Tom Riddle Sr. (Was: Why Tom left Merope)

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 147046

Carol earlier:
> > 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. 
> 
RP responded:
> IMO what Merope did to Tom Sr was not significantly different from 
men putting women on rape drugs (like R2) and have sex with them 
while they were under the drug's influence. Merope did NOT just
"seduce" Tom- you described how unattractive she was yourself-so what
qualities of hers drew Tom to WILLINGLY have sex with her?
<snip> 
> I have sympathy for Merope for who she was, she *was* abused by both 
> her father and her brother. But what she did was still inexcusable, 
> and I totally do not believe Tom Sr did anything unreasonable by 
> ditching her, pregnant or not. I pity Tom even more to have not even 
> the option of abortion! 
> 
> Also, my idea of *loving* someone is to treat that person with 
> kindness, NOT to abuse/manipulate them. So while Merope gets my 
> sympathy for being born/raised into thinking to love someone is to 
> rape them using drug, Tom Sr was totally faultless in my book for 
> not taking this "love" into consideration when he chose to leave- he 
> was the *victim* of this "love", after all.


Carol again:
I was thinking of rape in terms of a brutal, forced sexual act that
hurts the woman physically as well as emotionally, not in terms of
drug-induced date rape, which I admit is somewhat analogous to a love
potion used to trick a man into marriage. But Tom Sr., under the
potions's influence, believed that Merope was beautiful, believed that
he loved her. (See Ron's belief that Romilda Vane was beautiful and
desorable for evidence of Tom Sr.'s mental state.) A man has to be
aroused to have sex with a woman; that's a biological fact I was
modestly avoiding in previous posts in this thread. Tom was deluded,
certainly, but he was not being forced to do something he didn't want
to do (*at that time* and under the influence of the potion).

His indignation afterwards is not because he was forced to have sex
against his will but because he was tricked--robbed, essentially, of
his chance for a marriage with the beautiful Cecilia, who is from the
right social class and in all respects a suitable bride for the heir
of the local gentry (wrong word; I can't think of the proper British
term). It's rather as if young Lucius Malfoy had been tricked into
marrying Eileen Prince, or someone even uglier (his generation's
Millicent Bulstrode, maybe, only she'd have to be a "mudblood" to make
her sufficiently repulsive to him, and had no way out except to return
to his parents). 

It's the *marriage*, IMO, that's the problem for Tom Sr. He can't
dissolve it because the grounds for dissolution--that his wife is a
witch who tricked him into marrying him by giving him a love
potion--won't be believed by any Muggle authority. So he goes home to
live with his parents, not even putting a tail on Merope to find out
what happens to her and his unborn child. (Or maybe the orphanage
informed him of her death, but he didn't want to acknowledge his
infant son for fear that he'd be like his mother?)

At any rate, let's say that the date rape analogy is accurate. Would a
woman in this situation, especially a rich woman who could afford to
acknowledge and care for her child, be justified in dumping her
unwanted infant in an orphanage where he would be at best fed and
clothed but unloved? In fact, Tom has no way of knowing that his child
will even be placed in an orphanage. Given Merope's despair and
helplessness and lack of resources, she could easily end up dead by
the side of the road before the child is even born.

Why is it acceptable for Tom Sr. to refuse to acknowledge an innocent
child just because its mother deceived him? If a *woman* is the victim
of a brutal rape involving force rather than a sedative that alters
her mental state, she's still expected to find someone to care for the
child, not abandon it. Should a man, for whom brutality is not even
involved, have any less responsibility for his own offspring, however
unwillingly conceived? And Tom Sr. is also abandoning a helpless
pregnant woman who has no means of caring for herself. Yes, she
tricked him. But does that justify his leaving a half-mad, desperate,
uneducated woman, with no prospects of a job or another marriage, to
fend for herself and her unborn child? A good man, a decent man, would
have provided for her and her child, even if he considered himself her
victim, because her plight was far worse than his. And the child's
fate depended on hers.

Carol, who does not think Tom Sr. deserved to be murdered but does not
consider his behavior justified, rape victim or no