Talk:Diana Barry/@comment-104.224.98.147-20180107211739/@comment-4934571-20180108235535

Well, first of all, please do not swear here on Wiki.

And to answer your questions... As I mentioned in my comment down below 2 and half years ago – some people have two children, some have 7. There is no rule that someone should have certain number of children. It depends on several factors, such as how intimate the partners are (and their knowledge and usage of contraception), the health of both partners and in some cases their own decision to have 2/3/8 children.

For example, in my country you can find two extremes which were present in 19th century. In my region, people used to have 5-10 children because of the high child mortality – usually only 2-3 children out of 5-10 survived the early years od their life. 50 miles southwest from my hometown, there is a region known for having only one child per couple. It was caused by the belief that having more children is a disgrace and they wanted to have the sole heir to their property. That caused several problems – high mortality of young women (mostly after improvised and non-professional abortion) and the disappearance of numerous families (which simply died out – either having no male offspring or having a daughter who got married and changed her name).

Barrys did not need their children to help around the house as they were wealthy enough to afford a housemaid (Mary Joe who helped with the cooking, cleaning and baby-sitting) and  hired boys who helped around the farm. It is implied that Mr. Barry was the owner of a rather big piece of land and he appears to be in a better social and financial condition than the Cuthberts. Matthew and Marilla wanted to adopt a boy to help them around the farm, but that was not the only reason - they could've hire someone else every once in a while. They likely decided to adopt someone who would inherit their property after their death. Neither Marilla nor Matthew were married and they were old enough to have children. There was no one to keep the family name after their deaths.

To answer your second question... I don't recall such scene, but if it really happened, I guess you could forgive her. She was only 3 years old at that time and practically on her deathbed.