Anne Hathaway (wife of Shakespeare) leave Stratford and pursue a career in the theatre. However, according to Stanley Wells, writing in the "Oxford Companion to Shakespeare", most modern scholars take the view that the name Whateley was "almost certainly the result of clerical error". Germaine Greer argues that the age difference between Shakespeare and Hathaway is not evidence that he was forced to marry her, but that he was the one who pursued her. Women such as the orphaned Hathaway often stayed at home to care for younger siblings and married in their late twenties. As a husband Shakespeare offered few prospects; his family had
Anne Hathaway science minor at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York, before transferring to New York University's Gallatin School of Individualized Study. She has stated that she would have become either an English teacher or psychologist if she were not acting. Between 1998 and 1999, Hathaway sang soprano with the All-Eastern U.S. High School Honors Chorus at Carnegie Hall and in plays at Seton Hall Preparatory School in West Orange, New Jersey. At the start of her film career, her acting style and beauty were compared to the likes of Judy Garland—whom she cites as one of her favorite actresses—and Audrey Hepburn.