Let's say MJK was dyslexic!

[j.r-ahde]

Hello you all!

One possibility to the contradiction of MJK being well-educated and still having the papers read to her by JB; she could have been dyslexic, in another words; making unintentional mistakes in her reading.

If this is the case, was there any help for this problem in the LVP time anywhere?!

All the best
Jukka

[Christine]

If she never learned to read she wouldn't have been allowed to stay in school and hence wouldn't have been well-educated. I think bad vision was more likely.

[babybird67]

sign of the times...

good point Christine.

I also read here somewhere the suggestion that perhaps Mary was read to as part of being a couple etc.

I think this is a good possibility since if she spent her time mending clothes, as i think Maria suggested she had taken some clothes around to Mary for mending (? am i right), it would have been nice for Barnett to have read to her, either newspapers, letters etc, while she was busy doing something more productive.

I think in the LVP and even later, and i think i am recalling details from D H Lawrence's Sons and Lovers, a woman rarely had leisure time to sit and read. There was plenty to do even when sitting down, such as mending and darning clothes. So i think being read to as a woman was possibly a quite common experience (but again pure conjecture on my part).