News Updates:
2/05/09: Justice Ginsburg is battling pancreatic cancer. More infoBorn:
Ruth Joan Bader aka Ruth Bader Ginsburg: March 15, 1933 in Brooklyn, New York.Martin David Ginsburg: June 10, 1932 in New York, New York.
Died:
Martin Ginsburg: At the age of 78, Martin Ginsburg died of cancer on June 27, 2010.How Ruth and Martin Met:
Martin and Ruth met one another in 1951 on a blind date when they were both attending Cornell University. Their engagement was announced on December 27, 1953.Wedding Date:
Ruth and Martin were married a few days after her graduation from Cornell on June 23, 1954 at the home of Martin's parents. The ceremony was performed by the Rev. Dr. Robert Gordis.Ruth: "It was June 1954. I had just graduated from Cornell University and was about to marry Marty Ginsburg, the only young man I dated who cared that I had a brain. Marty and I had met on a blind date at Cornell in 1951 when I was seventeen ... Marty and I planned a small, traditional Jewish ceremony in his parents' living room. We limited attendees to eighteen, which represents the Hebrew symbol for life."
Source: Marlo Thomas. The Right Words at the Right Time. 2002. pg 115.
Children:
Martin and Ruth have two children and several grandchildren.- Jane Carol Ginsburg: Born in 1955. Columbia law professor and authority oncopyright and trademark law. Jane married George T. Spera Jr.
- James Steven Ginsburg: Born in 1965. President of Cedille Records in Chicago.
Occupations:
Ruth: Since August 10, 1993, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. She was nominated by President Clinton.Martin: Tax attorney and Georgetown University Law Center professor.
Quotes About the Marriage of Ruth and Martin Ginsburg:
Ruth: "In love, I was lucky."Source: Miriam P. Feinberg, Miriam Klein Shapiro. Hear Her Voice: Twelve Jewish Women Who Changed the World. 2007. pg 142.
Martin: "As a general rule, my wife does not give me any advice about cooking, and I do not give her any advice about the law. This seems to work quite well on both sides."
Source: Jeffrey Rosen. "The New Look of Liberalism on the Court." NYTimes.com. 10/5/1997.
Ruth: "The morning of the wedding, I was upstairs, making last-minute adjustments, when Marty's mother [Evelyn Ginsburg] put something in my hand and said, "I am going to give you some advice that will serve you well: In every good marriage, it pays sometimes to be a little deaf." She had placed in my hand a set of wax earplugs."
Source: Marlo Thomas. The Right Words at the Right Time. 2002. pg 115.
"Their daughter, Jane, was still a baby, and the two law students shared child care duties and household chores ... During her second year at Harvard, Martin Ginsburg was diagnosed with cancer. While he underwent massive surgery and radical radiation treatments for a condition doctors told him few had ever survived, Ruth covered her husband's classes as well as her own, copying notes for him and typing his third-year paper. Martin recovered and was able to complete his course work and graduate on time."
Source: "Ruth Bader Ginsburg.". supremeCourtHistory.org
Ruth: "When Marty and I were temporarily miffed by something one or the other of us said or did, I would take several deep breaths and remember that tempers momentarily aroused generally subside like a summer storm."
Source: Marlo Thomas. The Right Words at the Right Time. 2002. pg 116.
"She [Ruth] describes her husband as her “best friend and biggest booster. A supportive husband who is willing to share duties and responsibilities is a must . . .,” she says, “for any woman who hopes to combine marriage and a career.”
Source: "Biography of Ruth Bader Ginsburg." Miriamscup.com.
Miriam Feinberg: "Ruth and Martin have always seemed the perfect couple although they are different in many ways. Ruth is reserved and quiet, while Martin is outgoing. He is a wonderful cook. She is not. Still, each has always respected the other's intelligence and interests."
Source: Miriam P. Feinberg, Miriam Klein Shapiro. Hear Her Voice: Twelve Jewish Women Who Changed the World. pg 142.
Ruth: "What Martin did went far beyond support. He believed in me more than I believed in myself ... From the very beginning, he thought that my work was as important as his."
Source: Miriam P. Feinberg, Miriam Klein Shapiro. Hear Her Voice: Twelve Jewish Women Who Changed the World. 2007. pg 143.
Paul Finkelman: "The gregarious Martin is the reserved Ginsburg's polar opposite in temperament, but their long marriage has been happy."
Source: Paul Finkelman. Encyclopedia of American Civil Liberties. 2006. pg 686.
Ruth: "I thought, 'This is my dream of the way the world should be,' Ginsburg enthused. 'When fathers take equal responsibility for the care of their children, that's when women will be truly be liberated."
Source: Jeffrey Rosen. "The New Look of Liberalism on the Court." NYTimes.com. 10/5/1997.
"For the past 43 years, the Ginsburgs' marriage has been one of the more inspiring advertisements for the possibility of connubial equality and mutual respect. 'I hate Marty Ginsburg,' Roger Wilkins, an American-history professor at George Mason University, said during a joint appearance with the Ginsburgs at a panel on balancing public and private life, held in May at Wheaton College. 'It's not because in a town known for its ephemeral fashions, he's carrying on this lifelong love affair with this wonderful woman. It's because he cooks.'"
Source: Jeffrey Rosen. "The New Look of Liberalism on the Court." NYTimes.com. 10/5/1997.
Ruth: "Most closely, I have been aided by my life partner, Martin D. Ginsburg, who has been, since our teen-age years, my best friend and biggest booster, by my mother-in-law, Evelyn Ginsburg, the most supportive parent a person could have, and by a daughter and son with the tastes to appreciate that Daddy cooks ever so much better than Mommy and so phased me out of the kitchen at a relatively early age."
Source: "Transcript of Judge Ginsburg's Remarks." NYTimes.com. 6/15/1993.
