Ministers unveiled plans to shake up of the benefits system earlier this year which would require nearly everyone except single parents with very young children and the severely disabled to prepare for work or face potential penalties.
The women are of the era when the only serious career offering was a husband and children, and in the novel all of them marry, exceptfor a grammar-school teacher who is unable to find the right man and another woman who ends up a bit of a floozy.
In a country where state education does not exist, exceptfor the government setting a basic curriculum and giving sporadic funding, Santina's remaining children do not attend school.