Becoming the mistress you fear

The front page of The New York Times

last week detailed the latest drama in the John Edwards scandal. A grand jury in Raleigh, N.C., is looking into whether Mr. Edwards committed a crime by funneling campaign money into the hands of his mistress, Rielle Hunter.

What's surprising about this and other public affairs is that they still manage to stir up public outrage. We've seen Democrats solicit prostitutes and Republicans court Argentineans. With the start of "The Good Wife" on CBS this fall, political affairs have even gone primetime. Sometimes it feels like we've seen it all (with the possible exception of TV evangelist Ted Haggard, whose 2006 gay-sex-and-meth scandal still takes the cake).

I wonder, then, why we still get worked up at the idea of a grown man taking a mistress? After all, it's practically public policy in other countries. In 1996, at the funeral of former French president François Mitterrand, both his wife and his mistress attended the intimate family ceremony. And England's Prince Charles carried on an affair with Camilla Parker Bowles for years until the two married in 2005.

My sense is that the brouhaha boils down to intimidation. Many women — and here I'm talking about the good wives, the ones who do laundry, raise kids and serve a hot meal every night — are threatened by the idea of a sexy "other woman" who comes with no strings attached.

And let's be honest. Mistresses have real appeal. We imagine them beautiful and powerful, decked in silk stockings, lace garters and the other accoutrements of spousalthievery. They are coy, witty and entertaining. "Emma carved, put bits on Léon's plate with all sorts of coquettish ways," Gustave Flaubert writes in Madame Bovary of the titular wife-turned-mistress, "and she laughed with a libertine laugh when the froth of the champagne ran over from the glass to the rings on her fingers."

A mistress is, in short, everything we wish to be. Why, then, are we none of these things? Why, when we become girlfriends and, later, wives, do we lose the sparkle that attracted our partners in the first place?

I recently hashed this question out with my friend Annie, a smart, sexy girl who played mistress to an engaged man, became his girlfriend when the engagement broke off, then suddenly and inexplicably turned into his exgirlfriend. Over endless cups of coffee, we analyzed the relationship from every angle. It boiled down to this: girlfriends and wives make demands. They demand the trash be taken out, demand a man listen to their needs, demand flowers and vacations and independence and respect. They demand these things in a territorial, entitled way, rather than waiting for them to come. Because when a man loves a woman — is captivated by her — he will do these things automatically.

Instead of fearing a mistress, women need to harness her charms. In this day and age, marriage, sadly, is no guarantee of lasting fidelity. The only sure way to secure a man is to be the sort of woman every man wants, not just at the beginning of the relationship but indefinitely. Silk stockings are a good place to start.

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