Infidelity

Dominique Strauss-Kahn may be innocent of the horrific charges against him, stemming from his encounter with a hotel chambermaid in New York, so we're obliged to withhold judgment until after his trial, but innocent or guilty, he’s already paid a heavy price for the multiple accusations against him. The former French Minister of Finance and leading Socialist candidate for prime minister in the next French elections, has suffered a stunning fall. He has had to resign his post as head of the International Monetary Fund, a position that, according to reports in the Times, he has held with distinction during a most difficult period. The husband of an exceedingly rich woman and thus used to luxury, he sits at this writing in a prison cell at Rikers Island, held in solitary confinement under a 24-hour suicide watch.

Shortly after the Strauss-Kahn scandal broke, the former governor of California admitted to having fathered a child 13 years ago with a member of his staff and of having concealed this episode from his wife, who had successfully campaigned to rebut the widespread rumors of his sexual predations during his first run for governor. The serial affairs of President Kennedy and his brother Robert are well-known; rumors of President Clinton’s sexual lapses circulated during his White House years; and his encounters with Monica Lewinsky – or more accurately, his lying about them - resulted in an attempt to impeach him, an effort supported by Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich who himself was guilty of marital infidelity.

Strauss-Kahn’s alleged transgressions in the case of the chambermaid, of course, are far more serious than simple adultery, since he’s accused of attempted rape and holding the woman against her will. His serial adulteries, however, presumably consensual, have long been a public secret in France. Why are so many powerful men unfaithful to their wives? They say that power is an aphrodisiac, but if powerful men are besieged by women, it’s only because they appear amenable to seduction. Years ago, a university colleague told me that a female student came to his office and offered herself to him if he would raise her grade. He refused and sent a memorandum to the dean, recounting the episode, for fear that the student would turn the story around and accuse him of offering to raise her grade if she submitted to his advances. When I asked him why, in 25 years of teaching, no student ever offered to go to bed with me, he responded “You have to look as if you’d be willing.”

I guess it’s true. After a day spent at a professional conference, held at a beach resort, a woman sat alone with me by the now deserted pool, and we talked, sitting side by side over drinks, as the evening darkened into night. Later a colleague who knew her, told me that the woman had confided in her that she had hoped to seduce me and was disgusted when I asked her to show me pictures of her children. I’m not portraying myself as particularly virtuous – in this case, I didn’t even realize what was going on - for probably a majority of men are faithful to their wives, although it’s hard to know for sure. And maybe powerful men are no more likely to stray than the average adulterer, and it’s only the celebrity of the powerful which brings their extramarital adventures into public view.

I remember how shocked my wife and I were by the separation of a couple, the parents of three children and married for 25 years, who separated because the husband was carrying on with a neighbor. We had looked up to that couple as an example of marital stability. That their marriage foundered after 25 years – 25 years! - was threatening to us, at that time married for only five. Was our marriage vulnerable too? We’ve now been married for 48 years, but it took far less time than that for me to understand that my relationship with my wife is the backbone of my life, its background and its foreground. No infidelity could be worth the catastrophe that would ensue if it destroyed my marriage. At my present stage of development, though, my opportunities to stray are distinctly limited, even if I were wide awake enough to know that I was the object of an advance. For a long time, the only advances I’ve received have been from publishers.