single parents in HP AND the Dursleys

[bluesqueak]

No: HPFGUIDX 55334

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, Eileen <lucky_kari at y...> wrote:
>  --- stillginger1966 <stillginger1966 at y...>
> wrote: 
> > Most of the parents are not mentioned at all, but of
> > those who are, 
> > they all seem to be married.
> > 
> > I confess I don't know current British statistics
> > for single heads of 
> > households, but as JKR was a single mother when she
> > wrote these, I 
> > kind of find it odd.
> 
> I have to admit that I've always found it odd that
> people find it odd. Traditional societies don't have
> the same rate of separation/divorce or out-of-wedlock
> births as does modern society. That's a fact. If JKR
> had written a wizarding society with a high break-up
> rate, I would probably not have bothered reading past
> PS/SS. It would have suggested that she was trying to
> teach her audience a "lesson,"(TM) and not paying
> attention to universe coherence.

I have actually wondered whether we're going to find that marriage 
in the WW is one of those 'binding magical contracts'. There seem to 
be NO divorces amongst pureblood families. Tom Riddle's mother 
naming him after the father who had abandoned them also suggests a 
feeling that some contracts cannot be broken. Tom Riddle Sr. may 
have walked out; Tom Riddle Jr. was still his son.

Further, if marriage is a binding magical contract in the WW, then 
Tom Riddle Sr surely suffered for breaking it.

There is one other divorce that I can think of, though it's not 
strictly a pureblood marriage - Hagrid's parents. Hagrid's giantess 
mother walked out on them (why, we do not yet know), leaving Hagrid 
to be brought up in a single parent family from the age of three, 
and then as an effective orphan from 12 when his father died. 
There's no suggestion that Hagrid Sr. remarried, so strictly it 
seems to be a 'separation' rather than a 'divorce'.

> However, I think JKR is interested in family break-up.
> It has always interested me that there are very few
> intact families in the Potterverse. The Riddles, the
> Crouches, the Potters, the Longbottoms, and now the
> Diggorys have all come apart at the seams. I think
> this is only the beginning. 
> 
> We have four intact centre-stage families, btw, the
> Weasleys, the Malfoys, the Dursleys, and the Grangers.
> Well, I don't know about the Grangers. They might be
> allowed to survive the series, given that although
> Hermione is a main character, her family doesn't seem
> to be part of the story. The Malfoys, though, I don't
> see as making it through intact, and I would be very
> surprised if the Weasleys don't take casualties.
> Shake-ups with the Dursleys are expected. 
> Eileen

The Dursley's definitely do not have a healthy family structure. 
Vernon is a bully. Petunia smothers her natural son, and favours him 
over her foster son (though she is more caring towards Harry than 
Vernon is). Dudley displays many signs of being a deeply unhappy and 
disturbed child. Harry is the family 'scapegoat'. 

So the Dursley family is already showing problems; whether they'll 
be torn apart by external attacks or internal problems remains to be 
seen.

Pip!Squeak (aka Pip)