I am reading Mencius with my class now; so, when I heard the news today of Eliot Spitzer’s embarrassment, I wondered what Mencius might say.  I found this passage which, while evincing a rather different sensibility toward mistresses than that of our own time, ends with a warning about ambition that wives of high profile politicians might want to take to heart. 

There was a man in Ch’i who lived with his wife and mistress.  When he went out, he always came home stuffed with wine and meat.  One day his wife asked who his companions were, and he told her they were all men of wealth and renown. So she said to the mistress: "When he goes out, he always comes home stuffed with wine and meat.  I ask who his companions are, and he says they’re all men of wealth and renown.  But we’ve never had such illustrious guests here in our house.  I’m going to follow him and see where he goes."

She rose early the next morning and followed him everywhere he went.  But no one in all the city even stopped to talk with him.  Finally he went out to the graveyard east of the city, and there begged leftovers from someone performing sacrifices.  He didn’t get enough, so he went to beg from someone at another grave.  That’s how he stuffed himself full.

The wife returned home and told the mistress what she’d seen, then said: "A woman looks to her husband for direction and hope throughout life, and this is what ours is like."  Together they railed against their husband and wept in the courtyard.  Later, knowing nothing of this, the husband came swaggering in to impress his women.

In the eyes of the noble-minded, when a man chases after wealth and renown, profit and position, it is rare that his women aren’t disgraced and driven to tears. (8.33)