Arranged wizard marriages?

[Jim Ferer]

No: HPFGUIDX 96657

Janet: "I think that if wizard marriages are still arranged anywhere,
it would be among obsessively pureblood families like the Malfoys et
al. In those cases, it would probably be a loose agreement between
families, based on the fact that all those families socialized with
each other (and probably with no one else) and the fact that from an
early age their children were told that the members of such a family
were the only appropriate pool from which to choose a mate."

Right on, and there are parallels in America's upper classes,
especially in the 19th century: many of those families set up
summering communities that had as one of the goals giving their
children every chance to meet, socialize, and pair off with "suitable"
mates.  Johnstown, Pennsylvania, was such a place, and the dam that
burst in the catastrophic flood was there to make an artificial lake
rimmed with the summer places of the wealthy.  These were the
Pureblood Slytherins of the Gilded Age, and we could certainly expect
the Malfoys and others of their ilk to do something similar.

This brings up a problem that intermarrying groups eventually get into
after a few hundred years: (see "European Royal Families") the danger
of genetic diseases like haemophilia or even Tay-Sachs disease. The
most exclusive groups, such as the Pureblood-lovers, would be the most
subject to it. How do the Purebloods avoid it?  Do they have magical
help? We'll never find out, but you do wonder about it.

Jim Ferer

P.S. Ffred mentioned that Sirius can't help arrange a marriage, being
dead; he's forgetting Moaning Myrtle.  Seeing who Sirius *might* have
picked might have been downright alarming and a lot of fun to see.