Martin D. Ginsburg, 78, a Georgetown University tax law professor whose blind date more than a half-century ago with a quiet undergraduate named Ruth Bader blossomed into an enduring marriage, died June 27 of complications from metastatic cancer at his home in Washington.
Mr. Ginsburg joined the Georgetown faculty in 1980 and was considered one of the nation’s preeminent tax-law experts for his mastery of the Internal Revenue Code’s intricacies. He also served as the sounding board, moral supporter and intellectual sparring partner for his wife, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, as she rose to become history’s second female Supreme Court justice.
The couple celebrated their 56th wedding anniversary on June 23. The foundation of their relationship, they both said, was mutual respect and equality — and a willingness to share domestic duties.
Soon after their wedding, young Army Lt. Ginsburg was assigned to an artillery unit at Fort Sill, Okla. One night, Mrs. Ginsburg presented her husband with a dish he immediately deemed inedible, he later told The Washington Post.
“What is it?” he asked.
“It’s tuna fish casserole,” she replied.
From then on, Mr. Ginsburg took over responsibility for dinner, finding inspiration in an English translation of an Escoffier cookbook that had been a wedding gift.
“As a general rule,” Mr. Ginsburg told the New York Times in 1997, “my wife does not give me any advice about cooking, and I do not give her advice about the law. This seems to work quite well on both sides.”
Martin David Ginsburg was born June 10, 1932 in Brooklyn, N.Y., and grew up in Rockville Centre on Long Island. His father was vice president of the Federated department store chain.
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