Molly & Arthur - was Why I like Ginny!

[Jocelyn Grunow]

No: HPFGUIDX 123049

On Wednesday, January 26, 2005, at 09:02 am, phoenixgod2000 wrote:

> I freely admit that I don't like Ginny as Harry's LI. based on Book
> five shes already starting to become as domineering as her mother
> and the last thing I want for my favorite character is to end up as
> henpecked and brow beaten as Arthur Weasley.  Molly has him on leash
> so tight its pathetic. that'll be what happens if Harry ends up with
> Ginny IMO.

I am beginning to have a slightly different perspective on this issue.  
I am beginning to see Arthur as someone who fails to step up to the 
plate a little too often.

For example, the Weasleys' poverty is often discussed, but why are they 
poor?  Because Arthur's job doesn't pay well.  Why doesn't he get a 
better paying job? At the beginning of the books he is held in high 
esteem in the Ministry & he's popular, but he LOVES his job.  His 
family say he could have gone further but he didn't want to - a 
statement I personally took as face-saving loyalty at first.  But I 
think it may have been true.  Arthur has made the decision not to move 
further up in the Ministry because he loves muggle inventions, and he 
loves his job.  All well and good, and I certainly don't want to 
suggest he should move to a job he hated, but he has 6 children to 
support & establish - isn't this a very selfish decision?

Molly also seems to do all the discipline, leaving Arthur as the 'good 
guy'.  I personally know several women who are frustrated to the nth 
degree because their partners avoid taking on the unpopular parts of 
childrearing.  When a man refuses to step up to the plate this way, it 
leaves parental discipline as a game of 'good cop/bad cop', with the 
woman stuck as the bad one.  This is bad for both parties, and for 
their partnership.  Molly and Arthur have been a partnership for 
twenty-odd years (how old is the eldest son?) and are now stuck in a 
bad pattern.

I am not saying it is all Arthur's fault - this is a pattern they made 
together.  I am saying that I see faults in Arthur which work to draw 
out Molly's faults.

I am also not saying that this is a bad marriage.  All marriages have 
their flaws and after 20+ years there is still genuine love and 
friendship in this one, which puts it pretty high in the scale of good 
marriages.

Jocelyn