From top PR executive, to wife, to mute. This week Sarah Brown takes it to the next stage: hostess. Smile! Photograph: Bruno Vincent/Getty Images
The only prime minister’s partner to have a Bond-villain nickname, Hoogendijk is known as the “Silent Doctor” because of her work euthanising puppies in her subterranean clinic near Leeuwarden. Either that or it’s because she has a PhD and steers clear of the limelight. One of the two anyway, we never can remember which. Photograph: Axel Schmidt/AFP/Getty Images
Has a degree in health education and four children, and enjoys swimming, it says here. Much more importantly, however, her life motto is “Care for people with love and do my best to do what I should”. She also likes world peace and baby deer and looks great in a one-piece. Photograph: Jo Yong-Hak/AFP
Met husband Dmitri when they were seven, and the couple were inseparable by 14. Has a degree in economics, though her husband forbade her to work. “From time to time, Sveta did say that it would be good to find some activity, but I explained that it is better ... if the wife stays at home,” he has said. He sounds lovely. Photograph: AFP
An experienced politician alongside her husband Felipe Calderón, having served in the Mexican Congress. Has been here with her husband since Monday, having squeezed a sneaky state visit in first, so is doubtless already on first name terms with HMQ and the Harrods womenswear department. Photograph: Tim Whitby/Getty Images
Probably the only one of the delegates’ plus-ones to have begun her working life at 13 in a chocolate factory. She met Lula at a metalworkers’ union meeting, shortly after her first husband was murdered. His first wife had died in childbirth. Seven months later they married. Sweet. Photograph: Eraldo Peres/AP
Began training as a doctor, got married to Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono instead. Has a butterfly named after her. And lots more interesting stuff too, no doubt, which we could tell you if we read Indonesian. Photograph: Supri/Reuters
Married to that nice chap. You know, thingy. Photograph: Ron Edmonds/AP
He was a middle-aged bachelor politician, she was the daughter of a former Japanese prime minister. Taro Aso, invited to dinner, was horrified to spot sea cucumber on the menu. Spotting his distress, Chikako said: “You don’t have to eat it if you don’t want.” Boom! Love/marriage/political triumph ensued. Photograph: AFP
A former rehab counsellor who in 1988 founded her own employment agency for the long-term unemployed. It now has a turnover of A$175m in 60 offices worldwide, giving her a personal wealth of A$60m. God knows what she is doing here, she sounds far too important. Photograph: Kazuhiro Nogi/AFP
Chinese custom decrees that first ladies never say anything much, ever, so she doesn’t. We know she is two years older than Hu Jintao and met him at university, but not much more. Happily this means she can sidestep embarrassing allegations that their daughter lives in the US under a pseudonym. Photograph: Guang Niu/Getty Images
Described as “devoutly religious [and] with a melodious voice”, she is well known among Delhi’s Sikh community for her performances of traditional Sikh chanting. Rumours of a turn on Singstar after dinner as yet unconfirmed. Photograph: Altaf Qadri/AP
There is no reason why people from different backgrounds can’t get along in modern Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said — after all, he doesn’t have any problems with his wife, who is of a different Muslim denomination. So that’s nice. They met at a conference in 1978 and have two sons. Photograph: Salih Zeki Fazlioglu/AFP/Getty Images
A divorcee, rancher’s daughter, former lifeguard and photographer who rides a motorbike and in her free time fosters kittens. True fact. Absolutely our favourite summit widow bar none. Photograph: Jim Watson/AFP
NOT COMING Perhaps just as well, since King Abdullah Bin-Abd-al-Aziz Al Saud has at least seven wives. Think of the seating plan. Photograph: AFP
Shame. The former B-movie actress, and present Mrs Berlusconi, could at least have provided a bit of drama. In one early role, for instance, her hand is chopped off by a flying axe but she cleverly uses her spraying stump to paint the wall before she expires. Gotta beat discussing scone recipes with Mrs Indonesia. Photograph: Olycom SPA/Rex Features
No surprises here - having been president of Argentina himself from 2003 to 2007 before letting his wife Cristina take over, Kirchner knows precisely how tedious these events are and won’t be caught anywhere near it. Photograph: Leo La Valle/EPA
Also far too sensible for this kind of caboodle. Mr Angela Merkel is a quantum chemist and professor at the Humboldt University of Berlin. Napkin-folding lessons at Fortnum & Mason not really his cuppa, we assume. Photograph: Shaun Curry/AFP/Getty Images
That’s right, no Carla. Apparently she was determined that when she first met Michelle Obama it would be on French soil, just the two of them, none of those other dumpy women in cerise suits getting in the way. Or that might all be rubbish. Either way, she’s a no-show. Photograph: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images
