Some of Christie's novel have very large families but others have smaller ones. I was wondering what was the average family size for the various times she was writing?
Probably larger than today because to put it bluntly people died erlier in those days and some as children so the mothers would want to have a lot so a few survived.
Families were much larger in past times. Yes, what Tommy says is true. Also, back in the 1920s - 1940s, birth control was not as readily available as it is now.
At least
here in Holland, family size also depended on social status. Working class
families would have more children back then (8-10 children was not uncommon)
than middle class and upper class families (that maybe had 3 or 4 children).
To be quite
honest, I can not recall any book of Agatha Christie where really large
families (having 8 children or more) played a role. Maybe that is due to the
fact that most of her books deal with middle class to upper class families.
Agatha Christie pares down her cast list to characters who will play a central part in the drama. It is odd to have so many single people without children living alongside each other in The Sittaford Mystery, and the children of Mrs Gardner and Sylvia are not mentioned. In Hercule Poirot's Christmas there are not many children being mentioned and it makes for a simpler more compelling plot line. In Carribbean Murder the couples have some kids at boarding school, one of the couples, and boarding school is very useful for getting extraneous detail out of the way and not having to write copy to account for these kids. I guess the same happens in other novels. I'm Of Mice and Men the ranch owner doesn't seem to have a wife, and there is no sister in law for Curley's wife to hang out with; conveniently, no living relations for George and Lennie. It makes for a story with a focus. Possibly too, the impact of cinema was affecting novelists in the early 20th century, and they were wrIting with the screen in mind, you, sort of existentially, see what is being experienced within the confines of the story. In the nineteenth century, you got novelists rambling on, in passing, about relations and forebears who through interesting light on the main themes and characters and made the action seem naturalistic. I'm thinking Dickens and Jane Austen.
I think it is true that mortality played a part in multiple births and small families. In Crooked house, for instance, the patriarch had 8 children, but only 2 survived - infant mortality, disease, accidents and war accounted for a lot of deaths. However, 5 or 6 offspring were not out of the ordinary - in Ordeal by Innocence, the victim adopted 5 children.
Comments
At least here in Holland, family size also depended on social status. Working class families would have more children back then (8-10 children was not uncommon) than middle class and upper class families (that maybe had 3 or 4 children).
To be quite honest, I can not recall any book of Agatha Christie where really large families (having 8 children or more) played a role. Maybe that is due to the fact that most of her books deal with middle class to upper class families.