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I always get the impression that Edith must have loved Tolkien deeply - to convert from your own faith to another when there was no need to is good enough evidence. But then we also have the strong evidence that she broke off another engagement to be with him again once he was old enough (maybe she became engaged to someone else in despair. not believing he would stay faithful?). And she must have been a bit of a 'catch' too.
Her behaviour in Oxford to me sounds like she simply did not feel as if she fitted in to the society available to her, so she withdrew instead. It was a shame she did have to convert because she would have found more outlets as Mithalwen says. But it's also a shame that due to the middle class social constraints of the day she probably didn't spend as much time with her own children as she could have done.
The more I read about the Tolkiens, the more clear it becomes that they were both unsure of their place in society and within the class structure.
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Gordon's alive!
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