I still feel rather mystified as to how you could have found Anne's marriage unfullfilling, Ann-spelt-without-an-e. And I rather think you miss the point of the AotI quote I put up. But if you still want verification that Anne had the same attitude toward her married life, here are some quotes from Anne of Ingleside:
Anne ended a week that had been full of pleasant days by taking flowers to Matthew's grave the next morning and in the afternoon she took the train from Carmody home. For a time she thought of all the old loved things behind her and then her thoughts ran ahead of her to the loved things before her. Her heart sang all the way because she was going home to a joyous house . . . a house where every one who crossed its threshold knew it was a home . . . a house that was filled all the time with laughter and silver mugs and snapshots and babies . . . precious things with curls and chubby knees . . . and rooms that would welcome her . . . where the chairs waited patiently and the dresses in her closet were expecting her . . . where little anniversaries were always being celebrated and little secrets were always being whispered.
"It's lovely to feel you like going home," thought Anne, fishing out of her purse a certain letter from a small son over which she had laughed gaily the night before, reading it proudly to the Green Gables folks . .
"Happy!" Anne bent to sniff a vaseful of apple blossoms Jem had set on her dressing-table. She felt surrounded and encompassed by love. "Gilbert dear, it's been lovely to be Anne of Green Gables again for a week, but it's a hundred times lovelier to come back and be Anne of Ingleside."
Don't you find life here rather dull?" an old Queen's classmate from Charlottetown had asked Anne rather patronizingly one day.
Dull! Anne almost laughed in her caller's face. Ingleside dull! With a delicious baby bringing new wonders every day . . . with visits from Diana and Little Elizabeth and Rebecca Dew to be planned for . . . with Mrs. Sam Ellison of the Upper Glen on Gilbert's hands with a disease only three people in the world had ever been known to have before . . . with Walter starting to school . . . with Nan drinking a whole bottle of perfume from Mother's dressing-table . . . they thought it would kill her but she was never a whit the worse . . . with a strange black cat having the unheard-of number of ten kittens in the back porch . . . with Shirley locking himself in the bathroom and forgetting how to unlock it . . . with the Shrimp getting rolled up in a sheet of fly-paper . . . with Aunt Mary Maria setting the curtains of her room on fire in the dead of night while prowling with a candle, and rousing the household with appalling screams. Life dull!
The night was cool; soon the sharper, cooler nights of autumn would come; then the deep snow . . . the deep white snow . . . the deep cold snow of winter . . . nights wild with wind and storm. But who would care? There would be the magic of firelight in gracious rooms . . . hadn't Gilbert spoken not long ago of apple logs he was getting to burn in the fireplace? They would glorify the grey days that were bound to come. What would matter drifted snow and biting wind when love burned clear and bright, with spring beyond? And all the little sweetnesses of life sprinkling the road.
She turned away from the window. In her white gown, with her hair in its two long braids, she looked like the Anne of Green Gables days . . . of Redmond days . . . of the House of Dreams days. That inward glow was still shining through her. Through the open doorway came the soft sound of children breathing. Gilbert, who seldom snored, was indubitably snoring now. Anne grinned. She thought of something Christine had said. Poor childless Christine, shooting her little arrows of mockery.
"What a family!" Anne repeated exultantly.
You know, even
I would want an unfulfilling marriage like that.
Montgomery didn't describe the housework painstakingly like she did in the previous books, but she distinctly made it clear that it was a happy, busy time for Anne, engaged in putting her new nest in order. We are given to understand that she grew into a meticulous housewife under Marilla's strict tutelage, and if she had more free time on her hands than other married women (because her house was small and she did not yet have children), it hardly qualifies the statement that "she did nothing all day". And no, Anne had no help until she was well advanced into her first pregnancy.
And I still don't understand how you could say that Montgomery didn't make us feel Anne's happiness when it is her sincere and heartfelt appreciation of life that runs through the voice of the entire book (except for the part where she grieves over the loss of her first child). I suppose it is the reader that makes the book after all.
Regarding women who married into affluent households and "only had to manage servants" all day; the argument there is two-fold. One is that these women were/ are not housewives so much as ladies of leisure and it simply does not do to compare the two situations. These women are usually socialites who are active in promoting charities and causes and generally making a career of supporting their husband's aspirations, which I personally find admirable. The other is that having servants usually means that your estate is large and your duties are many. Jane Austen and Daphne Du Maurier make it sound like they never had to do anything but make calls and go to parties day in and day out, but this is largely a generalization. Managing a large household with several servants, when done conscientiously, is an art unto itself and not just a case of issuing orders. There was once a time when my own family lived that kind of life, and frankly, living in a smaller house and doing your own chores is far less of a headache than employing so many others to do them for you.
As for the percentage of rich, married women who do nothing productive with their days, I think they are really no different from the rich unmarried women who do the same thing. It's nothing to do with marriage and everything to do with the kind of person that you are.
