Another consideration is: What type of riding will your wife be doing?

Has she ever rode with drop bars? A lot of people have never ridden them and just thing "those are uncomfortable"

Drop bars have a lot of advantages: multiple hand positions (you can ride with hands in position similar to flat bars, but yes you need to move hands to brake/shift......you could put interupters on for the breaking thing)

Ergonomically (in my opinion and exeperience) flat bars are a terrible design. The angle for the wrist is completely un natural. An for me personally flat bars cause a lot of pain. Drop your hands to your side. The palms are parallel to your body, not perpendicular as on flat bars. Flat bars only really came into vogue with Mtn Bikes.

may be worth a try.

but of course in the end the only thing that is as powerful as N+1 is: "Yes Dear" or so my wife tells me