Political Wives: The Lives of the Saints

Carrie Hamilton was a Toronto-based freelance editor.

Few topics are treated in more trifling a manner by the media and public than political wives. When Mila Mulroney and Shelley Peterson appear on the front page it is inevitably because their perfect hairdos and bright smiles are, like Shy Di’s timid glances, considered aesthetically pleasing. More often than not, political wives are found in the gossip column or the fashion section wearing their latest designer outfit. Our most influential politicians’ wives are usually very visible, but in a doll-like, rather than truly human, manner. When they do make headlines, political wives are usually treated in a patronizing manner which reveals the fundamentally sexist attitudes of the media and public. People love to gaze at political wives, gossip about them, and be outraged at their “feminine” weaknesses, but few bother to take them seriously enough to question their existence.

Susan Riley does just that. In Political Wives: Lives of the Saints she surveys the institution of political wifedom in Canada from the l950s to the present. While she retains a sense of humour throughout the book, Riley is unapologetically critical of the women she wishes were an “endangered species” and, more specifically, of the system which creates them. Her motivation for this book goes far beyond a gossip columnist’s interest in the lives of the banal, rich, and famous; Riley is concerned primarily with how the role of political wives reflects our political system and our society’s attitude towards women.

The author considers the game political wives are expected to play to be one which “no wife can win.” However, she certainly admires some women’s attempts to play more than others’. In her preface, Riley acknowledges that some of her subjects amuse her, some annoy her, and a few even enrage her. The book leaves little doubt in the reader’s mind as to which wives fall into which category.

Margaret Trudeau and Maureen McTeer are the first wives Riley deals with individually. She demonstrates a certain sympathy for each woman’s plight and criticism for the sexist intolerance of Ottawa society and the Canadian public. She shows how two women who were perceived as a threat to the patriarchal institution of the political wife were both fundamentally traditional despite any traces of independent nature.

Mila Mulroney and Nancy Reagan, appropriately enough, are treated back to back. Riley sees Mulroney as cold and insincere. Her chapter on Reagan demonstrates the way in which the institution of the First Lady has been imported by Canadians from the U.S., specifically since the Jackie Kennedy era in the early 1960s, and how Mila has gone to absurd lengths to duplicate Nancy’s style and outrageous spending habits.

Next Riley goes back in time to look at the political wife careers of Olive Diefenbaker and Maryon Pearson. While less critical of Olive than of Mila and Nancy, the author is unimpressed by the second Mrs. Diefenbaker’s cold manner and love of power. Pearson, on the other hand, may well be Riley’s “favourite” —she is dubbed a “commendable failure.”

The author by no means reserves her sharpest criticism for political wives. She acknowledges the role of male politicians in creating the demeaning, sexist institution of the political wife. She underlines politicians’ need for wives and shows how all that a political wife says and does is calculated to enhance her husband’s career and keep him in power. Individual men do not escape criticism any more than individual women. Riley refers to Pierre Trudeau as a “misogynist” and to John Diefenbaker as “the most obnoxious man in Canadian public life.”

Riley also goes beyond the specific realm of the political wife to look at some fundamental problems of the Canadian political system. In her chapter on conflict of interest, which looks at Jeanne Sauvé, Noreen Stevens, and Lillian Vander Zalm, the author suggests that only with a wider variety of Canadians elected to Parliament, and with more women involved in politics as candidates instead of as wives, will Canada be able to protect the public interest without forcing political spouses to be mere unopinionated puppets.

This appreciation for the greater political and social context in which political wives live and are seen is what makes Riley’s book well worth reading. The author treats her subjects as individuals, as full and functioning human beings, while at the same time drawing attention to the atmosphere and attitudes which shape these women and their roles. Riley is interested as much in the institution of political wives as in the individual variations of each woman. She looks at a series of “Alternate Wifestyles” —those of Geills Turner, Shelley Peterson, Lillian Vander Zalm, Lucille Broadbent — and concludes that there is little hope that any of these women, despite their differing approaches, could radically alter the institution of political wife. It is ultimately the institution itself which is corrupt, not merely the women and their political husbands who live by it. Referring to the tragic institutionalization and early death of the first Mrs. Diefenbaker, Riley asks, “Who or what was crazy, Edna or the life she was expected to lead?”

Susan Riley’s writing style and approach to her subject are both captivating and refreshing. The author has a political journalist’s in-depth knowledge of Ottawa and Canadian public life, but her book is more sophisticated than a 200-page newspaper article. Riley has a superb sense of humour, but manages to avoid trivializing her subject. If the book appears from the cover and title to be a light look at a frivolous topic that is a real shame. It is, in fact, a simultaneously entertaining and very interesting look at a fundamental aspect of Canadian politics, one which should be taken seriously by feminists, politicians, and the Canadian public. What Mila wears to the Summit fashion show, how she redecorates her house and how many employees she has in her Parliament Hill office are subjects which affect more than fashion writers, gossip columnists, and investigative journalists. They reveal the kinds of attitudes held in Ottawa and around the country towards women, money, and democracy — attitudes which are inevitably reflected in the political system and in public policy.