Weasley Types (got really long!)

[quigonginger]

No: HPFGUIDX 125296


Just a starting note from Ginger:  This is totally my opinion.  Any 
statements made herein (except quoted material) are only my opinion 
and may be taken with as many grains of salt as needed, or may be 
thrown out with yesterday's paper.  Or you can agree with them.  I 
have no objection to that either.

Lupinlore wrote:
(I had a hard time snipping- so much good stuff!)
  Many people, particularly other men, think that INFP
> husbands are bullied.  In point of fact the opposite is often true. 
> They simply aren't that interested in a lot of things and are
> perfectly willing to let their wife take the lead.  However, if the
> wife wants a healthy marriage, she has to learn precisely where the
> writ of her authority stops.  My own parents were much like this.  
My
> father was perfectly willing to allow my mother to handle just about
> everything about the house and family, except on certain issues.  On
> two occasions that I remember (and they were married for over 40 
years
> which shows how wall my mother knew her bounds) my mother made the
> mistake of transgressing on one of his deeply held values and his 
foot
> came down hard enough to crack the foundations.  Yet I would  have 
to
> say both of them seemed perfectly happy and content in their 
marriage
> over the long haul.

Ginger:
True!  When we meet Molly and Arthur, they have been married for over 
20 years.  They know each other in every way.  My parents are the 
same.  Mom never changes light bulbs; that's Dad's job.  No other 
reason than a foot difference in height, but that's the way it is.
 
Lupinlore continues (snip)
  Arthur does
> allow Molly to run the house.  Why not?  She's good at it and likes 
to
> do it.   (snip a whole lot of good stuff)

Ginger again:
They may be divided along gender lines that some of us may consider 
old fashioned, but they are old fashioned people.  I am about the 
same age as JKR, but living on the other side of the pond, I am sure 
our lives have been very different.  

Molly is very much like the mothers of my mom's generation.  I see 
all my aunts in her, and my mother as well.  (Probably the reason I 
like her and other people find her scary- most people find my aunts 
scary.)

I have to wonder if JKR is using this stereotype to make Molly more 
familiar to us without having to waste pages on developing her.  She 
fits JKR's plot purposes as a stereotype.  Add in the loving scenes, 
throw in the nagging, and you have a full character that people 
understand without having to do an indepth analysis into her mystery 
as is the case with Snape or DD.

The older I get, the more I understand this generation.  They knew 
life differently than the younger folks.  They raised us to be wives 
and mothers (although I have never been either) not to tie us down to 
fit their mold, but because it was their security, and their job.    

I don't know if the "glass ceiling" was the same in England as it was 
in the US, but in their day and age, a woman just couldn't succeed in 
the business world.  She could be a nurse, teacher, or secretary, but 
beyond that, the only financially secure future was to marry a man 
who would support her, and to be the best wife and mother she could 
be.  It was their calling in life.  It was their job, and their 
security. 

When my sister was accepted to Harvard to work on her PhD, their big 
concern was what would happen if she didn't find a husband there.  
She had been to 2 other colleges getting her BA and MA, and hadn't 
landed a man yet.  (Her response was "I guess I'll have to try Yale" 
with a roll of her eyes.)

This is hard for younger people to understand.  When my grandmother 
was in nurse's school, she eloped in secret because married women 
couldn't be in school.  Unfair?  Now, yes, but back then, they didn't 
want to waste resources on someone who would never work in the 
field.  And married women didn't. (Except for those like my Grandma.)

This concept of men in the workforce and women in the home had been 
in place for centuries.  Few questioned it.  There were notable 
exceptions, but they were just that- exceptions to the rule.

To expect Molly to behave with a 21st century attitude (or even one 
of the latter 1/4th of the 20th century) is not realistic.  

Now the WW seems far more enlightened on the roles of men and women 
than the RW.  They had Headmistresses and female Ministers of Magic 
decades, even centuries ago.  The WW seems to be pretty gender-equal.

So why is Molly written as a blast from the past when women in the WW 
are a taste of the future?  My guess is that it suits the author's 
purpose.

As I suggested earlier, Molly is a stereotype from the past, but with 
added personality.  She fulfills her role in the series.  The WW's 
protrayal of women, is as we would say "it ought to be".  It fulfills 
what I am guessing is a wish for JKR; a world where every person can 
live up to his/her abilities without prejudice due to gender (or race 
or other things which our society is still working on).

When the two meet, we find ourselves noting what seems to be a clash 
of past and future.  But is it really a clash?  Haven't some women 
done great things in the RW when most women were housewives?  Madam 
Curie, Amelia Erhardt, to name a couple.  And don't some women now 
choose to stay home and raise their families when most women work 
outside the home?

I see in Molly the old fashioned concept of motherhood that was 
common a generation or two ago.  It's very real to me, having grown 
up with it, but I can see where it is jarring to those who haven't, 
or to those who have been the ones who went out and hammered at 
the "glass ceiling". 

As for me, I'm comfortable with who Molly is and how she is 
protrayed.  She's a Mum.  It's what she wants to be and it's what she 
does.  

Ginger, who's mother went to college, worked and is now enjoying a 
well-earned retirement cleaning her house.  Although now Dad vacuums.
It takes a couple generations to work out the stereotypes.