Hermit alone?

Is it possible to be a hermit and not live alone? The most famous recluse of ancient China was Liang Hung, who lived as a hermit with his wife Meng Kuang nearly half a century in the late Han. Burton Watson, the translator of Po-chu-i, mentions them as a model of married couples, of conjugal love. And every culture has assumed that aging spiritual masters were attended or looked in on by disciples. Even the solitaries of the Egyptian desert, expected to show up once a week for liturgical services, were checked on when they failed to appear. It is a matter of circumstance. Who can abandon a lifelong companion even after discovering the tendencies toward solitude late in life? Indeed, the harmonious couple will usually function as a single projection of personality.