I was beginning to realize, for making one’s presence felt in the world of physicists where wives – although there were plenty of them with hordes of small children in tow – were scarcely noticed. Some were loud and loquacious, others were inhibited and reserved, others were positively sullen and morose; the handful of wives who themselves had a background in maths or physics tended to adopt a more competitive, masculine style of behaviour, while those whose dormant, half-forgotten talents lay in other areas tended to be prickly and mistrustful. Physics seemed to have taken its toll on all of them and, whether or not they liked each other or got on well with each other, they all had one thing in common: they were already, to all intents and purposes, widows – physics widows.
— Travelling to Infinity (Jane Hawking), Loc. 928–33