Sirius and Remus - and how little we know about WW law

[muscatel1988]

No: HPFGUIDX 131366

(vast snip)
> At what point did homosexual relationships become legal in the UK?  
> Was Sirius being a "big rebel" not because he was playing the field, 
> but because his relationship with another man was technically 
> against the law?  
(vast snip)

"In England and Wales, gay sex was legalized in 1967, for consenting 
males aged over 21. Scotland followed in 1980, and Northern Ireland in 
1982. The age of consent was lowered in 1994 from 21 to 18, and again 
in 2000 to 16 in mainland Britain and 17 in Northern Ireland. This 
last change gave it equal treatment with the heterosexual age of 
consent."  (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexual)

That's the legal history for muggles at least, but there's at least 
two complicating factors for R/S.  The first is that we don't know 
very much about how wizarding law differs from muggle law.  The second 
is that the legal situation doesn't necessarily provide an accurate 
barometer of general social attitudes (to anything).  And since 
homosexual acts were only criminalised in the 19th C in the UK, it's 
possible that the WW never had them at all.

To diverge a bit from the topic here, the first point brings up a 
whole set of other issues which are directly or indirectly important 
in the Potterverse, which basically concern the We don't, for example, 
know how inheritance works, other than that it exists in some form 
(Harry's inheritance from his parents, though he seems to have access 
to it long before he would in the MW) - there's been so much 
discussion about who gets Sirius's estate in this forum, but we don't 
know for example whether the WW includes entailment (since JKR is such 
an Austen fan, this wouldn't surprise me at all *).  

Neither do we know much about the WW legal status of marriage: does 
the WW recognise a muggle marriage?  This one's of interest because of 
TR's parents - she's referred to by TR as his "wife".  But we don't 
know whether there was a muggle wedding only (in which case the MW 
would regard TR as legitimate) - would this have been regarded as 
a "legal" marriage in WW terms?  Or was there just a WW wedding, which 
the WW would recognise, but which would leave TR as an illegitimate 
child in MW terms, possibly then providing a reason justifiable in law 
for shipping the child off to an orphanage.  Of course, it's possible 
in the Riddle case that this parents weren't married at all, and he's 
rewriting history in using "wife".

And what does a WW wedding consist of, anyway?  Who has the authority 
to perform one?  Is there WW divorce?  Are the laws on consanguinity 
different?

So many questions, and so little time left to answer them.  I'm 
betting that we'll get some insight into inheritance in HBP, but as 
for the marriage issues, I doubt we'll ever know.


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*  It's just occurred to me in thinking of entailment: who is Sirius's 
closest male blood relative?  His brother is dead and he has no 
children, so the line would pass to his cousins.  Bellatrix, Narcissa 
and Andromeda are female, and Lucius isn't blood, which would mean
(squeak!) Draco.  I confess that I haven't paid a lot of attention to 
inheritance posts here - perhaps I should have.  Crumbs!