Why was George Eliot Childless?

[Kimstu]

The renowned English novelist George Eliot (Marian Evans) began living openly with George Henry Lewes, a married man separated from his wife, in 1854 when she was thirty-five. Lewes had had several children with his wife, and also adopted two of her children fathered by other men, which apparently constituted condoning her adultery and thus barred him from divorcing her. Eliot and Lewes allegedly lived as husband and wife in all but legal status until his death nearly a quarter-century later.

So is it known why Eliot apparently never became pregnant by Lewes? I have never seen an Eliot biographer address this question. Was it just the luck of the fertilization draw? Certainly, many women in the mid-nineteenth century bore their first child after the age of 35---it wasn't as common as it is today, but it wasn't all that unusual either. Did Eliot and Lewes deliberately try to avoid conceiving? If so, why?

[Duck Duck Goose]

No answer, sorry, but I'll bump this from page 2 for ya.

Looks to me like you've got two choices, given human biology:

1. Either she just didn't happen to catch pregnant, or...
2. They used birth control.

[astro]

For many women (obviously not all) fertility starts falling off a cliff starting in their mid thirities. It's not all that surprising they didn't have a kid. Her chances at age 35 were probably fairly low to begin, with and decreased rapidly as she got older.