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The Boston Globe
OUT FROM THE SHADOWS OF 'GREAT' MEN
Author By Ellen Goodman, Globe Staff
Date Thursday, March 15, 1990
Page 15
Section OP-ED PAGE
When I first heard about Einstein's wife, the story sounded like a parody of feminist studies. A coven of historians searching through the archives come to a dark conclusion. It wasn't Einstein who discovered relativity. IT WAS HIS WIFE!
Mileva Maric, fellow student and first wife of the famed Albert, is starring in one of the hottest controversies to hit the dry, footnoted world of historians and scientists. Ever since the American Association for the Advancement of Science held a panel on the subject last month there have been letters, counter-letters and counter-counter-letters. People have taken sides as if the Einsteins were Donald and Ivana.
Speaking for Mileva are Evan Harris Walker and Senta Troemel-Ploetz. Walker, a physicist, contends that the basic ideas for relativity came from Mileva. Troemel-Ploetz, a German linguist, says that the ideas may have been Albert's, but Mileva did the math.
Speaking for Albert are some irate Einstein scholars. John Stachel, keeper of Albert's letters, says that Mileva was little more than a sounding board.
Of course, the Albert and Mileva Affair has its own place in history. In 1929, Virginia Woolf began the famed "A Room of Her Own" by asking what chance a sister of Shakespeare would have had to become a great playwright. Over the past decade, scholars have studied the lives of great men's wives.
Women from A to Z -- or from Anonymous to Zelda (Fitzgerald) -- have been reclaimed. Some of Zelda's best writing was found between Scott's pages. Clara was discovered to be a Schumann in her own right, not just Robert's. Camille Claudel emerged as more than a marble block in Rodin's way.
Mileva Maric Einstein, described in a popular biography as the "gloomy, laconic and distrustful" Serbian peasant, was due for a comeback. It turns out she was one of the rare women admitted to the Polytechnical Institute in Zurich in 1896.
But the case for her as co-genius is shaky. It depends on letters in which Albert referred to "our" theory and "our" work. It hinges on reports of his mathematical weakness and her strength. And rests on a divorce agreement in which Albert promised her his Nobel Prize money. That's not enough to change the credit line on the theory of relativity.
The tragedy of Mileva's life is real enough. But it's of a more personal and a common dimension. It's a parable of two young people who begin life as intellectual soulmates. "How happy I am to have found in you an equal creature who is equally strong and independent as I am," wrote Albert. But somewhere along the way, life and love had an unequal effect in their lives as man and woman, and as scientists.
It's possible to read between the outlines. Pregnant and unmarried, Mileva flunked her final exam. Their first child was born out of wedlock and presumably adopted. By the time their second and third were born, Mileva had become wife, caretaker and often supporter of the family. Her scientific work stopped, his soared. Finally, the famous Albert left her for another woman and Mileva spent the rest of her life struggling to support herself and her children, including a psychotic son.
There is something familiar about this tale of the two Einsteins. It's aroused such passion it also strikes a current chord. The scientist, pacifist, humanist was also the product of a time when women's lives and talents were submerged as routinely as their last names in marriage.
We can round up generations of wives before and after Mileva whose star faded or was eclipsed, who went from scholar and co-author to typist to a name on her husband's dedication page or his obit or nothing. Few women marry geniuses, but many have spent their lives in the shadow of "great" men.
Today when couples are struggling to be equals not just at the beginning of their marriage but for life, the young Einsteins raise questions for more than the history buffs. Their story touches those who want marriages of mutual caretaking and individual achievement and wonder if it's possible.
What happens, furthermore, in our own world to those who become caretakers? There is more than a little fear that they'll be left behind . . . or left. And what do we think of the well-cared-for achievers. Are they ''greats" or tainted exploiters?
We judge our own lives by these standards and often rejudge the lives of others. "We've had the myth of Einstein as a saintly figure," says Dr. Stachel. "Now we're getting Einstein as the demonic figure." We had the myth of the wife as a nobody. Now we are offered the "myth" of the wife as martyr.
When Einstein died, his brain inspired such awe that it was removed for study. But modern standards add another dimension to his biography. In his personal life, Albert was no Einstein.
The Boston Globe
OUT FROM THE SHADOWS OF 'GREAT' MEN
Author By Ellen Goodman, Globe Staff
Date Thursday, March 15, 1990
Page 15
Section OP-ED PAGE
When I first heard about Einstein's wife, the story sounded like a parody of feminist studies. A coven of historians searching through the archives come to a dark conclusion. It wasn't Einstein who discovered relativity. IT WAS HIS WIFE!
Mileva Maric, fellow student and first wife of the famed Albert, is starring in one of the hottest controversies to hit the dry, footnoted world of historians and scientists. Ever since the American Association for the Advancement of Science held a panel on the subject last month there have been letters, counter-letters and counter-counter-letters. People have taken sides as if the Einsteins were Donald and Ivana.
Speaking for Mileva are Evan Harris Walker and Senta Troemel-Ploetz. Walker, a physicist, contends that the basic ideas for relativity came from Mileva. Troemel-Ploetz, a German linguist, says that the ideas may have been Albert's, but Mileva did the math.
Speaking for Albert are some irate Einstein scholars. John Stachel, keeper of Albert's letters, says that Mileva was little more than a sounding board.
Of course, the Albert and Mileva Affair has its own place in history. In 1929, Virginia Woolf began the famed "A Room of Her Own" by asking what chance a sister of Shakespeare would have had to become a great playwright. Over the past decade, scholars have studied the lives of great men's wives.
Women from A to Z -- or from Anonymous to Zelda (Fitzgerald) -- have been reclaimed. Some of Zelda's best writing was found between Scott's pages. Clara was discovered to be a Schumann in her own right, not just Robert's. Camille Claudel emerged as more than a marble block in Rodin's way.
Mileva Maric Einstein, described in a popular biography as the "gloomy, laconic and distrustful" Serbian peasant, was due for a comeback. It turns out she was one of the rare women admitted to the Polytechnical Institute in Zurich in 1896.
But the case for her as co-genius is shaky. It depends on letters in which Albert referred to "our" theory and "our" work. It hinges on reports of his mathematical weakness and her strength. And rests on a divorce agreement in which Albert promised her his Nobel Prize money. That's not enough to change the credit line on the theory of relativity.
The tragedy of Mileva's life is real enough. But it's of a more personal and a common dimension. It's a parable of two young people who begin life as intellectual soulmates. "How happy I am to have found in you an equal creature who is equally strong and independent as I am," wrote Albert. But somewhere along the way, life and love had an unequal effect in their lives as man and woman, and as scientists.
It's possible to read between the outlines. Pregnant and unmarried, Mileva flunked her final exam. Their first child was born out of wedlock and presumably adopted. By the time their second and third were born, Mileva had become wife, caretaker and often supporter of the family. Her scientific work stopped, his soared. Finally, the famous Albert left her for another woman and Mileva spent the rest of her life struggling to support herself and her children, including a psychotic son.
There is something familiar about this tale of the two Einsteins. It's aroused such passion it also strikes a current chord. The scientist, pacifist, humanist was also the product of a time when women's lives and talents were submerged as routinely as their last names in marriage.
We can round up generations of wives before and after Mileva whose star faded or was eclipsed, who went from scholar and co-author to typist to a name on her husband's dedication page or his obit or nothing. Few women marry geniuses, but many have spent their lives in the shadow of "great" men.
Today when couples are struggling to be equals not just at the beginning of their marriage but for life, the young Einsteins raise questions for more than the history buffs. Their story touches those who want marriages of mutual caretaking and individual achievement and wonder if it's possible.
What happens, furthermore, in our own world to those who become caretakers? There is more than a little fear that they'll be left behind . . . or left. And what do we think of the well-cared-for achievers. Are they ''greats" or tainted exploiters?
We judge our own lives by these standards and often rejudge the lives of others. "We've had the myth of Einstein as a saintly figure," says Dr. Stachel. "Now we're getting Einstein as the demonic figure." We had the myth of the wife as a nobody. Now we are offered the "myth" of the wife as martyr.
When Einstein died, his brain inspired such awe that it was removed for study. But modern standards add another dimension to his biography. In his personal life, Albert was no Einstein.
