A Tree Grows in Brooklyn Gender Quotes

How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)

Quote #4

She wept when they gave birth to daughters, knowing that to be born a woman meant a life of humble hardship. (7.46)

Grandma knows that life is harder on women.

Quote #5

They went to City Hall, where Sissy swore that she was eighteen, and were married by one of the clerks. The neighbors were shocked but Mary knew that marriage was the best thing that could happen to her highly sexed daughter. (7.50)

Why does Mary think this is the next best thing for her daughter? What was she afraid would happen if she didn’t get married?

Quote #6

That was Joanna’s crime, decided Francie—not that she had been bad, but that she had not been smart enough to get the boy to the church. (30.46)

Francie speculates that the women don’t hate Joanna because she has sex before marriage, but that instead it might be because Joanna didn't “pay the price” for it by getting married when she’s caught. If they had to get married, why doesn’t she have to get married, too?