This is a great question that raises the important issue of the experience of women in academia. I don't have any answers for the system as a whole, only my experience, but I hope my reply to this question contributes in some way to the female voices already speaking out about their experiences, what's working, and what needs to change.

A recent study by a team at UC Berkeley, published as Do Babies Matter? Gender and Family in the Ivory Tower, has found that women pay a "baby penalty" -- that is, "Women who do advance through the faculty ranks do so at a high personal price: They are far less likely to be married with children than are their male colleagues," and having children is often "a career killer." Now, I don't have children, but -- and let me be very clear that I speak only for me and out of my personal experience & values -- I often feel like the same stigma and the same type of limited upward mobility applies to women who are simply married, and who maintain a certain type of boundary between work and family.  

My husband & I have been together since 2007, and married for three years. He's extremely supportive of my goals, but even so, I consider myself a wife first and academic second. I try to protect my family life from academia, in a way that most aspiring scholars likely would not be willing to do. Specifically, I maintain boundaries that I won't cross for the sake of my career, so that whenever a fellowship or other opportunity arises, the first thing I consider is the affect this might have on my marriage & family life. I would not take a fellowship where my husband would not also be able to come (or where it would not be realistic - like packing up and moving to Rome or something for a year), so the majority of fellowships are out of the question. The same is true of research travel, unless such travel is absolutely crucial; I am not inclined to spend months or even weeks at a time away from my husband.  I vowed to spend my life with my husband, literally, and many academic opportunities are counterproductive to this value. I know that this limits my options for rising up the academic ladder, but I don't mind because I think my family is more important and more enduring than my research & career. I'm not willing to sacrifice my values to seek after the glory of discovery. I know this is not orthodox at all, and it is probably surprising to most who are reading this, but I also know that there is more than one way to impact people the way I dream of, so I'm also not worried about finding the right career opportunity, eventually. None of this is typical of the married academics I know.

Being married and in academia isn't easy, and not just because of what I've described above (even if the struggles described are in a way self-imposed because of my values). It is a financial mess, full of uncertainties... financial life is lived paycheck to paycheck with minimal savings, and funding stops for three months in the summer. Student fees amount to several hundred dollars each semester, excluding required health care, occasional textbooks, conference travel costs, and miscellaneous expenses. We knew grad school would be a financial sacrifice before leaving our comfortable jobs in LA, but that doesn't mean those moments of "why am I doing this?" don't happen. It's hard emotionally, too, because whenever I'm stressed or on a tight deadline, it impacts life at home. 

The academic life also isn't easy for new graduates looking to get on their feet and launch their careers. I'm almost at this stage, when the doors of what is called opportunity but what is actually the cruel, harsh job market, will swing open. Will there be options for me? And if there are, will they viable within the boundaries I have set between work and family? Pay, location, workload, and the permanence of a position all need to be considered times two because each factor also affects my husband (and eventually, children). I can only imagine the strain married adjuncts feel (let alone that the treatment of adjuncts & the entire adjunct system is in dire need of reform). 

Sometimes I get sad because I want two things: to be taken seriously as a scholar, and to impact people (not just other scholars) with my research & ideas. One of the reasons I so strongly support advances in digital art history is because I think it is leading to a new breed of scholars, and of course, it is making remote research easier and in the process, sharing incredible information with the entire world. I don't know what shape my career will take, but I suspect that digital art history will play a large role. And I know that whatever shape my career does take, I don't want to spend my life building walls to protect my family from the demands of my (academic?) career. 

Has it been difficult pursuing a degree? Not really; I would say pursuing a career is the difficult part.