Isaac Berman had, by his second wife, Tamara, four children in his old age. The first was a girl, my mother, Anna Rachel, and then three sons. Isaac Berman died in 1901, when my mother was six years old.

Apparently my father did not want to mention things he considered disgraceful, but from another source I learned that he was divorced before he died. “Your grandmother Tamara,” I was told, “had divorced him because he didn’t want to give up his learning and to occupy himself with the trivialities of her business.”

…

That strikes home, because I know quite well that I wouldn’t want to give up my learning in order to occupy myself with the trivialities of any business. Fortunately, my learning turned out to be profitable as Isaac Berman’s did not, so I was never in a position of having to leave it to a resentful wife to support the family.

– Isaac Asimov in In Memory Yet Green