[HPforGrownups] Just a thought concerning Lily (Breeding)

manawydan manawydan at ntlworld.com
Tue Apr 13 18:42:23 UTC 2004


No: HPFGUIDX 95838

Chelle wrote:
>Parents did arrange their childrens partnerings during this time.
>Before the 17th Century, as long as the Muggle parents didn't consider
>wizardry a curse there would be no reason not to pair up your child
>with a wizard or witch. It was probably considered useful. (Probably
>leading to the split and muggle pressure for wizarding solutions.)
>
>Since wizards tend to live a antiquated lifestyle in general, arranged
>marriages probaby still occur in some social circles.

A spot on suggestion there!

I get the feeling that the "pureblood" families had started to exclude
Muggles from their bloodlines even earlier than this (Slytherin is able to
refer to them as a category back in the 10th century and it doesn't sound as
if he's coming up with a new concept). But I agree with your implication
that it's an "aristocratic" concept at first: for your average "folk" wizard
living cheek by jowl in a village of Muggles, that was the circle into which
they married. It's also possible that Hogwarts itself (and indeed other
schools across the world), by bringing together larger numbers of wizard
children and equipping them for a life entirely within wizard society,
helped accelerate the seperation from Muggledom. that's the "pull" factor:
the "push" factor was the fact of _repression_ of wizards by Muggle society
and the fact that seperation was a survival strategy.

An interesting thought though: if marriages are still arranged to a great
extent, it would mean that parents would have a key role in arranging them.
Who's going to act for Harry? I can't really see Vernon and Petunia lowering
themselves to sort him out a good arrangement and Sirius is sort of dead...

Cheers

Ffred

O Benryn wleth hyd Luch Reon
Cymru yn unfryd gerhyd Wrion
Gwret dy Cymry yghymeiri






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