Can the First Lady be a foreigner?

[Powers106]

I know that there are requirements that the President of the USA must be over 35 years old (or something like that) and be an American citizen by birth. There are obviously others that I might not be aware of like rules for convicted felons and so forth.

Are there any similar requirements for the wife (or in the future, the husband) of the President?

[waterj2]

John Quincy Adams' wife was from England.

The Constitution says nothing about any requirements to be First Lady, nor does it mention any restrictions on Presidential eligibility based on who the President is married to.

[Diceman]

First Lady isn't an office of any kind. It's just a courtesy title given to the wife of the president. As such, the only restrictions on it are that the First Lady be someone who the president considers worthy of marriage.

[samclem]

Sorry. I thought this was another "bash Hillary" thread by a NewYawker.

[Wendell Wagner]

For that matter, the First Lady doesn't even have to be married to the President. There have been several Presidents who were widowed or never married, and they had someone who served as hostess to White House social events. I think it was a female relative in each case - a niece or some such. I guess these women were referred to as the First Lady at the time. It would be interesting to see what would happen if the President had a live-in girlfriend who moved into the White House with him. We've already had that on the state level here in Maryland. The last governor, William Schaeffer, had a girlfriend who'd been with him throughout his time as mayor of Baltimore, and she moved into the governor's mansion and lived with him throughout his eight years as governor.

Incidentally, the public prominence of the First Lady is mostly an American thing (or so I've been told). In most of the world, it's not typical for the press or the public to be so concerned about the family of the president or prime minister. That's considered to be beyond the bounds of privacy.

[Northern Piper]

Wendell Wagner's right about the non-prominence of spouses, at least for Canada. For example, the name of the wife of our current PM only became widely known when she knocked out a midnight intruder in the PM's official residence with an Inuit soap stone carving. Prior to that, I don't think most people could have come up with her name.

(Which isn't to say that our PM can't look after himself, being a former hockey player at the local level. A few years ago, when one heckler was being particulary obnoxious, the PM put a choke hold on him and pushed him out of the way. The PM went up in the opinion polls thereafter.)

[peepthis]

Originally posted by Wendell Wagner
We've already had that on the state level here in Maryland. The last governor, William Schaeffer, had a girlfriend who'd been with him throughout his time as mayor of Baltimore, and she moved into the governor's mansion and lived with him throughout his eight years as governor.

Ah yes, "Whore Hilda" as Schaeffer's critics dubbed her. You gotta love the Free State. [hijack] What happened to her anyway, since old Don has taken over as comptroller? [/hijack]

[Wendell Wagner]

First, a note: I've been misspelling the former governor's name. It's Schaefer.

She died in June 1999, I think. Put Hilda Mae Snoops into Google or a similar search engine for some news stories about her.

"Whore Hilda"? I never heard that one. Funny, one of the occasional rumors about Schaefer was that he's gay and Hilda was just a friend who agreed to pretend to be his girlfriend. They lived close to each other but not in the same house during all his time as city councilman and then mayor in Baltimore. (She had been married when she was young, but was divorced by the time she and Schaeffer were an item. Schaefer has never been married.) The only time they actually lived together was during his time as governor. Not too long after his term ended, she got old and frail enough that she spent the last several years of her life in an assisted-living community.

For those of you not familiar with Maryland politics, I should explain that Schaefer was not young at the time he became governor. I think he was 65 when he took office. Perhaps this defused some of the hostility he might have gotten from the press about living with his girlfriend in the governor's mansion. What were they going to say, "We don't like young studs like Schaefer shacking up with floozies they're not married too."?

[Wendell Wagner]

I wrote:

> . . . they're not married too."?

I meant, of course:

> . . . they're not married to."?

[BobT]

Originally posted by waterj2
John Quincy Adams' wife was from England.

The Constitution says nothing about any requirements to be First Lady, nor does it mention any restrictions on Presidential eligibility based on who the President is married to.

Although J.Q. Adams' wife was born in England, she actually was an American citizen. However, her foreign birth was something of a campaign issue when Adams ran for president in 1824 and 1828, a pair of particularly nasty campaigns.

[Coldfire]

Originally posted by Wendell Wagner
Incidentally, the public prominence of the First Lady is mostly an American thing (or so I've been told). In most of the world, it's not typical for the press or the public to be so concerned about the family of the president or prime minister. That's considered to be beyond the bounds of privacy.

That's certainly true for a lot of European countries. When our prime minister, Wim Kok (just be glad his first name isn't Richard!), would be sleeping around, most people would be fine with it as long as he kept running the country properly.

How's about this for a theory: a lot of countries that don't have the same First Lady fetish that the USA seems to have, do have Royal Families that receive just as much if not more attention. Could it be that countries like the US just focus on the Prez and his wife because there's just a public interest in country leading figures, and no royalty to focus on?

Hell, it would explain the popularity/norotiety of the Kennedy family, wouldn't it?

[TwistofFate]

Here's one for you.. A country that has No Royalty, A President with little power but a huge official residence, A PM who is still married, separated and has his partner as his "first lady".


Yup, you can find it all in Ireland.

[Coldfire]

Yeah, but you lads have Guinness. If there was Guinness coming out of every draught tap in the Netherlands, we wouldn't give a damn about Beatrix and her family either

[AWB]

Originally posted by Wendell Wagner
For that matter, the First Lady doesn't even have to be married to the President. There have been several Presidents who were widowed or never married, and they had someone who served as hostess to White House social events. I think it was a female relative in each case - a niece or some such. I guess these women were referred to as the First Lady at the time. It would be interesting to see what would happen if the President had a live-in girlfriend who moved into the White House with him. We've already had that on the state level here in Maryland. The last governor, William Schaeffer, had a girlfriend who'd been with him throughout his time as mayor of Baltimore, and she moved into the governor's mansion and lived with him throughout his eight years as governor.

Actually, only one US President, James Buchanan, was never married. IIRC, his niece acted as First Lady.

And only Woodrow Wilson was a widower at any time during his presidency. His first wife died halfway through his first term, and he remarried about a year later.

[RickJay]

Originally posted by jti
Wendell Wagner's right about the non-prominence of spouses, at least for Canada. For example, the name of the wife of our current PM only became widely known when she knocked out a midnight intruder in the PM's official residence with an Inuit soap stone carving.

And the legend grows with the telling.

It was Jean Chretien with the carving. And he didn't hit the guy with it; he was apprehended before he got into Chretien's room.

[Wendell Wagner]

AWB,

There were more widowers in the White House than that. Thomas Jefferson became a widower before he was elected and he never remarried. Grover Cleveland was widowed before he was elected and remarried during his first term. Does anyone want to post the entire list of Presidents and First Ladies and what the relation was of the ones who weren't the wife of the President?

Also, note that I said "There have been several Presidents who were widowed or never married . . .," by which I meant "There existed more than one x such that x was a President and x was either widowed or never married." I did not mean to say "There existed more than one x such that x was a President and x was widowed, and there existed more than one x such that x was never married." I admit that it was somewhat confusingly stated because I tried to put too much into one sentence.