ATHENS - Marika Mitsotakis, the voluble, opinionated wife of a former Greek prime minister whose cooking skills were the stuff of political urban legend, died in Athens on Sunday as two of her children ran for reelection in Parliament. She was 81.

Her family said she died in a hospital, but did not specify the cause of death. She had various health issues over the years.

Mrs. Mitsotakis’s husband, Constantine, was prime minister from 1990 to ’93, after serving in several Cabinet positions from the 1950s through the 1980s. He led the conservative New Democracy Party from 1984 to ’93.

Their daughter, Dora Bakoyannis, a former mayor of Athens and a former foreign minister, ran in Sunday’s election at the head of centrist Democratic Coalition. She quit the New Democracy party in 2010 when it refused to sign off to Greece’s first bailout. Her brother, Kyriakos, the Mitsotakises’ only son, chose to remain within the party and also ran for reelection Sunday.

For the most part, Mrs. Mitsotakis conformed to the stereotype of the dutiful, devoted politician’s wife. But her personality contrasted with her husband’s famous even-tempered demeanor, and “Mrs. Marika,’’ as she was widely known, could not, and did not, avoid the occasional limelight.

On one occasion, in 1991, then-industry minister Stavros Dimas - currently foreign minister - resigned during an official trip to what was then the Soviet Union after a public dressing-down by Marika Mitsotakis.

When her husband became prime minister in 1990 after a turbulent career, Mrs. Mitsotakis was visibly elated and proud.

She created a minor incident in Parliament during her husband’s first appearance as premier when a socialist lawmaker complained that the prime minister’s wife was making “insolent gestures’’ toward the socialist bloc.

Mrs. Mitsotakis was not amused: “I’ll get my stick and beat you with it,’’ she said, adding an epithet.