Time's Belinda Luscombe says, "The cheated-upon spouses of the world have a new hero and her name is Jenny Sanford."

The Washington Post's Philip Rucker says,

Sanford's reaction to her husband's infidelity purposefully did not follow the post-disclosure postures of Hillary Clinton, Silda Spitzer or Elizabeth Edwards. She emerged as a standard-bearer in the year when CBS debuted "The Good Wife," a prime-time drama about a cheating politician's spouse who rebounds professionally, rising after his downfall. Sanford blazed a path for an aggrieved spouse of a philandering politician and made herself an unlikely heroine — a role model, albeit in unwelcome circumstances.

Barbara Walters says,

"She was a new kind of woman and, as it turns out, she struck a chord. We have had a year of wives standing tight-lipped and unhappy next to their husbands. . . . A lot of women related to her, and she behaved in a very different way. She wasn't a victim. She was independent and true to herself."

Vogue says, "Petite, clear-eyed, strong-willed, pious without being smug, smart without being caustic, Jenny Sanford became an unlikely heroine by telling the simple truth."

The Daily Beast's Phoebe Connelly says,

The news that Sanford is leaving her national punchline of a husband, South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, is no reason to hail her as a feminist icon. Being cheated on does not grant a woman an all-access pass to the feminist club. Nor does it do feminism much credit to claim heroines based on how they handle their husband's infidelities....It's troubling to think that in a year when we have seen feminist issues like reproductive rights take center stage in Congress, had a self-identified feminist appointed secretary of State, and watched women lead the resistance movement in Iran, we'd pick a feminist icon for the simple fact that she left a bad marriage. Lots of women do that.

We say: Sadly, both are true: Sanford can behave with basic self-respect, and do something women do everyday, and still elevate the image of the much-maligned political wife. Let's just not let this - composure, dignity and business acumen while we're at it - be the heights to which all others will aspire - but the basic baseline.

Jenny Sanford Is Not A Feminist Icon [Daily Beast]

Jenny Sanford, Hiking The High Road [Washington Post]
The Longest Year [Washington Post]
Notes On A Scandal [Vogue]
Jenny Sanford: The Savviest Spurned Wife In History [Time]

The day after a South Carolina legislative panel decided to consider a formal rebuke against him (as opposed to the more severe impeachment) Sanford spoke to reporters about his marriage. Although he and his wife have actually been separated, he says he still wants to make a marriage work. He wouldn't say whether he was still in contact with the Argentinian woman he visited over Father's Day weekend, but he did say, "I'm not going back to June. We've had all those conversations." He added that he had visited his wife and children at the beach house where they're now living: "I mean, you may have missed it, but I mean I was down there last night and dropped by and saw the kids."

While Mark Sanford struggles to rehabilitate his reputation, his wife's star is rising. She appeared on ABC as one of Barbara Walters 10 Most Fascinating People of 2009, where she had the good and bad fortune to be able to make even more public statements about her husband's infidelity. Jenny Sanford seemed a little stiff, but she was candid, saying she was "obviously not" her husband's soul mate. However, she didn't rule out repairing the marriage, saying only, "I think the hurdles are significant."

Walters says she chose Sanford as a counterexample to the "long-suffering wife [...] saying, 'I'm standing by my husband'" and because "she has lived now with dignity and integrity." Jenny Sanford does seem to have some serious backbone — of her husband's infidelity, she tells Walters, "certainly his actions hurt me, and they caused consequences for me, but they don't in any way take away my own self-esteem." She also says the title of her upcoming book, Staying True, reflects her commitment "to myself, to my faith, to the things that are important to me." It's refreshing to see a woman who once devoted her life to her husband's political campaign now making a public expression of strength and self-sufficiency, and Sanford's independence sends an important message that women need not be destroyed by their husbands' indiscretions. Sanford says she has forgiven, but not forgotten her husband's affair, and she provides a very public model for women (and men) who feel that cheating isn't something they have to tolerate.

At the same time, is separation the only way she could have "lived with dignity and integrity?" Is standing by your husband always an undignified act? Sanford deserved praise for offering a new path for the publicly "wronged wife," but by implicitly denigrating the old path, we just heap more shame on these wives. Whether or not she'd chosen to stay with her husband, Jenny Sanford's integrity was never at issue — and maybe one of the biggest problems for wives of famous philanderers is that we continue to find their marriages "fascinating."

Update: Guess those "hurdles" were a little too high — Jenny Sanford is filing for divorce.

South Carolina Gov. Sanford Still Wants To Reconcile With Wife, But Jenny Sanford Is Not Willing [New York Daily News]
Jenny Sanford Talks About Heartbreak After... [ABC News]
Jenny Sanford On Barbara Walters' 10 Most Fascinating People [YouTube]

Sanford told September Vogue, "All I can do is forgive." But according to Robbie Brown of the New York Times, that's far from all she can do. Her memoir, Staying True, comes out in April. As we mentioned earlier, she's applied to trademark her name for a line of "clothing, mugs, and other items." She's set up her own website (though it appears to be down), she's about to be interviewed by Barbara Walters, and some think she'll run for South Carolina office. Says Robert Oldendick, director of the Institute for Public Service and Policy Research at the University of South Carolina, "Yes, if I had to bet, I think she will run. Just look at what she's doing externally."

Even if Sanford doesn't seek public office, she's enjoying the fruits of her husband's position — without having to deal with him. Brown writes,

By separating from her husband, but remaining first lady, friends say, Ms. Sanford has the best of two worlds as part public figure, part independent woman. She enjoys the perks of political office (a staff assistant, expert advice, ready publicity, admiring colleagues) without the pitfalls (a breakneck schedule of photo-ops and glad handing beside a politically toxic husband).

These perks (which do not, Brown notes, include a salary) in some ways highlight the strangeness of the position of First Ladies. Since they're not elected, what should happen to their official status if their marriages founder? Of course, many political wives probably don't particularly relish their official duties, and would be glad to relinquish the benefits of their position in return for a little privacy. And perhaps the intense scrutiny on politicians' marriages points to the inhumanity of involving their families in politics — though some women (and men) will always choose to participate in their spouses' campaigns, perhaps the official title of First Lady (or "First Dude") should cease to exist.

But it's too late for any such policy change to affect Jenny Sanford. While I'm not usually a fan of turning personal fame into political gain, and while I'd be unlikely to vote for Sanford, I'm kind of happy that, as College of Charleston professor Jack Bass says, "She has moved from promoting him as a loyal spouse to using those same talents on behalf of herself." Too often, women who give up their own careers to support their political husbands seem to be left with nothing when those husbands stray. So it's kind of refreshing that instead of fading into obscurity as though she did something shameful, Jenny Sanford is kicking ass, and making mugs.

From Shadow To Limelight For A Governor's Wife [NYT]

Earlier: What We Can And Can't Learn From Jenny Sanford In Vogue

The Good Wife, which premiers tonight, follows political wife Alicia Florrick (Margulies) as she rebounds from her husband's sex scandal. He's a state's attorney turned jailbird, and she goes from stay-at-home mom to lawyer with the help of an old friend from law school. Soon she takes on a murder case and, "baggage" aside, begins to "hunt for hair samples and missing security-camera tapes" with the best of them.

Back in real life, political wife Jenny Sanford will publish her book in May 2010. Her publisher says the memoir "will grapple with the universal issue of maintaining integrity and a sense of self during life's difficult times." Maintaining integrity may be a universal issue — but unlike Jenny Sanford (who is currently separated from her husband),many divorced women need to find a way of maintaining food on the table as well. And not all of them bounce back into the workforce as easily as Alicia Florrick.

Dana Goldstein tackles this issue in the American Prospect. She writes,

But what happens to the real-life Alicia Florricks — the women who attempt to claw back to the top after years or even decades at home with the kids? For one thing, their income suffers: A woman can expect her salary to drop by 2 percent for each year she stays home from work. That means a woman who earned $80,000 10 years ago, then quit her job, can expect her new salary to be $64,000.

Goldstein also cites Leslie Bennetts, of Feminine Mistake fame, who tells this cautionary tale about the perils of looking for work after a long time at home:

One high-powered woman had opted out of her career for a short time but started trying to get back in when her husband left her for a younger woman. Despite years of effort, she has never succeeded. She finally found a teaching job that pays one-eighth of what she was earning 20 years ago. Her ex-husband has long failed to pay the child support he owes her, a six-figure sum she is now trying to chase down with expensive legal help. She has a lot of company; nearly 70 percent of child-support cases in this country have arrears owed to the custodial parents, who are overwhelmingly female-one of several reasons why men's standard of living rises after divorce while that of women and children typically plummets.

Of course, divorce isn't the only factor now facing stay-at-home moms. As Steven Greenhouse of the Times wrote on Saturday, the recession is imperiling men's jobs and forcing more women to look for work — not always with great results. Bennetts calls the Times story a "feeble attempt at catch-up," given the newspaper's much-criticized coverage of the so-called "opt-out revolution" six years ago. She writes,

For the major media that romanticized opting out as the soothing solution to the stress of juggling work and family, the devastation that choice has left in its wake represents merely another story. But for the women who got sold a bill of goods and gambled their futures without understanding the risks they were taking, losing that bet turned out to be the biggest mistake of their lives. Those who encouraged them to do so have a lot to answer for.

There's no doubt that some women in America have lost out by opting out. And while the original Times piece could have included a little more criticism and a little less trend-spotting, the real enemy of moms both divorced and married is an economic system that forces people to choose between work and child care, and then penalizes those who have ever chosen the latter. But if the recession is indeed forcing women back to work, maybe this will change.

Like the fictional Alicia Florrick, the real Trudi Foutts Loh found a job through a law school friend after years as a stay-at-home mom. She's one of the lucky ones — but she has friends too, and maybe the recession will create a network of moms to rival the old boys. And maybe these moms will have a better understanding of how to allow their employees to have family lives, and how to use the skills of people who have been out of the office for a while. Of course, this is a long way off — but everyone from CBS to the Times is talking about women "opting back in." And if the media can influence us for ill, as Bennetts says, maybe it can also influence us for good.

The Wrong Side Of The Mommy Track [American Prospect]
Recession Drives Women Back To The Work Force [NYT]
Wife Of Scandal-Plagued S.C. Governor Plans Memoir [Reuters]
'Wife' To 'Cougar,' These Are Women To Watch [Washington Post]
Good Wife [NYT]
The Downside Of Opting Out [Daily Beast]

One thing is clear from the piece: Sanford is smart. Discussing why her governor husband was willing to risk his career and his children's welfare for an affair, she says,

Politicians become disconnected from the way everyone else lives in the world. I saw that from the very beginning. They'll say they need something, and ten people want to give it to them. It's an ego boost, and it's easy to drink your own Kool-Aid.

She seems to have a clear-eyed view of her husband's sense of entitlement, and of the constant drive for bigger and better things that left him feeling dissatisfied with his life. Elsewhere, though, her analysis of his problems sounds less credible. She tells Johnson,

Over the course of both pastoral and marriage counseling, it became clear to me that he was just obsessed with going to see this woman. I have learned that these affairs are almost like an addiction to alcohol or pornography. They just can't break away from them.

This seems perilously close to the language typically used by celebrities when they blame "sex addiction" for their infidelity. It may be helpful to Sanford to think of her husband's affair in terms of substance abuse, and indeed the two may have some parallels, but Sanford's hardly breaking new ground here when she chalks up her husband's dalliances to an affliction beyond his control. Her comments about aging and gender, though, are more upsetting. She says,

Midlife aging is different for men than for women. Mark is worried about what his next job is. He worries about making money, running for office again, his legacy. I know my legacy is my children. I don't worry about that.

Johnson mentions Sanford's devotion to her children several times in the piece, at one point linking her "unlikely heroism" to the fact that "her children were the most important thing in the world to her." Of course the Sanfords' children have likely suffered as a result of their father's very public affair, and it's good that their mother is looking out for them. On the other hand, the idea that men have midlife crises because they can't get validation from family life, but that children inoculate women against these problems, is a damaging one. Jenny Sanford certainly didn't invent the stereotype that men live for work and women live for kids, but this "old-fashioned woman," as she calls herself, is certainly perpetuating it — and Johnson (unsurprisingly, since this is Vogue) doesn't interrogate the notion at all. Instead, she writes,

Mixing work and love as the Sanfords did in their campaigns, first for Congress and then for the governorship, might be practical-Sanford likes to joke that he hired his wife because "the price was right"-but it can be lethal to a marriage. Eroticism is fueled by mystery, and it can be hard to feel that about a person who is overseeing the latest returns from the fifteenth precinct.

Working with a spouse can certainly be tough, and it may have been difficult to share campaign duties when Jenny Sanford was ambivalent on her husband's political rise, but does Johnson need to channel pop-relationship self-help books with the phrase, "eroticism is fueled by mystery?" Does Sanford's story really need to be a story about men, women, and relationships in general — or even about "wronged political wives?"

In her statement acknowledging her husband's affair, Jenny Sanford wrote,

I personally believe that the greatest legacy I will leave behind in this world is not the job I held on Wall Street, or the campaigns I managed for Mark, or the work I have done as First Lady or even the philanthropic activities in which I have been routinely engaged. Instead, the greatest legacy I will leave in this world is the character of the children I, or we, leave behind. It is for that reason that I deeply regret the recent actions of my husband Mark, and their potential damage to our children.

Note the first three words — "I personally believe." Not "I believe, on behalf of all women." Jenny Sanford is a woman with a deep, personal commitment to her family, and her husband is a man who failed in his commitment to his. But that doesn't mean that loving your children — or even considering them your legacy — will keep you from cheating. Nor does it mean that men can't derive a sense of purpose or satisfaction from their kids. Rather, it means that Mark Sanford, perhaps because he was "worried about his legacy," perhaps because of an addictive relationship to another woman, or perhaps for a host of other reasons, chose to behave in a way he had previously called "reprehensible." His wife has handled a painful situation with grace, but she is not a template for all women, nor is her husband (thank God) a template for all men. Pretending that they are does wives and husbands, political and otherwise — not to mention their children, who shouldn't be set up as a bulwark against infidelity — a grave disservice.

Notes On A Scandal [Vogue]

Jenny Sanford has not been terribly cooperative with the media. When, we wonder, will we get the confessional, the tearful appearance, the angry tirade we're clearly ready to believe? Since, amazingly, she hasn't felt like doing this in the ten days since her world came crashing down, we're forced to search for clues - the reliable "friends and family" (who seem to think she's okay) and, obviously, the wardrobe. This is tricky, because unlike the tight-lipped spouses who resentfully stand by their men in a comfort armor of pearls and suiting - de facto First Lady Wear - Sanford has continued to dress as she did before the furor, in a relaxed vacation wardrobe that gives nothing away. But aha! According to the Washington Post's Robin Givhan, this is in fact more revealing: There is, she says

"something splendidly defiant in the wardrobe Jenny Sanford, the wife of Gov. Mark Sanford, has been wearing the past few days...when she appeared before the cameras she was dressed like she'd just come in from a leisurely bike ride amid the wildflowers, during which she did not perspire. Mrs. Sanford did not look stern or brokenhearted. Mostly, she seemed about as aggravated as if she'd run out of sunscreen. One photograph has her in white pedal pushers and a blue paisley peasant blouse. In another, she's again wearing white shorts but this time with a coral-colored, flower-print tunic. Another photograph catches her in the kind of loose-fitting paisley tunic one might wear over a swimsuit. She's wearing sunglasses, carrying a large shoulder bag and showing a little thigh. But what's most noticeable is that she's not looking like a constrained — or strained — political wife who uses clothes like a suit of armor. Instead, it's just the opposite. She comes across as a woman set free. Everything about her style is breezy.

The hieroglyphics of a public woman's grooming are complex, the paparrazzi archive is our Rosetta stone. When we feel for her - or are supposed to - a woman's blithe relaxation can be a sign of empowerment and independence. But how about when the shoe's on the other foot? Take the reviled Ruth Madoff. One rarely reads an account of her in which her impeccable presentation is referenced - "carefully groomed," a New York feature calls her, while Madoff's secretary described her as "meticulous." Now, we gleefully read about her gray roots and her demotion to jeans. This deterioration is regarded, not as a sign of a liberation from a charade, but as the cracks in the careful facade. Says New York,

In the public eye, Ruth has come to represent the spoils of her husband's criminal activity: The lifestyle, the furs and jewelry, the fancy hair salon, the clinking glasses at parties, the trips around the world-they all seemed like they were her domain, orchestrated and enjoyed more by her than by the stone-faced, withdrawn Bernie. It didn't matter that Ruth came from modest beginnings; something about the way she carried herself-her highlighted hair, the upturned collar and petite physique-played into the stereotype of the pampered, free-spending wife.

There's similarly little to go on with both women - both have been media-shy, giving terse sentences and avoiding the press, while newshounds depend on guarded, or gleeful, statements from tenuous acquaintances. One is a victim, one an accomplice - or so they are perceived in the popular imagination, whatever the reality of Madoff's situation. Sanford promptly distanced herself from her husband's tax-fueled antics; Ruth has failed to renounce her ill-gotten gains to anyone's satisfaction. The women have nothing in common save an accident of time-frame and a distaste for the public eye. So why are both reduced to their grooming?

Maybe it's because they're both figures who are defined, for us, in relation to their husbands. Weirdly, while Sanford has thrown his wife under the "soul mate" bus, Madoff has done his damndest to keep his wife out of it, whatever her crimes - is part of it our contempt for letting someone protect her? Maybe a part of the collective consciousness feels, unfairly or not, that if we are to accept these women as living on their husband's terms, they have earned this kind of superficial, traditionally feminine scrutiny. Whatever the reason, there's something depressing about it. But here's something that, through all the mishigas, has managed to consistently put a smile on my face: Franni Franken. Franken is obviously not a political wife by vocation; she's a free-spirited woman who dresses like my mom - which is to say, acreatively-tinged boomer. And yet, check her out on the podium when Al spoke to the press about his election: she was in a First Lady costume! A boxy, Chanel-style suit and a scarf, less! It looked completely strange, and unnatural, and yet was unspeakably endearing. Probably because, at the end of the day, it actually had nothing to do with who she is, said nothing about who she is, save that she's new to politics and is trying to match the dress code. She was smiling and laughing and totally unguarded, and as a result, you didn't need to analyze the clothes, any more than you would a man's suit. And that was refreshing.

In Hubby's Time Of Trouble, She Can't Be Bothered [Washington Post]
How is Jenny Sanford coping? [GMA via Politico]
Poor Ruth [New York]
What The Secretary Saw [Vanity Fair]
Daily Show [Min 21]

Sanford, who is apparently suffering from a terminal and incurable case of verbal diarrhea, gave yet another interview today to the Associated Press in which he further expounded upon the details of his relationship with his Argentinian mistress...details that no one needed to hear. They include:

• Reminding people that he loves her:
  

  "This was a whole lot more than a simple affair, this was a love story," Sanford said. "A forbidden one, a tragic one, but a love story at the end of the day."

• Telling the reporter he is attempting to fall back in love with his wife.
• That she came to New York three times since they started sleeping together last June on a state trip to Brazil and Argentina.
• They'd only met twice in person before that.
• He felt really bad about fucking her and thought they should stop, but he didn't actually do much about stopping.
• Her third visit to New York was after his wife found out and he was accompanied by a spiritual adviser in order to break up with her.
• He's done unspecified stuff (like "dance" with) other women when on all-dude trips outside the country, but hasn't ever fucked anyone else.

The AP is reporting as part of that story that, during the interview with Jenny Sanford published not-in-its-entirety last Friday, she claimed that her husband encouraged her to meet his mistress but she refused. Jesus Christ, people!

So, great. Mark Sanford, tempted by the sins of the flesh, dances with some women, maybe kisses a couple and BAM! falls in love with someone. His wife must be thrilled to hear that for the sake of the Baby Jesus he's decided to forgo the love he actually feels and try his mightiest to fall in love with her again, so they can be not-completely-miserable together until the end of time. His mighty self-denial must make her feel great about herself.

This is perhaps the one kernel of non-idiocy that stuck out in yesterday's half-witted Douthat column: lots of people do get into relationships that require way more work to hold together than it seems like is healthy for anyone. I'm as guilty of this as anyone else: I've had my ultimatum-issuing moments; my moments of pretending everything's okay for the sake of keeping the peace ; my moments of silently weeping in bed, waiting for someone to fall asleep, pretending that not talking about it can make the problems go away and that just trying harder will make us not-unhappy and that not being miserable is a step along the path back to happiness. Commitment is important, right?

And, sometimes, I suppose, it can be. But other times — many other times — the betrayal is too great and the emotions are too dark and the road ahead doesn't go back to being nicely paved, but turns into gravel, then dirt and then mud. And what the Sanfords are doing at this stage is dragging their kids — and us — down that bumpy path hoping that on the other side they can find whatever it is their God tells them they ought to have. But sometimes, there just is no other side — and one flashing neon "Dead End" sign is when your husband tells the Associated Press that he's "trying" to fall in love with you again.

If they've already stopped playing by the political script, maybe it's time to drop the inevitable political end game of staying together as well.

SC Gov 'Crossed Lines' With Women [Associated Press]
Jenny Sanford: How I Found Out About The Affair [Associated Press]

Douthat contrasts the essays by Sandra Tsing Loh and Cristina Nehring about the end of their marriages with the frenzied (and potentially career-ending) passion of — sorry for this mental image! — Mark Sanford and John Ensign. Douthat says:

So which is the real America? Is it Tsing Loh's dystopia, where everyone "works" grimly on their relationships, and post-feminist husbands happily cook saffron-infused porcini risotto but rarely practice seduction on their wives? Or is it tabloid country: The land of Jon minus Kate, and governors who vanish to "hike the Appalachian Trail"...

Ah, those "post-feminist" husbands, who cook in lieu of "seducing" their wives (note to Douthat: many women would consider a man cooking saffron-infused porcini risotto a form of seduction). Because, naturally, it is more naturally the man's role to initiate sex and the woman's role to pretend, at least initially, that she doesn't want it.

But Douthat's not done with condemning all that sexual equality that feminism hath wrought!

But both do put their finger on a post-sexual revolution paradox - namely, that the same overclass that was once most invested in erotic experimentation ended up building the sturdiest walls against the passions it unleashed.

In other words, the wealthy and privileged women with jobs and such (i.e. feminists and, by extension, Democrats) are frigid ice queens once they get bored with porn and premarital sex, while passion is reserved for Real Americans who didn't buy into that feminism claptrap about equality in the first place!

Douthat's got your number, ladies — safe sex is boring! Risking pregnancy is exciting!

The difficult scramble up the meritocratic ladder tends to discourage wild passions and death-defying flings. For bright young overachievers, there's often a definite tameness to the way that collegiate "safe sex" segues into the upwardly-mobile security of "companionate marriages" - or, if you're feeling more cynical, "consumption partnerships."

Yes, unwanted pregnancy and being stuck in boring dead-end jobs is what more Americans need to encourage more passion in their relationships. (What is up with Douthat's seeming obsessive opposition to contraception, anyway? Is this just a rhetorical way to get the women who sleep with him to agree not to use condoms or something?)

By comparison, Douthat just loves how Real America conducts its personal life!

This tameness has beneficial social consequences: When it comes to divorce rates and out-of-wedlock births, Americans with graduate degrees are still living in the 1950s. It's the rest of the country that marries impulsively, divorces frequently, and bears a rising percentage of its children outside marriage.

Ok, so, let's make sure I understand this correctly. Feminism (and safe sex) make for boring relationships designed only for upward social mobility, which is good for society and bad for relationships; but sexual freedom has empowered the lower class to make poor decisions about marriage and having a bunch of unsafe sex that Douthat doesn't like in the first place? So, he likes feminism, but he hates it? Is feminism Douthat's mom and does he have an Oedipal complex?

Douthat's got a solution to the problem he's yet to define really well, but which seemingly boils down to the fact that smart, career-oriented women don't have enough wild sex (possibly with Ross Douthat) and dumb sluts have too much.

Our meritocrats could stand to leaven their careerism with a little more romantic excess. (Though such excess is more appropriate in the young, it should be emphasized, than in middle-aged essayists and parents.) But most Americans, particularly those of modest means, would benefit from greater caution and stability in their romantic entanglements.

So, if you're young, career-oriented and, um, female, you should try less hard to get to the top of your profession and try to fall obsessively in love — but only if you're young and, naturally, childless. If you're poor, though, keep it in your pants and that ring on your finger.

Or, I don't know: maybe people regardless of their economic class should attempt to live their lives without listening to Ross Douthat's expectation of what would make them happier?

The Way We Love Now [NY Times]

Earlier: Feminism Makes Women Unhappy, And Other Tall Tales