Einstein’s Wife

Publication of The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein brought his first wife, Mileva Marić, to public attention.

Mileva Marić – pronounced Mar-itch – studied mathematics and physics in Europe alongside her husband, Albert Einstein, author of the theory of relativity. In time, his Nobel Prize paid for their divorce.

Marić came to public view with the publication of The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein in 1987. The section on his youth, covering 1879 to 1902, includes the first publication of 51 letters Einstein wrote to her. The collection’s publication also drew attention to a 1969 Marić biography by Serbian science professor Desanka Trbuhović-Gjurić titled In the Shadow of Albert Einstein: The Tragic Life of Mileva Einstein-Marić. The biography argues that Mileva Marić’s proficiency in mathematics surpassed Einstein’s and that she was an unrecognized co-author of his relativity paper. However, no verifiable evidence backs this claim.

In Marić’s time, women faced difficulties attaining an education in science.

Marić was...