How To Marry A Millionaire

The Parnell Old Girls (POGs) are incensed by the fact that young, foreign women are turning up to New Zealand in hordes, and marrying our wealthiest men. The women are shunned from the man’s social group, and the couple mocked mercilessly behind their back. So when one of the POGs own inner-circle, Mr X, dared to marry one, the POGs faces defied gravity and Botox in expressions of indescribable rage. Mr X did the sensible thing, and disappeared with his Baltic Bride for a nine-month honeymoon on his yacht.

The POGs are not a particularly attractive lot, truth be told. Their better years are far behind them, and try as they might to cling to the last, tattered shreds of their youth, most of them look like screwed-up bits of paper with lipstick. They also fail to realise that the reason the men are marrying these women is not because they are young and hot (although, I am sure that helps), but because they are unfailingly pleasant.

Thus, from a few years of observation, I have painstakingly worked out* the exact, scientific formulation on How To Marry A Millionaire.

The First Wife is always someone of the same social class and background. Marriage can last decades, or at least until the wife’s Attractiveness Factor is low enough for him to finally notice what an emasculating bitch she is.

The Second Wife is anyone/thing. Rebound can be so cruel. Second wives don’t generally last long.

The Third Wife is young and poor enough to have some respect, and, importantly, is insecure enough to know that her position is tenuous (the Millionaire will have learned by now the value of prenuptial agreements). As she is young, her Attractiveness Ratio will remain high. By the time it starts to dip, the Millionaire will either be dead, or too old to care. She will treat the marriage like a career; with a job description of being pleasant and accommodating.

The POGs could learn a lot.

*Actually, I’m making it up as I go along. Such is the gift of a genius.