Why Tom left Merope /Draco and Harry

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 146993

Betsy Hp wrote:
> Yes, but it was the kidnapping and raping that turned Tom off
Merope.  And it was the spell or potion that turned Tom onto her. Tom
didn't leave Merope because she was a witch.  He left her because
she'd used him so horribly.  Merope didn't rape Tom *because* she was
a witch.  Being a witch *enabled* her to rape him.  If Tom had fallen
in love with Merope all on his own he may well have stayed after the
big reveal.  But Tom didn't love Merope.  He never loved Merope.  And
her treatment of him guaranteed he would never come to love her. 
Compare that to say, Seamus's parents where the big reveal was a
surprise but not a horror.

Carol responds:
Maybe I'm just old-fashioned, but I have difficulty conceiving of the
seduction of a man by a woman as rape. The sex wasn't forced. He had
to have wanted it or it could not have happened. That's not to say
that Merope is innocent. She did deceive him and make him think that
he loved  her and found her desirable. (We see the same thing
happening to Ron with Romilda Vane in HBP, but fortunately Romilda
only wanted Harry, for whom the potion was intended, to like her and
maybe kiss her. There's an element of naivete in both cases.)

I think you're right that Seamus's revelation to her husband that she
was a witch was "a surprise but not a horror" because they were in
love. (We don't hear anything about Seamus's father deserting the
family; still, it would have been better if she had tole him *before*
the marriage.) But rich, handsome, presumably well-educated Tom Riddle
Sr. could never have loved Merope Gaunt even if she hadn't been a
witch. She was abused, uneducated, poor, and ugly. Even combed and
bathed and dressed in the nicest clothes she could find (or conjure),
she was wall-eyed. She had no idea of proper decorum, no social
status, nothing that could appeal to him in a wife. And by tricking
him into marrying him, she prevented him from marrying his sweetheart,
 or some other suitable bride of his social class.

Of course, Tom Sr. couldn't explain that he had literally been
bewitched. He could only protest that he had been tricked. Evidently
he couldn't even divorce her or get the marriage annulled. No divorce
court would believe his story that he'd been given a love potion. So
when Merope finally got the courage to appear to him without the love
potion, perhaps to explain that she was a witch but certainly hoping
that he would see that she loved him and love her in return, all he
could see was an ugly, uneducated, poor, dirty, unsuitable wife, quite
possibly mentally defective, and flee in horror at the trick she had
played on him.

There's something to pity in both cases, but my sympathies are with
Merope, who loved a man she could never have and tried in the only way
she knew to get him to love her. If she'd been an intelligent and
educated witch like Hermione, her conduct would have been inexcusable.
But IMO she was a victim of abuse and neglect who was never taught
right from wrong (can you imagine lessons on morality from Marvolo
Gaunt?) and never had a chance of meeting and falling in love with a
suitable husband.

I agree that Tom Sr. never loved Merope; he never *could* have loved
her because, poor thing, she was so unloveable. But he could at least
have hidden her away somewhere and provided for their unborn child
once he recovered from the shock of having married and impregnated
her. But he was rich, handsome, and arrogant (GoF chap. 1). His
prospects (IMO) were ruined. He could not marry his intended bride
(evidently he never learned of Merope's death), so he remained in his
parents' house, no doubt resenting her to the end of his days. But he
never gave a thought to her love or her suffering; never gave a
thought to his unborn child, who would ultimately repay this rejection
with murder. 

Carol, wondering what would have happened if Tom Sr. had sought out
his newborn son and raised him as a wealthy Muggle rather than letting
him grow up unacknowledged in an orphanage