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Undivided spouses

Here are two recent headlines; one from the Washington Post, about the faux-19th century drama that ensued when the wife of Supreme Court nominee, Samuel Alito, left the Senate hearings in tears. The other is from the local alt-weekly, City Pages, about the possible influence of health-care executive Lois Quam on her husband's campaign to be the Democratic Attorney General of Minnesota. They're really unconnected in their details, but juxtaposed illustrate how the modern marriages of professionals co-exist in our society with still-prevalent 19th century and Shakespearean ideas about marriage and public politics.

It's interesting that Samuel Alito's wife does not go by the title, "Mrs Alito," though there's no shortage of commentators, left and right, who can't read a newspaper or use Google, and call her just that. A woman keeping her own surname is a long way from being the entirety of her and her husband's political philosophy, but it's a more liberal action than I would have expected from a judge being cast in the role of uber-conservative. It's less surprising that the DFL House minority leader in Minnesota is married to a woman who kept her surname. In both cases I'd guess that an independent career established before marriage was a (if not the only) factor in these women keeping their names.

Yet now the media yokes them together with their husbands, though in somewhat different ways. The flap over Ms. Bomgardner ("Mrs Alito") leaving the room in tears is, as I say, so 19th century in its allusions. The emotional woman who bears the sorrow of the thuggish political attacks on her husband, because she and he are one. And to a reduce a woman to tears is just beyond the bounds of civilized politics. Perhaps those Democrats were drunkards! After all, women are the moral guardian of the nation, if they could only vote they would establish a good and temperate republic. I exaggerate to make the point, but really only slightly. But the key to the faux-outrage expressed about "Mrs Alito" being reduced to tears is precisely that she is seen as an extension and part of her husband's persona and political appearance. None of the news reports appear to ask her what she was crying about. Because women shouldn't actually speak in public for themselves. Or something like that ...

The City Pages article on Lois Quam and Matt Entenza taps into a slightly different set of ideas about politics and marriage; more the improper influence of a Lady Macbeth figure. Yet again, one of the central assumptions of the article is that a man's politics are not independent of his wife's. On the one hand, of course a man's wife's career will have some influence on his politics. On the other, what is the remedy? Should people with potential conflicts of interest with their spouse's career not enter political life? There is no answer in the City Pages article, just a series of questions about potential conflicts, if Matt Entenza is elected Attorney General, if there are health care cases referred to the office. That's a lot of "ifs" to base an argument on.

Moreover it seems kind of silly that questions about health policy are being resolved in such a legalistic fashion through the Attorney General's office. It's understandable— the litigious nature of American life intersects with its corporate health care system, but still. Should the state Attorney General be a major player in health policy? Isn't that something the Governor and legislature should be dealing with instead? All of which is to say, that independently of whether his wife is Dr. Macbeth, Matt Entenza's seeming lack of interest in health care litigation might be the right policy.

In most ways these stories are unrelated. As more women pursue professional and political careers, and are married to similarly professional and political men, we'll see more articles like the one in City Pages. Yet at the same time, the "Mrs Alito" flap demonstrates that we haven't entirely lost our 19th century sense about marriage as an unequal pairing where women bear the emotional burdens and their husbands have the political and judicial careers.

Posted by robe0419 at January 12, 2006 04:01 PM | TrackBack