Doris Lessing

 

Thanks, Clive!

Couldn't find the edit... button, so I post again with wider context.

Following is from Doris Lessing's Golden  Notebook.

The women watched how the boy, returning with an empty basket, swung out a filled one from the back of the milk-cart, receiving instructions from his father with a smile and a nod. There was perfect understanding there; and the two women, both of them bringing up children without men, exchanged a grimacing envious smile. 

"The point is," said Anna, " neither of us were prepared to get married simply to give our children fathers."

  ** 

Does the underlined sentence mean that both of them got  married for a purpose other than(or beyond) giving their children fathers? 

Maybe still ambiguous and need to read the whole book?

 

 

Neither of them actually got married. They didn't want to get married just because their children needed a father.

As I see it, the meaning is basically that the women did not want to get married when they discovered that they were pregnant or at the time they had their babies.

Based on the fact that the women "exchanged a grimacing envious smile" when they saw a little boy with his father, it seems that their feelings may now have changed (i.e. the women regret their earlier decision not to get married and therefore might now be interested in doing that).