"Why They Stay" explores the reasoning and motivation of wives who stay with their politician-husbands after they cheat.
Hillary Clinton couldn't have known in 1998 how her husband's high-profile philandering would play out. Would he be rehabilitated in the public eye? She couldn't be sure, but she took the gamble. Had she left the marriage, today she might be the spurned wife of a retired politician instead of the first American woman to head a major party ticket.

Looking back on the path chosen by the nine political wives profiled in this book, we have the evidence to see a pattern--as old as the dynastic maneuverings of England's medieval queens. The women married to the "royalty" of our times--politicians--make similar cold calculations in order to hold onto their "thrones" and their family's history-making potential.

After covering politicians for decades, acclaimed columnist Anne Michaud switched her gaze to the women behind the cheating men. Drawing from multiple sources that span the Roosevelts' marriage to the more recent scandal involving Hillary Clinton's closest aide Huma Abedin (wife of "sexter," Anthony Weiner), "Why They Stay: Sex Scandals, Deals, and Hidden Agendas of Nine Political Wives" argues that when it comes to the "power behind the throne," women in the limelight weigh the risks and rewards. They remain loyal to their men, because of complex, often unconscious forces.From mapping a path to power to laudable notions of holding the family together, Michaud examines the uniquely challenging Faustian bargains that political wives grapple with, even as the public spotlight illuminates their every move.

Table of Contents

Praise for Why They Stay

Copyright

Dedication

Prologue

The White Queen Relationship

Trait One: Submitting to Tradition

Trait Two: Longing for Security

Trait Three: A Personal Sense of Patriotism

Trait Four: Responsibility for the Family's Emotional Health

Trait Five: Ambition to Build and Bequeath a Legacy

1. Eleanor and FDR

Living Separate Lives Together

Eleanor's White Queen Quotient: 8

Seeking Security in a World of Privilege and Dissolution

Schooled in a Proud Patriarchal Legacy

To Washington, and Temptation

Eleanor's Commitment to Duty Tested

Fashioning a New Kind of First Lady

Infidelity's Legacy For the Five Roosevelt Children

2. Jackie and JFK

A Legacy of Adultery

Jackie's White Queen Quotient: 7

The Kennedys and Fitzgeralds: Stepping Up from 'Second Class'

The Bouviers: A Façade of Financial Security

Jackie's Mother: Schooling her Daughters to Marry Mr. Right

Male Privilege: Philandering in Both Houses

Coping in Bed and All the Way to the Bank

Turning Outward toward Caretaking

A Heritage of Resiliency

3. Valerie Hobson and Jack Profumo

Bringing Down the Party

Valerie's White Queen Quotient: 8

From Poverty to Hollywood: The Woman at the Center of the Scandal

A Noble Family and Every Other Advantage

Marriage Agrees with Jack's Political Career

Hiding the Scandal from the Children

Deciding Whether to Stay

4. Marion Stein and Jeremy Thorpe

Party Leader Blackmailed

Marion's White Queen Quotient: 9

A Life Blossoming Through Music

Fairy Tale Marriage to a Royal Grandson

The Charismatic Jack Kennedy of Britain

Gay Men in Public Life

A Deadly Plot

Scandal's Legacy for Four Sons

5. Hillary and Bill Clinton:

Inventing the Power Couple

Hillary's White Queen Quotient: 10

Mixed Messages from a Righteous Mother and Overbearing Father

An Evidently Formidable Team

Clearly Not a One-Woman Man

Uneasiness in the Land of Patriarchal Politics

Protecting Her Family's Legacy-and That of Her Country

Making a Normal Family Life for Chelsea

Arguing for a 'Zone of Privacy' for Political Families

6. Gila and Moshe Katsav

Loyalty After Rape Charges

Gila's White Queen Quotient: 8

A Life Built on Building a Community

A Tremor of Scandal, and then an Avalanche

What Gila and their Children Knew

7. Wendy and David Vitter

Anti-Sex Crusader

Wendy's White Queen Quotient: 9

Early Training in 'No Nonsense'

The Lone Wolf of Louisiana Politics

D.C. Madam Publishes Clients' Phone Numbers and Fetishes

Protecting Himself from His Own Urges

8. Silda Wall and Eliot Spitzer

Clinging to Power

Silda's White Queen Quotient: 6

A Southern Belle Drawn to Harvard

Pressure to Perform in a Dynasty on the Rise

Silda Wonders, 'Who is This Guy?'

'The Wife is Responsible for the Sex'

Trying to Mend the Family

9. Huma Abedin and Anthony Weiner

A Woman of Confidence

Learning to Defend Herself and Her Culture

A Middle-Class Son from Brooklyn and Queens

The 'Most Competent, Graceful Person' in Politics

A sex scandal fueled by 21st century media

Huma's White Queen Quotient: 10

Social Media Obsession Helps to Sink Hillary Clinton Campaign

Conclusion

Acknowledgments