[HPforGrownups] Weasley Economics

[Rita]

No: HPFGUIDX 46312

 
 
Megalynn: 
 
How long have the Weasley's been poor? How much longer will they be poor? 
and Why doesn't Molly work? [cut] Especially by book 6 when even the twins
are out of school and Molly and 
Arthur only have 2 children to care for. Even in book 4 their load got 
lighter because Percy got his own job. I will really be disappointed if JKR 
keeps on with the "Poor Ron" thing much longer because it won't make sense. 
 
 
Me: 
This is also something that has always kept me wondering. I brought it up
sometime ago but it seemed to stir no one's interest. 
Actually, I'm not bothered very much by the fact that Molly doesn't work.
Lots of women don't in real life, even when the family is not so well off
and we are shown that the Weasley *do* manage to live on Arthur's wages even
if doing some sacrifices. 
I'd like to remind to everyone that the whole point of the feminist
struggles in the 60-70's is freedom of choice: a woman as the same right of
a man to chose to be whatever she likes, which implies that if a woman
chooses to take on the traditional female role of full-time mother and
housewife she's free to do it and no one should be saying anything about it.
 
Anyway, it's true that it strikes as odd that a single mother campaigning
for a change in the view of single-parent families includes not even a tiny
example of this but only traditional families with males and females taking
on traditional roles. 
 
Coming back to the Weasleys' situation, well, it seems that poverty is 
endemic', if we are to believe what Malfoy says when he first meets Ron. But
 by GoF they should be getting quite comfortable, 3 of their sons have a job
and I guess that are now quite financially independent , what's more 2 of
those sons haven't been living at home for years already in Ps (it was  6
years since Charlie had left for  Romania), so there are no 'food and
lodging' expenses for them. They may not send money home to help the family
but still it's not Arthur's salary that has to pay for all they need. Having
4 (and for 1 year, 
5) kids at Hogwarts may be very expensive but still it strikes me that
things seem never to get better. As, even without being rich, my family has
never had any serious financial problems I may be wrong, but it seems
unrealistic to me that the Weasleys still can't get anything new!
R.