did i punctuate this sentence correctly?

"They wanted to have the woman give birth to healthy babies, but they wanted to get as much work out of the woman as possible; therefore, the women were given lighter tasks."

It's too long.

You could make it two sentences, or you could reword it.

Yes, you punctuated the sentence correctly. There are a few rules to consider when punctuating this sentence:

1. Capitalization: Begin the sentence with a capital letter, which you did correctly.

2. Period: End the sentence with a period, which you did correctly.

3. Comma: Place a comma before the coordinating conjunction "but" when separating two independent clauses. You did this correctly by adding a comma between "They wanted to have the woman give birth to healthy babies" and "they wanted to get as much work out of the woman as possible."

4. Semicolon: Use a semicolon to join two related independent clauses when a coordinating conjunction is not used. In your sentence, the semicolon is correctly used to separate "They wanted to have the woman give birth to healthy babies" and "therefore, the women were given lighter tasks."

Overall, your punctuation in this sentence is accurate.