Philobiblon

This almost defies comment:

Soon after, Einstein collapsed from the strain of work and moved into a flat adjoining Elsa’s, where she could care for him. Mileva finally agreed to a divorce in 1918, leaving the way open for Einstein and Elsa to marry, but once again by the time the wedding was imminent the physicist’s focus had already moved on. This time his roving eye had alighted rather too close to home on Elsa’s daughter, Ilse, then 20.
Einstein then made an extraordinary proposition: he would marry either Elsa, 44, or Ilse and he left it to them to decide which of them it would be. The problem was that Ilse was in love with Einstein’s friend Nikolai, to whom she confided: “Yesterday, suddenly the question was raised about whether A(lbert) wished to marry Mama or me . . . Albert himself is refusing to take any decision, he is prepared to marry either Mama or me. I know that A(lbert) loves me very much, perhaps more than any other man ever will, he also told me so himself yesterday.”
At 40, Einstein was impressed by the the “stunning youthfulness” of his young sort of stepdaughter but after much discussion, Ilse delivered her judgment: she did love Albert but only “as a father”. So Einstein married her mother.

From a piece in The Times about Einstein’s love life, a very long piece. Of what interest? Prurient I suppose (yes, I was reading it), but also rather interesting in revealing societal mores – so much for the alleged “morality” of the era.