I know Molly.....

[Matt]

No: HPFGUIDX 84234

--- Pippin wrote:
> But say, pace Shippers, that Hermione wants to 
> marry a Weasley. Will St. Mungo's refuse to 
> train her as a wizarding dentist/healer because 
> everybody knows that Weasley wives have umpteen 
> zillion children and no time for another career? 
> If she decides not to have umpteen zillion 
> children, will she be getting tiny easter eggs 
> for the rest of Molly's life?

--- Erin replied:
> Well... I just can't see the St. Mungo's thing, 
> I really can't. I mean this is a society in 
> which Alice Longbottom can be an auror during 
> the uprising of the most dangerous dark wizard 
> in a century, while she is pregnant and while 
> she has a young baby. I think the WW is a lot 
> less sexist than you're trying to make it out 
> to be. 

I agree with Erin; going beyond her specific examples, nearly every
profession we've seen in the WW has been roughly equally held by men
and women.  See my post # 84097, which Yahoo!mort failed to thread in
with the rest of this discussion.

Moreover, I think Pippin is projecting some stereotypes onto Molly's
character in assuming that, were Hermione and Ron to marry, Molly
would  object to Hermione's career aspirations.  The only reasons to
think Molly would expect a large family are (1) it is what Weasleys
do, or (2) she expects for her children the life she and Arther have
chosen for themselves.  I don't see much evidence to support either of
those premises.  

As to (1), IIRC, the only people we hear suggesting that "all Weasleys
have big families" are Draco and Lucius, who both say it out of spite,
and could easily be basing the put-down solely on Arthur's family.  We
haven't seen any siblings of Molly or Arthur, as we might have if
either of them had come from a large family.  (We are told they both
show up on the Black family tree, but without any suggestion as to the
size of their immediate families.)  

As to (2), I don't see that Molly necessarily wants her children to
live the same life she has lived.  She clearly wants them to be
respectable (e.g., Bill's hair; F/G's career choice), safe (worries
about deaths, etc.), and, at least to some extent,
achievement-oriented (pride in school honors).  We haven't heard
anything from her about wanting them to settle down and have kids --
such comments might well have surfaced around Bill & Fleur, for
instance, had Molly held such expectations.

-- Matt