The Remarrying Kind - New York Times
Ellen Barkin will get $20 million when the divorce to Ron Perelman happens.. As the fourth wife he has already paid 118 million to his fomer wives... according to the NY Times.
Article quotes Harriet Newman Cohen, a New York divorce lawyer, who says marriage, more than dating, fills old traditions of respectability, status and comfort. It might even be love, for a while. Plus, they can afford it.
From the NY Times (Jan 29, 2006)
FOR Ronald O. Perelman, Forbes magazine's 34th-richest man in America, marriage would seem to be getting expensive: last week, he announced that he was divorcing his fourth wife, the actress Ellen Barkin, and would pay out the $20 million promised in their prenuptial pact — having paid $8 million, $80 million and $30 million, respectively, to Wives 1, 2 and 3.
While matchmakers among the ultrarich are already speculating about who will be wife No. 5, others might reasonably ask why Mr. Perelman and other serial grooms in his jet set don't take the actor George Clooney's "never again" approach: Date ferociously, but don't marry. As one prominent New York divorce lawyer said of an 85-year-old client now negotiating his fourth prenup, "Don't you think he would stop?"
"They marry people who listen to completely different music, who don't know who Joe McCarthy was," bemoaned the lawyer, who would not be quoted by name for fear of angering his clients. "They have less chance with every one that it's going to succeed."
So why do the ultrarich marry, and re-marry, and re-marry? For men who have cycled through what Harriet Newman Cohen, a New York divorce lawyer, called "very high powered, high ZIP code divorces," marriage, more than dating, fills old traditions of respectability, status and comfort. It might even be love, for a while. Plus, they can afford it.
Nationwide, the number of people living together instead of marrying has risen strikingly in the last 30 years, just as the percentage of married couples has declined. "The poorer people I've interviewed talk about waiting until they reach a certain economic status to get married," said Pamela Smock, a sociology professor at the University of Michigan who studies marriage, cohabitation and divorce. "They want the house and the picket fence and two cars; they're not going to get married until they get there, and a lot never will."
But for the ultrarich, things are different. People in Mr. Perelman's position, she said, "can get there over and over and over again."
Marriage and money have had a long courtship. But historically, men gained money, not lost it, when they remarried.
"From the Middle Ages through the 16th century, marriage was the main way that upper-class families consolidated wealth," said Stephanie Coontz, the author of "Marriage: A History." "They effected business mergers, made trading alliances, and the really upper classes made peace treaties — it was, 'I'm going to leave this woman now because I have a chance with the daughter of the king of Spain.' "
Only in the last 100 years has love been romanticized.
"This is a new phenomenon — not the mercenary quality, but the fact that people are willing to risk this kind of money, just to say they're married," Ms. Coontz said. "Love has been so idealized that at the top, the rich are willing to throw good money after bad to see if they can get the magic ring." So if a second marriage is the triumph of hope over experience, as Samuel Johnson observed, that's only more true of Marriages 3, 4 and 5.
"They love the institution, they want to do it again," said Janis Spindel, a matchmaker in New York who said she charges $100,000 for what she calls her "power elite clients" to find a spouse. "They think three times is the charm."
Of course, marriage to a certain kind of woman — a movie star, a socialite — can also be about conquest, ambition, cachet.
"It's ego," said David Patrick Columbia, who writes NewYorkSocialDiary.com. "If you're a big deal, you've got to have ways of showing it. You've got the house, got the car, got the wife. They don't think much of marriage, they think much of possessing."
They can easily find women to agree — and typically it is the women who are, as divorce lawyers gently call it, "the non-moneyed."
Stanford G. Lotwin, a divorce lawyer in New York, said he tried to warn his serial clients about taking on serial wives.
"We tell these men, you cannot go anywhere without our card in your pocket," he said. "As soon as you have your second date, you have to call, and we'll remind you how expensive this is. He'll say, 'I repeat your name in my sleep, I promise you I'm not doing anything.' " But soon enough, Mr. Lotwin will be pulling out the box of tissues he uses to guide the man's new fiancée through the prenuptial process.
For many of the men, the prenuptial is simply part of the business deal that is marriage. "They see it like a hedge fund," said Ms. Cohen, the divorce lawyer. "Sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn't."
And it's just this attitude that makes divorce more likely. "They're used to having whatever they want," said Norman Sheresky, a New York divorce lawyer.
And some aren't ready for the ups and downs of a long marriage. "Nobody thinks the sex is going to change, nobody thinks their life is going to change. Well, it changes. Rich people go, 'I can do something about this.' "
They are also presented with many temptations.
"Everyone is throwing themselves at them, no matter what they look like or what their personality is," Mr. Lotwin said.
As for Mr. Perelman, Mr. Columbia reports, "They're lining up for him already."
