Being a first lady sucks -- this is nothing new. In terms of beleaguered professions, first wives are up there with traffic cops. It's a role that shows up more than any other the quite frankly ridiculous standards to which women in the public eye are held: If they are silent, they are dull; if they talk, they are risky loose cannons. If they are successful career women, they are not supportive of their husbands; if they are mutely adoring, they are dull and old-fashioned. Norma Major was famously sneered at for looking a bit miserable, when it later transpired her friend had just died from cancer; Barbara Bush managed to go from mumsy frump to threatening bully seemingly overnight, proving that, when it comes to first ladies, there are no gray areas, just extremes.

And the problem has worsened with time -- primarily because, despite all feminism's advances, the media (or more specifically, the tabloids) still have trouble computing the concept of an intelligent, married woman, particularly one who is a breath away from power. The specter of Lady Macbeth is eerily invoked by the press -- witness the vilification of Hillary Clinton and Teresa Heinz Kerry. But a woman who remains quietly behind the scenes is mocked for her mousiness, as typified by Private Eye's satirization of Mary Wilson, known for her simple tastes, with its "Mrs. Wilson's Diary."

Small wonder, frankly, that some need a bit of recourse to get through it, though it is unfortunate that they seem to have a remarkable tendency to choose methods that just get them into more trouble, such as Nancy Reagan with her enjoyable dabblings in the occult, or Cherie Blair and her energy channeling with Carole Caplin.

A large part of the problem is undoubtedly that there is no defined role for a leader's spouse. She is, as Norma Major once put it, "married to ambition." In Britain, there isn't even a term for the role. But increasingly, the American term of first lady has been invoked, reflecting how the position has been growing in visibility.

So what do we want of these wives of leaders? "I feel that I am Stan's trainer for the arena," Lucy Baldwin, the prime minister's wife, wrote to her mother, "and I have to see that he husbands his strength for the fighting times." Mary Wilson took a somewhat less dutiful view: "I suggest you get a dummy and put a nice hat and dress on it and a bunch of flowers in its hand and put it in a cupboard, and when you need it, you pull it out and there it is, and when you don't need it you push it back again," she once fumed to a private secretary.

The fact is that nothing has really changed since Wilson's original complaint. It's just that our standards have not only hardened but become trickier to reconcile with the realities of modern life. Yes, they may be pushed more often in front of the flashbulbs, but they are still, ultimately, the invisible women. We expect of them certain behavior that seems centuries old, and when they step out of line we recoil in horror and reprimand them until they step back into their rightful place: that of the supportive little woman.

But there is a potential twist in the future, and that is the concept of the first man. Once this become more commonplace, it will force us to reassess the demands we place on first ladies, because even the most simplistic tabloid reporter won't be able to balance such obvious double standards as allowing a leader's husband leverage that would be denied to a leader's wife. Denis Thatcher, Britain's only first man to date, seemed happy to play along with the press's lazy presentation of him as a quasi-emasculated, bumbling fool. Asked once how he spent his time, he replied, rather gloriously, "Well, when I'm not completely pissed I like to play a lot of golf." But it seems unlikely that the next contender in the wings will be quite so easily dismissed with such outdated social clichés. Roll on Bill Clinton.

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