?
Maria 01.19.08 at 12:35 am
It’s a rumour. The wedding could technically have taken place inside the Elysee as Sarko could credibly claim there is a serious impediment to him marrying in the town hall like everyone else. But the story is just speculation. As indeed is that about Bruni accompanying him on the India trip.
Mike Otsuka 01.19.08 at 8:23 am
Okay. ‘No.’ But that leaves the non-rhetorical question just before the rhetorical one unanswered. (It’s fine to ignore this wet blanket, however.)
Martin Wisse 01.19.08 at 10:20 am
#5 is silly. The difference is between official and unoffical partners of head of states; as long as the same gender partner is married to the visiting dignitary, no problem.
Z 01.19.08 at 11:49 am
Sarkozy and Bruni had quietly wed.
This is extremely unlikely. Weddings in France are registered at the townhall where they are celebrated but also at the townhall where the spouses were born and the registers are public. So it is extremely easy for anyone to know for sure if Carla Bruni and/or Nicolas Sarkozy are married/divorced.
Mike Otsuka 01.19.08 at 2:07 pm
Martin Wisse — It’s not so simple, given that in most places same-gender partners can’t marry, and the reason they can’t marry is that the societies in question regard such partnerships as unworthy of the same sort of recognition. So it’s not a problem if a legally married same-gender couple attends a state banquet in, say, the Netherlands. But it would cause problems in, say, India or Saudi Arabia.
greatzamfir 01.19.08 at 2:43 pm
mike otsuka, I think your question could very well be answered differently. If you know your host will be offended, be it by bringing an unmarried partner or a same-sex partner, and if you know they would be equally offended if someone else did this ( so it is not a personal thing), than yo are impolite by bringing the partner. If you visit someone, it is their norms that count, more than yours.
Of course, it is also impolite for the host to object to you bringing your partner, and certainly so if the arrangement is considered acceptable in the visitor’s culture. But is the visitor that has to make the most amends.
But I,m not sure if Aherne’s diners in Brussels really count as visiting. I guess you can argue that EU head of state meetings are meetings between equals, with the location of secondary importance. If we add to this that Aherne’s situation is quite common in most European countries, if not among diplomats than probably among their children, I think it is reasonable to say that Aherne bringing his partner to Brussels is more polite than Sarkozy bringing his partner to India.
Mikhail 01.19.08 at 3:15 pm
Isn’t this whole issue premature? It’d be worth discussing if Bruni did indeed accompany Sarcozy to India. And then a much better question would be whether she is entitled to be at such functions and whether she might be an “information leak” afterwards. But before anything happened this somewhat reminds me the Irish media example … :)
Righteous Bubba 01.19.08 at 3:21 pm
My idea of our newfound sophistication was punctured by a couple of Brussels diplomats. The French were particularly annoyed as they felt everyone should understand the mistress’s carefully delineated position.
I don’t understand how these two sentences are related.
Rob 01.19.08 at 3:33 pm
Well, it’s not so simple, but then it’s not so complicated either. Given that it may be difficult to marry your same gender partner, it’s understandable that the default should be to treat them like as though they’re a spouse. Assuming the relationship has all the kinds of long-term commitments that a marriage ideally ought to, you should treat it like that kind of long-term relationship. However, it is usually possible to marry your different gender partner, unless one of you is already married to someone else, so it is more reasonable to refuse to accommodate such relations than the homophobia which characterises a refusal to accommodate same gender partners is. That’s not to say it is reasonable tout court, of course, merely more reasonable. As for mistresses, you might even think that, given the way that mistress could be thought of as functioning as status symbols for men and hypocrisy about sexual relations their status implies, that refusing to accommodate mistresses was pretty progressive.
Dave 01.19.08 at 6:46 pm
Surely a ‘mistress’ is a sexual partner that a man maintains secretly? Any liaison open enough to involve official trips abroad must fall outside that characterisation… In which case the ‘Brussels diplomats’ are just being snotty (or standing up, misogynistically, for the tradition of keeping mistresses out of sight – the context is unclear).
Jonathan 01.19.08 at 7:40 pm
I was quite pleased that no one in Ireland seemed too bothered that our married but separated prime minister Bertie Aherne lived with his mistress/girlfriend/partner and even brought her on foreign trips.
No real precedent for that sort of thing, is there?
Dan Simon 01.20.08 at 1:59 am
Perhaps I can make Mike’s point a little more directly. If it’s a sign of Ireland’s “newfound sophistication” that the Irish think nothing of Bertie Ahern showing up at events with a woman not his wife, then why is it a sign of Sarko’s “gauche” manners, rather than of the Indians’ lack of sophistication, that they don’t appreciate his showing up with a woman not his wife? Why is the onus on the Irish people to live up to Bertie Ahern’s worldliness in one case, and on Nicolas Sarkozy to live down to the Indians’ prudishness in the other?
(Caveat: If you answer that this is a rhetorical question, Maria, I will answer it, and I don’t think you’ll like my answer.)
Walt 01.20.08 at 2:37 am
Christ, can’t you people recognize a joke when you see one? Maria thought it was funny that European diplomats were clucking over the vulgar Irish, when now its the sophisticated French who don’t know the “proper” handling of mistresses.
Dan, after your post, I’m beginning to wonder about your sanity.
Mike Otsuka 01.20.08 at 9:04 am
Well, you know what they say about ‘If you have to explain a joke…’
Dan Simon 01.20.08 at 4:07 pm
Maria thought it was funny that European diplomats were clucking over the vulgar Irish, when now its the sophisticated French who don’t know the “proper†handling of mistresses.
This doesn’t make any sense. “‘Proper’ handling of mistresses” according to Indian standards? When would one ever have expected anything other than arrogant indifference from the French regarding foreign prudishness?
shteve 01.20.08 at 10:32 pm
Sarkozy is divorced, isn’t he?
At the time of the Brussels “snub”, Bertie was actually an adulterer. Classy.
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