Why rich wives can have it all
Pictures: Independent Woman
• amfAR cinema against AIDS
• Celebration of the Arts Gala
• What to expect premiere London
• Billboard Music Awards Red Carpet
• Men In Black 3 London Premiere
By Deirdre Fernand
Saturday Aug 8 2009
There's something sleek and shiny about Juliana Farha. Step inside her west London mews house and a tableau unfolds that is wonderful to behold. Perched on a sofa, all glossy curls and manicured nails, she is poised perfection. Opposite, throwing her admiring glances, sits her husband, 42-year-old Kit Malthouse, one of Boris Johnson's deputy mayors of London. Malthouse is a successful financier who also draws a salary of more than £100,000 a year from City Hall. Farha could take it easy. Yet, for the past two years, she has been putting in long hours building up a social networking site.
"Arguably, I could choose not to work," says Farha (42), a former journalist. "But I wouldn't feel comfortable not contributing to our life together." She grew up in Canada, helped run a successful family business in Toronto and married Malthouse two years ago. "There was no expectation that Kit would hand me a life. I am not the stereotype of a politician's wife, in that I am not an extension of him."
Dilettantemusic.com, her site which launched last year, has so far gobbled up more than £500,000, money that Farha raised herself. Malthouse provides her with emotional and financial support. "I have to own up to the reality that I couldn't do it without Kit. It is a luxury that lots of women don't have."
Luxury. We bandy the word about, but for women such as Farha, it means real choice, real privilege. And in today's straitened times, that particular freedom -- to work or not to work -- appears the ultimate luxury.
Like Farha, Jill Kowal is a "multiple-choice" mother, a woman with many options. Married to a successful fund manager, with whom she has three children under 12, she could afford to stay at home, but prefers to work.
She works as a horticulturist at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and is also studying for a master's degree at Reading University.
"It's hard and tiring, but I am completely stimulated by what I do," she says. "I think that women of my generation have been educated to engage with the world, not just to let the world 'happen' around us," she says.
Many women would envy Kowal's freedom to choose to work or not, a fact she acknow-ledges: "This privileged position allows me a greater freedom to pursue work I find meaningful and tangible, without worrying about the mortgage."
Marilyn Davidson, professor of work psychology at Manchester Business School, believes that work is intrinsic to our psychological health, a natural antidote to the isolation that many full-time mothers, whatever their financial situation, can experience. "It satisfies our social needs. Even when people have no financial incentive to earn, they tend to get involved in some project after a while." In particular, she sees passion as an important driver for women such as Farha and Kowal. "Their financial security allows them to pursue what they love."
- Deirdre Fernand
