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But let’s not forget that Tom has this advantage over a peer or a banker that he is the man she loves  . He offers her both love and a high degree of freedom and opportunity to be useful in her household, and what’s more, will treat her and support her as his equal, which I don’t think most of the bankers and especially a peer (or most of the men, actually) would have offered her at that time. |
Absolutely, she loves Tom and he gives her freedom, but what I was trying to say (and it may have been me who was not clear) was that there could be peers (like Princess Alice's husband) who would allow her to look after her children and there could be upper-middle class bankers, etc, who could let her run a household.
Surely Sybil wouldn't marry a man who wouldn't let her have her freedom. that would be unSybil-like.
My specific point was that someone in Tom's social class would more likely allow her to work though Pierre Curie allowed Marie to work in the laboratory and win a nobel prize and they had two daughters seven years apart.
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I think that one child should not pose a problem if she wants to continue working; we don’t know how Tom’s job looks like, maybe he’ll be commissioned to write some political book? He still does not work all the time, of course, so there’ll be times where they could arrange something. There’s also Grandma Branson and maybe some aunts. However, having more children may be a problem. I’m not speaking here of this extreme case of 10 children , but a "normal" family of 2-3 children. It’s impossible to imagine the Bransons waiting with extending their family till Sybil’s retirement (I think that they’ll want to have more kids than one). On one hand it seems like a difficult thing to arrange, but on the other hand who can make such thing work if not these two? BTW, were there at that time some options to work part-time? |
What was normal for Irish families at the time was 4+ children (this is from a book called The Slow Failure: Population Decline And Independent Ireland, 1922-1973), if you got married that is. In a lot of families at the time they focused their resources to get one child married off and that child ended up having the large family. Meanwhile the other children ended up not marrying and not producing children.
If you looked, I'm sure there were part time work options, but like today most probably didn't pay very well and likely not in nursing.
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The truth is I was honestly shocked when I read on another forum a whole string of posts stating that Sybil's pregnancy "ruined" her and she would never have adventures again. That's just patently untrue. All sorts of very important high-profile women have families. Sure, it's a challenge but it's eminently doable. And family life presents its own adventures. That's all I meant.
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Where is this lovely forum?
As for high profile women, I think I provided an example above.