That big of a gap without any other siblings doesn't seem likely. Especially for the time period and the mothers age. Meaning she's an older woman who already had several children and than Winthrop was the baby of the family. Please note this does not mean I didn't enjoy the movie.
shareWhat's not to say Mrs. Paroo hadn't given birth to two or three children between Marian and Winthrop? Those kids could've been stillborn or died in infancy. You do know that sort of thing was much more frequent at the end of the 19th Century? Also older kids might have died from various diseases we don't even think of nowadays: typhoid, scarlet fever, rheumatic fever, pneumonia, infantile paralysis, even measles or mumps.
"May I bone your kipper, Mademoiselle?"
Wow, I never thought of those reasons. And widow Paroo might've been feeling frisky before her husband died
shareWomen also had the rhythm method, which granted wasn't foolproof. What fooled them was when they thought they were in menopause, but were really in periomenopause. SURPRISE! Lots of change of life babies... even in the 60s & 70s.
shareI read somewhere or another that the original idea was for Marian to be his mother, but that the producers decided they wanted a virginal heroine, so that idea was dropped and she became his much older sister.
cinefreak
Winthrop is what? Maybe 8? Marian would be, at the oldest, in her early 20s, but more likely not much older than 19 or 20.
That's not a huge age gap. My own two children are 8 1/2 years apart. Sometimes it just happens that way.
I think Marian was about 26, or that's how old Professor Hill estimated her to be when he told her she was about "26 years too late" at the meeting at the footbridge. The age gap is surprising. You might think that Marian and Winthrop had different fathers, but they all seem to have the last name Paroo.
There is the possibility that Winthrop is Marian's illegitimate son, but in order to conceal the fact, he was "passed off" as her brother. That kind of thing did happen in the past, but I guess they weren't going for that angle.
Or, there could've been other siblings in between them who might've married and moved away! Lots of possibilities.
share[deleted]
My sister was in her mid-ish twenties when I was born, and I'm currently 24. I was change of life-ish;
Certainly is an oddity, but I'd say not necessarily an oddity. Men are potent until the day they die, barring health issues, and Marian's mother - as said, could have had Winthrop in her pre-menopausal era.
~Right Here in River City~
They were Irish immigrants, right? Back then the father would leave his wife and kids in Ireland, get recruited for work and move to America. He'd then save up the money he earned to send home later to pay their fare and passage over to America. Many immigrant families had big age gaps between the kids born in the old country and the kids born in America due to this common scenario.
share