ANALYSIS:The Woods-Nordegren marriage ended with a typical American mix of prurience and puritanism
THEY MADE such a handsome couple, the blonde Swedish au pair and the Asian-African-American athlete. But like all fairy tales, the six-year marriage of Tiger Woods and Elin Nordegren, which ended on Monday, was a lie.
Mainstream American media mostly obeyed the divorced couple’s plea to respect their privacy, after gorging on the lurid details of Woods’s affairs with cocktail waitresses and porn stars through much of last winter.
But the gossip websites couldn’t resist a few more Tiger “scoops”. Quoting an unnamed “friend”, TMZ reported that Rachel Uchitel, Tiger’s named mistress number one, wants him back.
“I feel horrible for him,” Uchitel allegedly told the friend. “He loved her, but he was in love with me. I hope he remembers that was real and reaches out to me. I’d give up everything to be with him again.”
Radaronline reported that Devon James, named mistress number 15, is suffering “an emotional breakdown” because her paternity suit against Tiger Woods was thrown out of court.
Elin Nordegren doubtless thought she loved Tiger Woods when the couple met during the British Open nine summers ago. She probably still loved him when they married in a $2 million ceremony at the Sandy Lane Golf Resort in Barbados in 2004. She may have learned of Woods's infidelity from an intercepted text message or read about it in the National Enquirer.
From the day that 30-year-old Nordegren’s illusions were shattered, the Tiger Woods saga was about lust and lucre, not love.
Neither the couple nor their lawyers (she hired eight; he has one) revealed the amount of the divorce settlement. Media estimates ranged from $100 million to $750 million.
Given that wronged wives are usually entitled to half the husband’s assets, it’s probably closer to the latter. Single mother Elin Nordegren will never want for anything.
But how do lawyers assess the cost of a broken heart? What is adequate compensation for such humiliation? “She could name her price,” said a CNN commentator.
A report in the Sunjust before the settlement was agreed said Nordegren received far more than she expected, after her lawyers discovered that Woods's fortune exceeded the $1 billion she thought he had.
Throughout the Tiger Woods scandal, I couldn’t help thinking how differently they do things in America. When Woods read his televised confession last February, I got an e-mail from an old friend at the European Commission, expressing horror at American puritanism.
I recalled a Frenchman who hesitated to stand for public office because his politician friends were “so busy they don’t even see their wives and mistresses”.
Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, the peacenik cleric at the heart of the “9/11 mosque” controversy, reportedly views the US as “the most sharia-compliant state” because its values are close to those of the Koran. Although US politicians – including “family values” Republicans – indulge in a high number of extra-marital affairs, the US media punishes adulterers with verbal lapidation.
Shortly after the Monica Lewinsky scandal, Bill Clinton was heard to muse, “They love me in France. I could be elected there, no problem.”
Clinton’s remark seems to have been proven right by a recent opinion poll which found that Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the head of the International Monetary Fund whose marital “transgressions” are almost on a par with Tiger Woods, is the politician whom the French would most like to see elected president in 2012.
Tiger Woods may have lost half his fortune to Elin Nordegren on Monday. He has not won a single golf tournament this year. A sports consultant quoted by ABC News said the absence of support from his wife and toddlers on the golf course could throw his game.
In his televised confession, Woods correctly analysed his own downfall. “I convinced myself that normal rules didn’t apply . . . I thought I could get away with whatever I wanted to . . . I felt entitled,” he said.
The same applies to any number of recent scandals, financial as well as sexual. Rules-are-for-other- people arrogance sent Bernie Madoff to prison for life, shamed Goldman Sachs and disgraced BP.
When will they ever learn?
