A closer look
If you think balancing a career and family is hard, try doing it while heavily armed men are actively trying to batter down your front door. Margaret Paston was a 15th-century English gentlewoman whose surviving letters offer a hilariously chaotic look at the Wars of the Roses. While her lawyer husband was away in London, Margaret was left to manage their estates, which involved fending off literal military sieges by rival lords. Her letters seamlessly transition from reporting that their manor was just attacked by a mob with scaling ladders, to casually reminding her husband to pick up some almonds and fabric while he's in the city.
