Also interesting are the occasional comments from the academic wives. In the two cases discussed so far, both women were academics themselves. One, Allan Sandage's wife, was an astronomer herself, who found it difficult to keep up with her husband's intense astronomical demands, and it sounds like she drifted away from her work as a result. Sad. The other was Stephen Hawking's wife, a linguist, who couldn't even begin to understand what he was doing (and didn't seem to mind that much). Hawking had Lou Gehrig's disease, and she had an interesting perspective on how that affected their (generally very happy) marriage:
"I think it takes great single-mindedness," she said about science, "and I think it means that you cannot really devote yourself to anything else at all. In a way, you see, there is a certain poetic justice in Stephen's condition. Because, given the initial tragedy of his situation, in fact it has meant that he's been able to devote himself completely and utterly to his work. There's simply nothing else that he can do."
Was that a problem? I wondered. "Well, for me there's nothing unusual about it because I knew there was nothing else he could do. I can imagine how frustrating it must be for some physicists' wives when they expect help from able-bodied husbands which is not forthcoming. I have no illusions on that score."