which she may not equate with sexual fidelity. Also, she finds it
difficult to believe that she will be replaced by a passing attraction.
Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis appears to be an Athena woman. She
married Senator John F. Kennedy, who became President of the
United States. Later she became the wife of Aristotle Onassis, reputed
to be one of the richest, most ruthless, and powerful men in the
world. Both men were known to have extramarital affairs. Kennedy
was a womanizer, with numerous liaisons, and Onassis had a well-
publicized long-term extramarital affair with opera star Maria Callas.
Unless Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis was a consummate actress, she
seems not to have been vindictive toward the other women. Her
apparent lack of jealousy and rage, plus her choice of powerful men,
are characteristic of an Athena woman. As long as the marriage itself
is not threatened, an Athena woman can rationalize and accept the
fact of a mistress.
Sometimes, however, an Athena woman grossly underrates the
significance of her husband’s interest in another woman. She has a
blind spot here—untouched by passion herself, she cannot calculate
its importance to someone else. Also, she has a lack of empathy or
compassion for vulnerable feelings or spiritual values that may have
special meaning for her husband. This lack of understanding may
catch her unaware and unprepared when, contrary to her expecta-
tions, her husband wants to divorce her and marry the other woman.
When the decision to divorce is made by the Athena woman, she
may be able to shed a husband of whom she is “quite fond” with
relatively little emotion or grief. This certainly was the impression
given by a thirty-one-year-old stockbroker I knew. She was in a dual-
career marriage until her advertising executive husband was fired.
He moped around the house rather than aggressively seeking work,
and she grew increasingly unhappy with and disrespectful of him.
After a year, she told him she wanted a divorce. Her attitude was
similar to that of a businessman who fires a man unable to carry out
the responsibilities of the job or who replaces a worker when a better
man for the job comes along. She was sadly reluctant to tell him and
found the actual confrontation painful, yet her bottom-line conclusion
was that he must go.
Athena: Goddess of Wisdom Growing beyond the confining