Carolina Ardohain and Martin Barrantes

Buenos Aires, Sept. 24: She is the face, not to mention bust, of Wonderbra in Argentina. He is a former model and polo player with connections to British royalty.

In the macho culture of South America, it is Martin Barrantes who would have been expected to boast of straying.

Instead, Carolina Ardohain, Argentina’s best-known sex symbol who is nicknamed “Pampita” after her home town, has struck an unlikely blow for women — first by walking out on her husband, and then by discussing the matter on national television.

In doing so, she has turned the tables on national culture.

Few people could personify Argentine manhood more than her husband: once a male model, he counts the Duchess of York among his friends and is a regular on the Argentine polo circuit, a favourite haunt of the country’s strutting alpha males.

In the media furore surrounding the collapse of the couple’s relationship, he has been reduced to appearing on prime time television himself to make a vitriolic attack on his wife, accusing her of turning him into a laughing stock.

“She made an exhibition of infidelity, an ostentation, it didn’t matter to her at all. She didn’t look out for me in any way…She threw me to the lions,” said Barrantes, 33. “The kids yell ‘Cuckold!’ at me. The laughter really upsets me because it’s the truth… My ego is on the floor.”

His comments, which have transfixed the Argentine public, followed a television interview with Ardohain, 28, in which she complained that her estranged husband was demanding an “enormous” divorce settlement that was “impossible to pay”.

Ardohain has since taken up with BenjamíVicuña, a Chilean actor, with whom she now has a four-month-old baby girl, Blanca.

Ardohain’s actions point to an increasing tolerance of marital break-up in the traditionally Catholic nation, where divorce was legalised only in 1987.

An opinion poll published last week shows that nine out of ten adult Argentines are in favour of legal separation. There are signs that even the Catholic Church could be softening its long-standing opposition to divorce.