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Certainly women's hard-won independence--their entry into the world of work and sexual freedom--was expected to break down some of these gender patterns. In the old days, says Nancy Friday, author of The Power of Beauty, "men had all the economic wherewithal, and women owned beauty, and the wealthiest man got the most beautiful woman, and everyone understood that. When a woman lost her man back then, she lost everything." But those days were supposed to be over, and for many couples, they are. There is no shortage of jilted husbands out there. As Manhattan divorce lawyer Eleanor Alter, who represented Mia Farrow in her proceedings against Woody Allen, puts it, "In most divorces, the fault is not so unequal. Two people have a drink together and they misbehave. Two people drift apart. These aren't heinous things. That's life."
But despite the modern era of divorce, which began when California Governor Ronald Reagan (then on his second wife) signed the nation's first no-fault divorce bill in 1969, The First Wives Club has hit upon some lingering ugly truths. At about 40%, the U.S. divorce rate, which has plateaued recently, is the highest in the world. And between 1970 and 1990, the divorce rate for women between the ages of 40 and 50 increased 62%. Meanwhile, their chances of remarrying are not great: while about 75% of all divorced people eventually marry again, the rate for men is three times as high as that for women--and given men's propensity to marry down in age, the older the woman, the tougher the odds.
Divorce is traumatic at any age. But for middle-aged women whose husbands leave them for what Bette Midler in the movie calls Pop-Tarts, the emotional and economic devastation can be profound. "Remember," says Lynne Gold-Bikin, a divorce lawyer and former chair of the American Bar Association's Family Law Section, "the first wife is normally the one that lives over the store, who puts hubby through school, who works and raises the kids." The second wife gets not only the fruits of his career building but also the benefits of his midlife interest in family. "Now, when she has the baby, he's in the delivery room--he wasn't there the first time," says Gold-Bikin. "And she gets the fur coat."
Nor, for upper-class women, does a big chunk of money necessarily make up for the loss of social status. "It's more than just divorce from the husband," explains Manhattan lawyer Raoul Felder, whose clients have included Mrs. Martin Scorsese, Mrs. Huntington Hartford and Mrs. Mike Tyson, and who is currently representing the seventh Mr. Elizabeth Taylor, Larry Fortensky. "It's divorce from the star aura. I've seen the diaries that some of these first wives kept when they were married: 'We're meeting Dr. Kissinger here. Dinner at Martha Stewart's.' And suddenly it all ends. People gravitate toward money and fame. And money and fame usually go with the husband."