[HPforGrownups] Re: Elves (again)

[Margaret Dean]

No: HPFGUIDX 30574

The entry of Professor Nel of the Muggle Studies Dept. (:)) into
the discussion on house-elves encourages me to toss out a
question that's been sitting in the back of my mind for some
time.  We've discussed before the fact that we (and Hermione)
don't really know a lot about the origins and the various
ramifications of the current position of house-elves in wizarding
society.  I hope we (and she) will find out a lot more about that
in subsequent books.

But it does occur to me to wonder whether the house-elf situation
is more like slavery (which most if not all of us, I suspect,
would consider insupportable even at its best, because it denies
the full humani-- um, er, let's call it =beinghood= -- of the
slave) or more like marriage (which comes in a whole spectrum of
forms, ranging from the totally satisfying to the horrifyingly
awful).

Ask yourself this:  if you were a being from another planet,
whose culture didn't have marriage in any form (hard to imagine,
I know), and came to Earth, and the first Earthling you met was a
victim of severe spousal abuse [Dobby], what impression would you
get of the institution as a whole?


--Margaret Dean
  <margdean at erols.com>