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Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg jokes with her husband, Martin, while they listen to Judge Stephen G. Breyer speak at Columbia Law School in 2003. (Ed Bailey / AP)
He was tall. She was small.
His family was well off. This was not the case.
He had no worries in the world. She worried a lot.
If you're looking for a discrepancy in the dictionary, this couple – Martin D. Ginsburg and Ruth Bader – fits the definition perfectly. And yet, in the early 1950s, on the bucolic campus of Cornell University, they fell in love.
Most of the time, they fell in love with each other.
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Bader, the future judge of the Supreme Court, idolized his professor of literature, Vladimir Nabokov. One day in class, Ginsburg was the only student to correctly answer Nabokov's question on the Dickens questionnaire. Oh, how his heart has swelled. Ginsburg, in turn, admired his "intellectual brilliance".
She was, she said later, "the only young man I go out with with someone who cares about my brain."
Their remarkable and ultimately heartbreaking love story is featured in the 722-page biography of historian Jane Sherron De Hart, "Ruth Bader Ginsburg: A Life".
It lands at a time when Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 85, has become a feminist icon and pop culture sensation with her own nickname, "The Notorious RBG", and even an action figure. She is the subject of two new biopics, and her appearances in public attract a huge crowd. Hundreds of people lined up Wednesday to hear him speak in front of the federal courthouse in Washington, forcing the organizers to arrange six more rooms with audio and video for his enthusiastic admirers.
Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg smiles as she answers questions from freshmen at Georgetown Law in September. (Jacquelyn Martin / AP)
In recounting Ginsburg's court, marriage, and career, De Hart describes the most extraordinary element of their relationship, Marty's "proto-feminism."
From the beginning of their relationship, Ruth and Marty agreed that they should have a double career in law and never get bothered – a new idea in the 1950s, as the traditional roles of both sexes evolved.
"He was an extraordinary suitor," writes De Hart, a man ahead of his time. . . . None of them thought of social conventions about the role of women. "
[[[[The metamorphosis of the Supreme Court: how the reorganization of furniture has increased civility]
And their love flourished, the historian wrote:
The couple could be seen together constantly. The two are walking around Lake Beebe, a short distance from Balch Hall, on paths long smoothed by other lovers for a long time. The lake, resplendent in the fall against the colorful foliage of maples, was magical in winter when it was frozen. On a sunny day with snow and ice buildup on Trip-Hammer Falls sparkling in the background, it has become a winter wonderland. Marty's gray Chevrolet was carrying the absorbed pair even further. They drove along the narrow shore of Cayuga Lake for about 40 kilometers, aware, as Ruth said, that they shared "an intense intellectual and emotional connection".
Marty and Ruth married in 1954 shortly after graduation. They moved to Oklahoma, where Marty was assigned to an ROTC mission at an artillery base. "After dinner, the newlyweds often spent their evenings reading aloud, Pepys, Tolstoy, Dickens and even Spinoza, though the philosopher was more difficult in the kitchen," De Hart wrote.
It's Oklahoma that the couple discovered that Marty was the best cook.
"As a general rule," Marty told The New York Times in 1997, "my wife does not give me any cooking advice and I do not give her any advice regarding the law. It seems to work pretty well on both sides. "
A few years later, they went to Boston to attend Harvard Law School. Marty ended up practicing tax law. Ruth is involved in teaching constitutional law and women's rights, winning impressive legal victories across the country. She and Marty raised two children together.
In 1980, President Jimmy Carter appointed her to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
In the early 1990s, Ruth was nominated as a Supreme Court nominee – a position she deeply coveted. She also knew, as De Hart wrote, that "a potential candidate could not be perceived as promoting", as this "would have been perceived as a violation of decorum".
But that did not mean that others could not and should not lobby on his behalf.
Enter Marty, who has become a highly respected tax law professor at Georgetown University.
"Marty's efforts to facilitate his wife's progress were characteristic of the couple and their relationship," De Hart wrote. "No other campaign for a seat at the Court had been conducted by a husband."
It was not an easy task. The feminist organizations with which Ruth had been closely linked at the beginning of her career had split up and some were skeptical about recent comments and decisions she made on women's issues. Marty has not been deterred. Through intermediaries, he lobbied powerful media representatives, including columnist Anthony Lewis of The New York Times. On June 14, 1993, President Bill Clinton appointed him to replace retired J. Byron R. White.
Martin Ginsburg holds the Bible and his wife, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, takes the oath before Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, right, in 1993. President Bill Clinton looks left. (Marcy Nighswander / AP)
In closing her own remarks, Ruth turned her gaze to Marty, in the front row.
"As close as possible," she said, "was helped by Martin D. Ginsburg, my life partner, who has been my best friend and support ever since I was a teenager.
Marty passed away in 2010 at the age of 78.
[Martin D. Ginsburg dies at 78; tax law expert, Supreme Court spouse]
Cancer won, just like her mother when she was in high school. Cancer has also threatened Ruth.
Towards the end of his life, Marty was admitted to the Johns Hopkins Medical Center in Baltimore. The doctors were running out of options. The family decided to take him home, where he could die in peace.
In collecting her belongings, Ruth found a legal tablet with a letter addressed to her. Hart has reprinted it in his book. Marty seemed to be asking for help from his wife to end his life:
My dear Ruth –
You are the only person I have loved in my life, with the exception of parents, children and their children. And I admire you and love you almost since the day we met in Cornell, 56 years ago.
What a pleasure to see you progress at the top of the legal world.
I will be at the JH Medical Center until Friday, June 25th, I believe, and by that time, I will seriously reflect on my remaining health and life, and if, in the end, the time has come for me to struggle relentlessly from life because the loss of quality simply exceeds.
I hope you will support my position, but I understand that you can not. I will not love you less.
Marty
He died a week later, all alone.
"In a last act of protection," De Hart wrote, "he had taken away the burden of the decision from his wife."
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