Wizard society: Cultural fossilisation?

[Tabouli]

No: HPFGUIDX 35129

Heidi, quoting Devin:
>> As Pippin already pointed out (thank you Pippin!), I'm presupposing 
>> an epilogue which JKR kindly notified us of.  Sorry I didn't make it 
>> more clear, but nowhere did I claim to have a marriage at 16/17 in 
>> my mind.  
>
>And I thought I'd made it clear in my prior post that I would find an 
>engagement at that age to be equally Ewwwwwy.

Heidi, like all goodly listmembers, is welcome to her distribute her EW!s where she will, but her Ewwy (like three day old chewy) in this case has set me a-musing (now, where's my FBaWTFT again? Ah).

If I interpret JKR correctly, the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy was passed in 1692.  Presumably, this caused a significant decrease in "traffic" between the Wizard and Muggle societies.  Oh sure, there were Muggle-borns and mixed marriages, but from what JKR has showed us so far, the cultural influence of Wizards on Muggles who enter its ranks seems to be much stronger than the other way round.  We don't know enough to say so conclusively at this stage, but from what we know of Lily, Dean and Hermione, it seems that once Muggle-borns enter the Wizarding world, they've entered a microculture whose customs apparently replace their own, at least while moving in magic circles and perhaps even when they sneak back into the Muggle world (I really wonder what Hermione tells her parents in the holidays).

Interestingly, this suggests that Wizards are the "dominant culture" in the exchange, despite being a minority culture that has to hide itself.  (Tabouli rummages around in her fading memories of the acculturation research she read 4 or 5 years ago).  In fact, they are more like a sort of elite club than a "minority group" as we know them - they speak the local language, but have their own unique customs and activities.  If you cannot participate in these activities, you cannot be a member.  If you are born into the club and still can't participate, you are marginalised (Squibs).  If you marry a member, you get honorary membership to attend club meetings, but not full membership, as you still can't fully participate (Seamus' dad).  In fact,  the Wizards are a little reminiscent of a white expat community in Asia... almost totally self-contained, with minimalist contact with the locals in whose world they live, and, for most, a generally uncomprehending, superior attitude toward them.  Our ways are better, our technology is more advanced.  Some of course strive to make friends with them and learn their quaint ways (Arthur Weasley), but most aren't interested.

(my my, when I heard Pauline Hanson {now-discredited Australian politician promoting a racist agenda} whingeing that "Asians form ghettos (in white Australia) and don't assimilate", how I wanted to show her a couple of white expat communities in Asia...)

Of course, Wizards do speak a common language with Muggles and look no different (dress aside), so perhaps a better comparison is an elite secret society.  Err... err... the Freemasons, maybe?  (don't know enough about them to use this comparison).

Anyway.

Presumably, until 1692 or thereabouts, Wizards and Muggles mingled in their daily lives and were exposed to similar influences.  They would, to a much greater extent, have been exposed to the same cultural influences, shaping their ideas about things like appropriate ages for adulthood, marriage and so on.  Afterwards, however, the Wizards cut themselves off, and hence things like eckletricity and escapators are cultural curios for them.  They still use candles and broomsticks.  There is *some* evidence of information, social and technological, passing between the two (e.g. wireless, Muggle clothing for children, flush toilets, etc.).  However...

By cutting themselves off from Muggles, Wizards quite likely underwent a kind of cultural fossilisation.  Rather like Greek immigrants who came out to Australia in the 1950s, and are still living by 1950s Greek values, while Greece itself has moved on.  In other words, the trade-oriented, no higher education, age of adulthood and marriage and so forth in Wizard society may well have a lot left over from 17th century Muggledom which seems odd to us 21st century Muggles.  It's also possible that there have been windows of Muggle influence on Wizarding society since the 17th century, and current Wizard values and institutions represent a combination of borrowings from different eras (rather like the influence of Chinese on Japanese... you can date when a character was borrowed from Chinese by its pronunciation).

OK, all you historians out there... what was considered an appropriate age for marriage in late 17th century middle class Britain (assuming that Wizards were middle class)?  BTW, please forgive any dubious comments and outright mistakes in this post... I'm very weak on history, as I've mentioned before!

I've certainly read that the concept of "adolescence" is an invention of the 20th century, which has been reinforced by compulsory education until the mid to late teens and legal definitions of adulthood in the mid teens to early twenties.  Once upon a time, I'm pretty sure "adulthood", sexual maturity and the beginning of one's working life were more or less synonymous (even my grandmother, born in 1917, left school to start work at 13).  Interestingly, Hogwarts seems to have an older, vocational kind of system mixed with a 20th century "education for all" philosophy.  Or is it an "education for the magically gifted, vocational education for the rest", as suggested by Neville's relatives' worries and Stan Shunpike?  Based on GoF, my suspicion regarding the "adulthood at 17" line is that this is the age at which wizards reach *magical* maturity, in the full adult powers sense, and was hence pegged as the age of adulthood in the early Wizard world.  A 7 year secondary education has since intervened and inhibited the development of "maturity" in other areas (which would once have been stimulated by entering the workforce, marriage, etc, at 14 or so), but has not (yet?) resulted in any change in the age of majority.

Which is a long-winded way of making a point on Heidi's EW... Wizards evidently have different ideas from us about age (long lifespan notwithstanding), and this may well be because their attitudes in this area stem from an earlier era in Muggle history.

(not that I think Harry marrying Ginny at 17 and 16 is a great idea either, but all the same...)

Tabouli.


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