teaching staff marital status & only children

[Claire <ophelia12uk@yahoo.co.uk>]

No: HPFGUIDX 52675

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Doreen" <nera at r...> wrote:
> 
> 
>   --- In HPforGrownups at y..., "Doreen" <nera at r...> wrote:
>   > I was wondering about the fact that all of the teaching staff 
of 
>   Hogwarts are all single, apparently childless. 
>   > 
>   > Also, aren't most of the wizard families mentioned so far on 
the 
>   small side of only one or two children? There seem to be a lot 
>   of "only child" characters in the books.
> 
 I read a webchat/interview (I honestly don't remember which and have 
no idea how to find out) with JKR after the publication of Goblet of 
Fire and she said that the martial status of the Hogwarts staff was 
hidden for "security reasons". She gave no indication of what these 
were, maybe it's to stop parents (like Lucius Malfoy) going  around a 
nd cursing a teacher's family because they gave their child bad 
marks ;).

I hadn't realised that apart from the Weasleys, all the mentioned 
wizarding families are small; maybe that's because one or two 
children is the norm for British families. But it does remind me of 
another question I have: Draco said in Philospher's Stone that "all 
the Weasleys have red hair and more children than they can afford." 
This implies that Arthur Weasley would have siblings, but none of his 
children have mentionned cousins. Shouldn't they have some at school 
too? Or is this what Arthur was refering too when he was talking 
about seeing the Dark Mark over your house?

Claire.

PS.
As regards to the posts linked as "thread 2" from the introductory 
FAQ, there is a post called "Sexy Sirius ....", I vist a HP Forum 
(DarkMark) and one of the girls there said that she'd met Jo on the 
GoF tour and asked her "Sirius Black's supposed to be dead sexy isn't 
he?" and was told "Yes, he is." in reply. (Yes I am another Sirus 
fan.)