Gregory Bateson - Personal Life

Personal Life

Bateson's life, according to Lipset (1982), was greatly affected by the death of his two brothers. John Bateson (1898–1918), the eldest of the three, was killed in World War I. Martin Bateson (1900–1922), the second brother, was then expected to follow in his father's footsteps as a scientist, but came into conflict with William over his ambition to become a poet and playwright. The resulting stress, combined with a disappointment in love, resulted in Martin's public suicide by gunshot under the statue of Anteros in Piccadilly Circus on 22 April 1922, which was John's birthday. After this event, which transformed a private family tragedy into public scandal, all William and Beatrice's ambitious expectations fell on Gregory Bateson, their only surviving son.

Bateson's first marriage, in 1936, was to American cultural anthropologist Margaret Mead. Bateson and Mead had a daughter, Mary Catherine Bateson (born 1939), who also became an anthropologist.

Bateson decided to separate from Mead in 1947, and they were formally divorced in 1950. In 1951 Bateson married his second wife Elizabeth "Betty" Sumner (1919–1992), who was the daughter of the Episcopalian Bishop of Chicago, Walter Taylor Sumner. They had a son, John Sumner Bateson (born 1952), as well as twins who died in infancy. Bateson and Sumner were divorced in 1957, after which Bateson married his third wife, therapist and social worker Lois Cammack (born 1928), in 1961. They had one daughter, Nora Bateson (born 1969).