 After her marriage, and the birth of at least four children (the eldest, named Mary), Thurgood's high social status decayed, as she and her family began to regress into "extreame povertie and want".The precise cause or timing of this bereavement is not given, with Thurgood blaming it on her "bad husband", but the turbulent economic climate of the early-17th-century would've made such financial flucuations typical.She was forced into work as her husband sold off his "land and living", leaving her children hungry and her.