It depends on your wife's age, how big her hands are, etc. If she has smaller hands, the smaller diameter women's bars can be handy for pulls, but not necessarily vital). The bigger issue will be with presses and bench presses where a lighter than 45 pounds bar makes getting started and making progress easier. If you have kids, are likely to have kids, or are likely to ever train kids (or very detrained/older folks), getting a light 15 pound or so technique bar can be more useful.