Power couples

Carla Bruni and Nicolas Sarkozy, Charles Saatchi and Nigella Lawson, Sam Taylor-Wood and Jay Jopling, Nicole Farhi and David Hare, bat man and cat woman ... the power couple is in. Men no longer want arm candy; they want intelligent, successful, hard-working women. Hurrah.

Any man worth his bonus has got with the programme and ditched the idea of a trailing wife in favour of someone whose professional status is a bonus in itself. A study published earlier this year shows that a professional man's salary is 5.5 per cent higher for every 1,000 hours worked by his wife. This is in contrast to the 1980s when the higher a man's salary the lower the hours worked by the wife.

There could be any number of reasons why the dual income couple thrives, including that the professional network is doubled for such couples, as is empathy and understanding for the stresses a full-on career brings, which when added to the halo effect of basking in each other's glory is bound to shower you both in professional accolades and opportunities.   

But although being the male half of an alpha couple is empowering, there is less evidence that the same is true for women. A study published by Professor Robin Fretwell Wilson at the Washington & Lee University School of Law shows that women with MBAs are twice as likely to get divorced or separated than their male counterparts. And the same is true for women with law or medical degrees.

Again there could be any number of reasons for this: men feel threatened by successful women; two competing egos in one household are too much; or quite simply busy professionals are so damn busy they hardly ever see each other.

Another researcher on the subject, economist Sylvia Ann Hewlett, suggests that successful women are attracted to successful men but such women can't summon up the TLC and support that high-earning men need. Erm ... maybe because we thought we'd chosen intelligent men not wimps? (But as the blogs, highlighted above, suggest there are plently of people out there who believe masters of the universe deserve someone waiting at home eager to pander to their ego).

But if the high-earning high-maintenance bloke becomes too much, the alpha woman is again at a disadvantage. As divorce lawyer, Vanessa Lloyd Platt, points out in this article "The harder a women has worked and the more she earns, the smaller the settlement she will get. In these footballer's wife-type settlements, the lazy wife who has nannies to bring up the kids and spends all day in the nail salon is deemed incapable of supporting herself, so will get a huge whack. The wife who has worked her guts out to get to a position of strength will get nothing."

This sends out a pretty depressing message to our daughters - "Don't bother with the career, just snare a rich bloke, darling". But it makes some sense; if you're successful in your own right why would you need or want his money? Surely, it would be much more satisfying to stick two fingers up to his hand-outs and blow your bonus on a DB9.

Or better still you could aspire to DINDY couple status - yep, I did just made that up - Dual Income Not Divorced Yet. Think high octane power couples like Crispin Odey the chief executive of Odey Asset Management and Nichola Pease the head of JO Hambro Capital Management or property dealer Robert Bourne and the chief executive of the Old Vic Sally Greene. They are the seemingly have-it-all couples with high flying careers, happy marriages and children. Now that is something worth aspiring to.

Comments

[Sarah]

A higher rate of divorce is not necessarily a bad sign. That sounds counter-intuitive, and of course marriage breakdown is not a good thing, however I remember reading recently that many women stay in unhappy marriages (where the relationship has effectively broken down in all but name) because they fear not being able to support themselves and their children financially, or at least not being able to live at the standard they consider acceptable. It The highly-educated high-earning 'alpha woman' doesn't have this problem, and is able to walk free.

Much is made of the multi-million payments to wives of extremely wealthy men (or occasionally husbands of wealthy women) but most couples are not in this situation, and the reality is usually that divorce is financially diadvantageous to both parties.

[Shemale]

"maybe because we thought we'd chosen intelligent men not wimps?"

And to think, I thought men were humans too.

[Kate]

I have worked in the field of Executive Search for the past 15 years and noted first hand that close to 90% of all successful female Executives I have encountered are divorced.

[Rosy]

It has always been rather galling to know that the harder one works ( outside the home) the less one "gets" in a property settlement for the reasons given above - act helpess and you shall recieve -- LOTS!

One would have thought the so called liberation of women would have changed all this - but it is not until women are no longer paid to stay in the cage that things will truly change.

Interestingly enough though the gender of the pampered and indulged has equalised - modern divorce laws mean 'house husbands' who have learned to loll about just as much as women did, using the children as the excuse for their sloth - are now asking their hard working wives to support them in their liberated helplessness...when the relationship fails!

Full time mother of three and full time worker!

[Bill Peter]

The premise that a European President and a supermodel might need each other to increase their network is a bit weak, don't you think?

[Adrian]

"A study published earlier this year shows that a professional man's salary is 5.5 per cent higher for every 1,000 hours worked by his wife."

This shows a correlation but does not explain causality... It could simply mean that women who are professionally successful expect their potential partners to be as successful or even more so than themselves, thus narrowing down the field to the higher income classes...

[Michael]

"someone who's professional status is a bonus"...

"the 1980's"...

Aaargh!!!! S'ort out the random apos'trophe's plea'se!!!!

[Joyce]

posing naked and marrying rich men is hardly a career.

[Nadia]

I believe the reason that "...women with MBAs are twice as likely to get divorced or separated than their male counterparts [along with] women with law or medical degrees..." is that despite being equal to their male counterparts and in particular, their husbands, women still tend to assume the 'female' role at home. That is, while professional women work, we also cook, clean and inevitably raise the children. Therefore in the womans mind, a man who does not share household and child rearing duties, has no role as such since he is not the breadwinner, or even if he is, it's not by much. Many women feel they are left with an unfair bargain and that perhaps there is little to gain from having a husband who is inevitably more of a burden.

[Cash]

So women with MBAs want to marry a husband who is a house servant?

It is a myth to think modern professional women spend much time doing the household chores. For a professional couple, there's not much that needs to be done.

Anyway, perhaps women should seek to marry house-husbands and themselves be the only breadwinner.

[Carol Lewis]

Oh dear what's all this negativity about Carla? Ok, so she doesn't toil away in the financial markets but neither has the CEAT heiress sat back and lived off her family's money. She has worked as a model and in the 1990s was reportedly one of the most highly paid fashion models in the world earning $7.5 million a year. She also has a singing career and her debut ablum reportedly sold more than 2 million copies.

As for whether Nicolas Sarkozy needs her. Then possibly not. But I'm not suggesting any of these marriages went ahead because the participants calculated it would boost their careers - more that it is a happy benefit. And surely he wouldn't have got anywhere near as much international attention for his state visit to England had he not had her by his side.

Finally a big thanks to Michael for the thoroughly deserved ticking off about apostrophes. I've fixed it.

[supermother]

Plenty of women are trapped into marriages unhappily because they are just housewives and have no income and their husbands don't have much either or would hide it on a divorce. Therefore a higher divorce rate could mean these women are happier. I am much happier after my divorce despite having to pay my ex husband a massive settlement because I earned so much more. What is at fault is divorce law saying people of either gender have to make unfair payments to others who have not earned or deserved them. It is as unfair for women as well as men who earn a lot except as women who pay out a lot on divorce you aren't even recognised as a category, you're a non person, even press articles talk always only about husbands paying out to wives.

[Rob]

Well my ex-wife who was a lawyer & then did an MBA started our marriage with ~20% of the joint assets & left it with ~45% when she divorced me after a short marriage - not a bad ROE over less than 10 yrs! And she really wanted 66% of the assets justified in her mind because she took our daughter abroad to live with her - where incidentally contact was difficult AND expensive to achieve. Anyway she now earns about three times what I manage!

[J Clarkson]

Rubbish. Men want dumb blondes, with nice figures, and an outdoor beer licence, who will satisfy their lustful desires.

A clever woman is like having a rottweiler that is slightly unstable. You'll never know when they are going to bite your **** off.

Dumb blonds are much more easily manageable. I wouldn't trade my bimbo for any ex-supermodel who has a face like a pixie and has been showing all she's got to millions of people for years. Anyone who flaunts themselves like that is highly immoral and only interested in your cash.

[Joanna, Helsinki]

Lol, this was scary cultural expose and a reminder that being recognised as an intelligent person with birthright to employment, intellectual ambitions and to a partner with cooking, vacuuming and child-caring instincts is still a minor Scandinavian idealism without suport from the masses of the great civilizations.
In Finland, couples that both work and share family responsibilities are considered normal standard, not something DINDY, or "have-it-all".
I can also assure you no-one in Finland thinks it is modern or a sign of success for a woman (or man) to make "career" as a half naked, underweight exposer of her/himself, and then become French president's arm candy. That - like footballers' wives - is mere public humiliation and ridicule of women and nothing else.
There were two places in the article that made me speechless:
"..lazy wife who has nannies to bring up the kids and spends all day in the nail salon is deemed incapable of supporting herself, so will get a huge whack". Now, how come deemed incapable of supporting herself? Because she has nice looking nails? What is that exotic logic?
"The harder a women has worked and the more she earns, the smaller the settlement she will get". So woman works only for money, not for satisfying her professional ambitions? Woman's primary interest in a divorce situation is to get husband's money, not f.ex. escaping fatal violence or risk of nasty STDs? As if I sense a cold breeze of misogynism sweeping through your article...