For three days, there she was – the wifely equivalent of wallpaper.

Oh, she sighed once in a while, maybe frowned a time or two. Sometimes she even looked a tad bored. But through most of Judge Samuel Alito’s Senate confirmation hearing, his wife was in near-perfect compliance with the Washington dictate that wives be props, not problems.

She held up mightily. Until she didn’t. And, oh, the ink that has been wasted over why this woman cried.

We know that she sat stoically through a grueling series of Democratic senators’ questions to her husband, who has been nominated to replace Sandra Day O’Connor on the Supreme Court.

We know that she listened as Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, in an apparent attempt to mock the questioning, asked Alito if he was indeed a “closet racist” and then apologized that Alito “had to go through this.”

We know that this is when she started to cry and fled the room.

We will never know exactly why she cried, what thoughts gathered up the thundercloud that finally burst. We don’t know. We don’t need to know.

But that hasn’t stopped a wave of increasingly shrill speculation that ranges from sympathy for a devoted wife to outrage over a cagey woman’s well-timed theatrics. Conservatives insist her tears prove that the Democrats went too far. Liberals accuse her of being too thin-skinned and attempting to distract from the substance of the hearings.

Bloggers offer their usual mix of thoughtful observations and ugly smears, including one post urging Alito to encourage his wife to exercise.

The Washington Post’s Robin Givhan analyzed what Alito’s wife wore the day she cried: “Her gold tweed suit might have passed without commentary – save for the fabric’s similarity to the upholstery that once covered La-Z-Boys.”

I have plenty of concerns about Alito’s nomination, but his wife’s tears aren’t one of them. She is his wife. That’s all I need to know to understand why a rigorous, often contentious public examination of her husband’s past could get the best of her.

Her tears did not make me like her husband’s positions one iota more, nor did they convince me that the hearings got out of hand. They did, however, convince me that she loves her husband. Public life can be excruciating, especially for those who never sought the cold, harsh light of scrutiny but love someone who has.

I hope you’ve noticed that I haven’t actually named Samuel Alito’s wife. While everyone, it seems, can describe how she looked and what she wore when she burst into tears, they can’t agree on what she’s called. A variety of names have appeared in print: Martha-Ann Alito. Martha Alito. Martha-Ann Bomgardner. Martha Bomgardner. Martha-Ann Bomgardner Alito.

I called Judge Alito’s office in Newark, N.J., but a staffer said he doesn’t know which name she uses and said I had to call the White House press office.

The woman who took my call at the White House said, “What a great question!” Then she admitted that she didn’t know, either.

“Someone will have to call you back.”

I’m still waiting. It might seem like such a little thing, especially to those running Washington, but women ought to have a say in what they are called, even those wives who are supposed to be inert, if not invisible. Especially those wives, because they sacrifice so much for their husbands’ good names.

About the only positive thing to come out of the crying episode is that some reporters are now attempting to tell the real story of Martha-Ann Bomgardner, who married Samuel Alito. New York Times reporter Sheryl Gay Stolberg told us she is a former law librarian and a part-time substitute teacher whose world revolves around her two children.

“She is, they say, an extremely intelligent and well-read woman who orders … meals in fluent French,” wrote Stolberg, “and recently took a philosophy class for intellectual stimulation.”

That sure beats the description of her interests on About.com, a Web site also owned by the New York Times.

“Martha has a show dog,” it reads. “Avonlea’s Affable Zeus, an English Springer Spaniel.”

Sounds like a pattern for wallpaper.