No Sex, Please, We're British

[Geoff Bannister]

No: HPFGUIDX 83700

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "grannybat84112" 
<grannybat at h...> wrote:
> 

Grannybat: 
> Going back to the sexual aspect--it's always bothered me that Tom 
> Riddle's mother died in the Muggle world the from complications of 
> giving birth, AND her son was raised by a Muggle orphanage. Why 
> didn't she return to the Magical world after being rejected by her 
> child's father? She was a witch. She shouldn't have had to put up 
> with the fate of a "fallen woman," begging for food and shelter, 
> depending upon the charity of Muggle strangers, trusting the fate 
of 
> her body and her baby to a non-magical (probably religious) 
> institution, ultimately enduring a destiny typical of the deceived 
> innocent in so many gothic novels. Why didn't she return to Magical 
> society, where she could at least be certain that her baby would be 
> brought up within a culture that would accept and encourage his 
> abilities? 
> 

<snip>

> > Unless...unless...
> 
> Unless the Magical world's attitude toward out-of-wedlock births is 
> even more archaic and vicious than the Muggle world's. Unless the 
> medieval mindset of genetic identity through officially sanctioned, 
> socially recognized patrilineal descent is a taboo so strong that 
no 
> Magical family dare cross it. Stonger than compassion or other 
> convictions of principle. Stronger than philosophical and moral 
> alliances against blood "purity." 
> 


Geoff:

Perhaps I should point out that your argument is not upheld by 
evidence in canon:

"'You think I was going to use my filthy Muggle father's name for 
ever? I, in whose veins runs the blood of Salazar Slytherin himself, 
through my mother's side? I, keep the name of a foul, common, Muggle 
who abandoned me even before I was born, just because he found out 
his /wife/ was a witch? (my emphasis)'"

Tom Riddle to Harry  (COS UK edition p.231)

Geoff