[sweetpeas]

The biography we read of her life talked about her life pre-marriage and such. But it was a couple years ago. She was very close to her father. I'm going on memory, but I think her father didn't disapprove of the marriage (I don't remember if he "approved" per se, or just allowed it because it was what she wanted). Her father was a "forbidden" religion (Puritan or somesuch), she actually chose, as a teen, to join the Church of England, and her father didn't dispute her right to follow her own beliefs. So she also chose a husband of her religion, rather than her father's, all of that, alone is pretty amazing for the time period. Also, if I remember right, her life didn't become hard until they either moved away from the city where her father lived, or he died (I don't remember which happened first).

Her husband wasn't a monster, he wasn't a good provider though AND tended to get caught up in . . . whatever his latest "project" was and completely zone out on the fact that life requires work, so she was left to single parent, run the house, and manage messed up finances (she did generally have at least one servant however, and while she had lots of children, they were spaced rather widely apart.

I think to a large extent, she was a product of her time. Harsh, authoritarian discipline was the norm, and she provided kind authoritarian discipline, so she was "better than many". I still don't think she should be held up as a "role model" of how we should do things (and it was shocking to me, to read her story having previously heard her held up as "the perfect mother"), but I think she did the best she knew to do, and truly loved her children.