AWM Book Review

Creative Couples in the Sciences

Helena M. Pycior, Nancy G. Slack, and Pnina G. Abir-Am, editors, Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, 1996. xi+369. ISBN 0-8135-2188-2 (paper). $18.95.

From: AWM Newsletter, March/April 1997.

Reviewed by: Marge Murray, Book Review Editor, Department of Mathematics, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA 24061-0123; email: murray@calvin.math.vt.edu.

It has long been observed that women scientists and mathematicians who marry tend to marry other scientists and mathematicians. In an attempt to reconcile the personal and the professional, women's careers have often been subordinated to their husbands' or to the needs of a household and children. But the historian Margaret Rossiter has observed that in earlier times --- particularly in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries when women's opportunities in science and mathematics were far more restricted than today --- a woman scientist's marriage to a colleague occasionally enhanced her career and enabled her to make more creative contributions than she might otherwise. In fact, the most distinguished American women scientists in the first half of the twentieth century were disproportionately those married to other scientists.

In some cases the woman gained greater access to facilities and communities in science through her connection to her husband. In some cases the wife was able to make contributions because she was accepted as her husband's assistant in research. And in some rare but notable cases, the woman formed a truly collaborative partnership with her husband and together they made major contributions to science for which both were recognized and rewarded.

Creative Couples in the Sciences collects seventeen essays which describe the lives and work of couples who succeeded --- along with a few notables who failed --- in creating a marital and scientific collaboration that was reasonably satisfying to both partners. Among the editors' criteria for selection of subjects was the requirement that the women and men represented should no longer be living. So it is not surprising that most of the scientists profiled saw their period of greatest scholarly activity in a period spanning the late nineteenth through the middle twentieth century. It is interesting to observe that in spite of this chronological limitation, the struggles and the successes of many of these women seem surprisingly modern. The experiences of these women and men speak very effectively to the current condition of couples in the sciences.

The essays are grouped into five 'clusters'. The book opens with three couples who stand as "peaks of collaborative success": pairs of married scientists whose collaboration produced Nobel prizes. The first two pairs --- Pierre and Marie Curie and Irene and Frederic Joliot-Curie --- are clearly linked in a tradition of familial science that can be traced back to Pierre Curie's upbringing. For Pierre Curie's family, science was a collective activity interwoven into daily life. The seamless scientific and domestic collaboration which he achieved with Marie Sklodowska was in some ways a natural extension of the milieu in which he grew up. This seamless web of domestic and scientific endeavor continued into the next generation (the Joliot-Curies) and beyond.

Many other couples discussed in this volume aspired to the sort of marital collaboration that the Curies achieved. But their remarkable complementarity and equality eluded many other couples, particularly when the husband had himself been raised in a family where the gender roles were delineated along more traditional lines. In fact, this book is replete with stories of well-intentioned couples who ultimately could not fully transcend the gender patterns they saw in childhood, and who, despite idealistic ambitions to the contrary, found themselves trapped in patriarchal traditions.

There are success stories, however. The story of Carl and Gerty Cori, the third Nobel-prizewinning couple, though filled with institutional setbacks for Gerty, is that of a partnership of mutual respect and affection and ultimate triumph over social barriers to equality. Their collaboration, which included mutual mentoring of students and the creation of a warm and welcoming community of biological chemists at Washington University in St. Louis, was marked by a strong synergy in which what they were able to accomplish together was clearly greater and more lasting than what either of them would have done separately. Yet at the same time, both Carl and Gerty Cori received credit and recognition for their separate accomplishments and for their contributions to joint work.

The couples described in the second and third 'clusters' in the book exhibit a variety of collaborative strategies and a range of experiences and outcomes. The second 'cluster' consists of those couples in which one partner, usually the husband, was in a dominant role --- perhaps as tutor or teacher --- in relation to the wife at the time of their meeting. In some cases the wife came to surpass the husband in her attainments over the course of the marriage; but often the wife remained subordinate, often becoming an indispensible research assistant. In a few cases the wife would never have pursued an interest in science had it not been for the encouragement of the husband.

The most interesting story in the second 'cluster', especially for historians of mathematics, is the tale of Grace Chisholm and William Henry Young, told by AWM president Sylvia Wiegand (their granddaughter). In this unusual collaboration, Will Young began as tutor to Grace Chisholm at Girton College, but over the years it was Grace and not Will who eventually completed the Ph.D. in mathematics. Despite her greater educational attainments, the Youngs decided as a couple that Will's career would have primacy; and Will spent much of his life as an itinerant academic, never landing a fully satisfactory teaching post.

Together and separately they pursued mathematical research, but in the early years of their collaboration, any work that was done jointly was signed (by mutual agreement) by Will only. The rationale behind this decision was that giving Will full credit for their early mathematical work would improve his chances of attaining the permanent university position he desired. All the evidence from both the Youngs' correspondence and contemporary accounts of their arrangement seems to suggest that this strategy was acceptable to both Grace and Will --- difficult as this might be for a late twentieth-century mathematician, accustomed to an ethic of proper attribution, to believe. And as time went by, Grace did resume the habit of publishing joint as well as separate work in her own name. It has been a puzzle for historians to determine, however, which of the many results which bear the name 'Young' should be attributed to Will, which to Grace, and which to both of them. Among many of the other couples detailed in this volume, decisions about attribution were not nearly so gracious, and the inadequately-credited wife suffered in silence, whether by choice or by circumstances.

The couples in the third 'cluster' are described as spanning "a spectrum of mutually-supportive couples", and it is here that some of the most heartening tales of marital collaboration, cooperation, support and encouragement can be found. While none of the couples described here made Nobel-prizewinning contributions, there are inspiring tales of husband-wife pairings in which the partners took turns having the dominant career in the family.

The couples of the fourth 'cluster' are the most disheartening: these are "couples devolving from creative potential to dissonance". Partnerships which began with the ideal of equality and professional collaboration gave way to bitterness, resentment, and in some cases hideous inequality and divorce. Here there are stories of ideals and ambitions gone frighteningly awry: cautionary tales for any couple embarking on a dream of shared creative work.

The fifth and final 'cluster' of essays is devoted to marital collaborations grouped by discipline. These densely-packed essays, devoted to couples in botany/ecology, astronomy, and social science, present stories of marital partnerships that run the gamut from the idyllic to the ruinous.

Taken together, the accounts of marital creativity and discord assembled here illustrate the wide variety of ways in which married couples over the past century or so have tried and failed to realize an ideal of emotional, intellectual, domestic, and sexual partnership. Their successes and failures illustrate the complex roles played by social pressure, institutional prejudice, human frailty, human courage, and sheer luck and pluck in the achievement of creative communion. I highly recommend this book to anyone, male or female, who is building or contemplating a life-partnership of body, mind, and spirit.