@impending-doom Based on the thread title, my first thought was why they weren’t married off individually rather than to each other.

Economy is likely the best and main reason. The series is about Aslan and Narnia, the country, and whilst there were visitors, to have them married off in some cases, might well have introduced new characters that would need explaining. That, in my opinion, is why Susan's non-presence in Last Battle likely signified that perhaps she'd already tied the knot. Yes, C.S. Lewis did write a letter claiming that Susan had grown vain & proud, but there was time for her to get back to Narnia in her own way. Perhaps Susan was a proper Bridezilla to her family.  

And, after all, there is a clause in the Anglican wedding ceremony where both bride & groom make their promises until "death doth them part", "Forsaking all others". Realistically, how much could someone like Susan or especially Polly share with a partner who wasn't "in the Narnia loop"? That is the point about marriage. Much as I might have liked to go to visit places like Whitby in England or Italy or Spain, I have to mind first my own family commitments, how much we can afford, work commitments, or health problems. And most of all, when travelling with my husband, I have to be also mindful of his desire to reconnect with friends from when he lived in Scotland, and also what he'd like to see - that sort of thing. 

I think it was Jill and Eustace whom I thought might get married had they lived, especially when in Last Battle, they seemed to get along so much better than in The Silver Chair. But then, as the Last Battle proceeds to its end, they can spend all their time together, married or not. 

@impending-doom I do think it’s a little odd that Polly never married anyone at all.

That depends on how old you are, when after both WW1 & WW2 it was quite common for there to be heaps of single women, working as secretaries, teachers, or in factories, not only in Australia, New Zealand & UK, but elsewhere, maybe in Canada & definitely in Europe. I've been to the Northern France battlefield cemeteries. Such a loss of life needs to be seen to be understood, I think, though it also features heavily in the first half of the 20th century literature. 

Back on RE: Tome & Folio - Books: Third Edition, people who have read LM Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables series, might remember that her son, Walter, is killed on the Western Front in 1917, whilst Australia's Billabong series also had a Walter, or Wally, who married Norah Linton, the Little Bush Maid, & who seemed to suffer from what we would later called Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, after he returned with her elder brother, Jim, from WW1 trench warfare.

Yes, Polly might very well have had a sweetheart in the trenches, who never made it to the Armistice, maybe even a fiancé. C.S Lewis covers that eventuality, I think, the way he depicts why Mr & Mrs Pevensie don't go to "Narnia Heaven", even though they, too, were killed in the train crash.

@the-old-maid And happy early 55th anniversary to you!  

Thank you for the good wishes, which I deeply appreciate, when I can scarcely believe we even made it that far in life together, when we've both had health problems right up to the present. 

Posted by: @impending-doom

I do think it’s a little odd that Polly never married anyone at all. That said, it could just be a practical choice by Lewis — keeping her unmarried avoids having to introduce or explain an absent spouse, or spend extra word count in The Last Battle dealing with someone Polly would reasonably ask about once she arrives in New Narnia. 

Many women of that generation did not marry, due to so many of the men of their generation being slaughtered in the Great War (WW1).  In my youth there were lots of older single ladies.  

Posted by: @coracle

Many women of that generation did not marry, due to so many of the men of their generation being slaughtered in the Great War (WW1). 

Yes, I was just thinking the same. According to the sort-of-official Narnia timeline, Polly was born in 1889 (she's 11 at the time the events of the book take place). That makes her 25 at the time when the war broke out (1914) — in those days it was common for women to marry at a younger age than that, but it of course wasn't mandatory, and Polly comes across as a very independent-minded girl / woman who, I can imagine, wouldn't have allowed herself to be pressured into marriage just through social convention. I'm sure she wouldn't have wanted to marry unless she was genuinely in love and certain that it was the right thing for her — and then yes, by the time she was in her mid to late 20s, a huge number of the men of her age group were dead or permanently wounded (both physically and mentally). But I feel she was also the sort of person who would still have been able to find a sense of completeness and contentment even without ever finding "that one person" in her life. (I've had to come to the same place myself, where I'm content to remain single all my life unless Aslan wills otherwise after all. )

And as @impending-doom said, there's also the practical factor of not having to introduce Polly's husband as a new character, or otherwise give her a backstory that's not relevant to the main plot.

I think it's also worth remembering that Lewis himself didn't marry until late in his own life, so these characters are being written by someone who hadn't prioritised finding a life-partner either, and who found his own sense of purpose in serving God — as both Polly and Digory presumably do too. 

@courtenay Polly comes across as a very independent-minded girl / woman who, I can imagine, wouldn't have allowed herself to be pressured into marriage just through social convention.

Yes, you are right. Unlike Susan, for instance, and hence Polly's saying "Grown-up, indeed,...I wish that she would grow up. She wasted all her school time wanting to be the age she is now, & she will waste the rest of her life, trying to stay that age. Her whole idea is to race on to the silliest time of one's life as quick as one can, and then to stop there as long as she can."

And yes, immediately after the war, I believe there indeed was such a social convention push, not only from families & through social convention, but also through films, advertising, women's magazines and newspapers etc. My mother, for instance, met my father at her workplace, and they married only eight months later, in February in 1945, before WW2. The result was disastrous for both parties. I was their only child, and when I was diagnosed with bronchial asthma at the age of four, their marriage split up tempestuously with my father blaming my mother & sending me off to a girls' home until I could go to boarding school. 

My mother was only 22 when she married, and when they never divorced, she remained with her mother, after I married in 1971 & "flew the coop". Whilst my father lived on the other side of Sydney Harbour, well away from her, having nothing whatever to say to her, if he could help it.  

I've met older girls who told me they were the result of the joyous celebrations of VP day, and I bet there are others whose arrival in the world, about 9-10 months after VE day, in UK, was attributed to that joyous event.  

Today is Valentine's Day. So Happy Valentine's Day to one and all on this thread.