In court, King Donald and Queen Ivana battle overthe nature of
relationships and look like jokers
"I am a single mother, deeply devoted to my children. have no time
for any permanent relationship , and am also attempting to be a business
woman, trying to allot time between my family, which Will always be
first, my business and charitable endeavors, and trying to have a
reasonable social life and share male companionship when
appropriate."
These words come not from a Murphy Brown monologue, but from an
Ivana Trump affidavit. They are among countless such utterances that have
rolled off Ivana Trump's lips-many admittedly crafted by her lawyers-in
inter-views or affidavits in her post-divorce fight with the real estate
mogul she once called "The Donald" but now allegedly calls "Mr. Trump'
"
It's tempting to view this escalating legal brouhaha as mere
documentation of the frivolous trials and tribulations of a plush
lifestyle. But I have second thoughts. I fear that the joke may be oil
women. Ironically, this post-divorce squabble by these larger-than-life
people, with their-exaggerated, if not repulsively extravagant,
lifestyles, could wind up making Donald's most lasting monument not Trump
Tower, but a legal decision that determines matrimonial law for the rest
of us-and enforces old double standards of behavior.
Dubbed "The P.T. Barnum" of business, Donald has accused Ivana of
breaching key clauses in their trumpeted $25 million divorce. He has cut
off her alimony and refused to pay the down payment on the $2-plus
million East Side Manhattan townhouse into which she reportedly plans to
relocate, because he says she is "cohabiting" with a wealthy Italian
businessman.
In this "Year of the Woman:' Ivana is no Dianne Feinstein. And,
even in the scaled-down '90s, neither are Ivana and Donald your
traditional Ozzie and Harriet parents. With numerous houses in assorted
parts of the world, it's hard to tell if either of them inhabits--let
alone cohabits-anywhere. In a real sense, their true home is the
tabloids, where they are almost daily fodder--and mudder.
If Trump v. Trump provides telling imagery about the disarray of
modern families, the case also shows the lunacy of invoking mythical
"family values" when changed expectations in relationships have made
family more a state of mind than matrimony. Just how much a state of mind
is now the subject of increasing amounts of psychological research-but no
shortage of legal opinion.
The juxtaposition of the antiquated term "alimony" and the modem
"cohabit" in the Trump's divorce judgment demonstrates the law's failed
struggle to mesh restrictive moral standards from the past with new
rulings reflecting society's more permissive attitudes towards
relationships.
The case also reveals that single working women no longer need
"don" a scarlet letter A if they live in old-fashioned sin. But they can
still be branded by other letters, and risk losing reparations for their
broken marriages because they live in "SIM".
SIM, Donald's lawyer, Jay Goldstein, explained at a hearing last
summer on Ivana's alleged cohabitation, stands for "a serious, intimate,
marriage-minded relationship" SIM "is what the parties meant by
cohabiting," Goldberg charged, and contends it abrogates Donald's
obligation to pay alimony.
In a series of binding pre- and postnuptial agreements signed
during her 14-year marriage, Ivana had signed away her rights to
equitable distribution of the Trump marital property-and to cohabit. The
fourth and last agreement, which Donald gave her as a Christmas present,
was signed in 1987, when he was already living in some sort of SIM with
Marla Maples, his sometime favorite blonde now playing the role of
Ziegfield's Favorite on Broadway in The Will Rogers Follies.
This last post-nup was incorporated into their 1991 divorce. Ivana
got a $10 million certified check, $350,000 a year in alimony to continue
until "she dies, remarries ... or cohabits with another man," custody of
the three Trump children, $300,000 a year in child support, an
allexpenses-paid vacation each March in her 130-room Mar-A-Lago Palm
Beach home, and the right to keep jewelry and other gifts from Donald,
including his Mercedes. The Czech-born former ski champ and model also
got the Trumps' 45-room ocean-front mansion in Greenwich, Connecticut
(now said to be on the market for $18 million); their two-bedroom condo
in Trump Plaza (now said to be rented out for $4,000 a month); and a $4
million "housing allowance" paid in installments through next March, when
she and her children are to vacate the 50-room triplex atop Trump Tower.
Along with Donald's footing the bills for her living expenses in all
three residences, Ivana also got $50,000 a year toward her basic personal
staff. a chef, a housekeeper, a houseman and, until Eric, the youngest
Trump, reaches his majority, two nannies-hopefully, as one of my own
majority children said, with Donald by then paying for at least one nanny
young enough for Eric to date.
Ivana, her lawyers, and other supporters initially decried this
settlement, claiming it represented scarcely more than one percent of
Donald's net worth. But since hard times have sent the former billionaire
plummeting to millionaire-and perhaps perilously close to bankruptcy-the
divorce may have left Donald more impoverished than Ivana.
Tags:
alimony,
brouhaha,
business woman,
charitable endeavors,
cohabiting,
dianne feinstein,
divorce,
feminism,
italian businessman,
ivana trump,
legal decision,
male companionship,
manhattan townhouse,
matrimonial law,
murphy brown,
ozzie and harriet,
p t barnum,
real estate mogul,
relationship,
second thoughts,
single mother,
squabble,
trials and tribulations,
trump tower,
year of the woman
