[HPforGrownups] Re: Amortentia and re The morality of love potions/Merope and Tom Sr.

[P J]

No: HPFGUIDX 152327

Snipping most of Alla's post since I agree so strongly with her and don't 
want to keep repeating "I agree" or "me too"....

  > Carol responds:
 > First, I'm very curious as to whether any *male* list members would
 > classify what happened to Tom Sr. as "rape." IMO, it's more like
 > seduction and entrapment into marriage (admittedly not justifiable or
 > moral actions), and it's his inability to marry the woman of his
 > choice that upsets him and causes him to be a recluse in his parents'
 > house.

PJ:

Morfin has already brought the MoM to his door by hexing Tom Sr. and then 
Morfin's sister traps him into marriage with a very strong love potion.  I 
think it's just as reasonable, maybe more so, to assume that he's hiding out 
in his parent's home so that those insane wizarding folk can't do him any 
more physical or emotional damage,  After all, having said no to a witch 
could result in his death for all he knows.

Carol:

 > If Tom were merely the victim of unwanted sex with a girl he was
 > repulsed by, he could have gotten over it just as men get over
having
 > sex with girls they don't know after having had too many drinks, or
 > encounters with prostitutes that they later regret but don't spend
 > their lives reliving and repenting. Men don't make a big deal about
 > losing their virginity or undesirable sex partners unless there are
 > other consequences like venereal disease or the woman's pregnancy.
 > IMO, it wasn't the sex so much as the marriage that in his view
ruined
 > his life.

This wasn't just any ordinary girl, it wasn't excess alcohol that caused the 
problem and it wasn't any old family ... it was a witch belonging to a 
family he's already suffered injury at the hand of more than once.  Somehow 
I think that would be a little harder to "get over" than normal.

Some men may not consider what happened to Tom rape, some might.  Every 
person has their own outlook on it, men included.  Regardless, she took away 
his free will and imposed her own on him for months at a time until he 
finally fathered her child.  If Tom were instead called Tina we would, by 
this definition alone, call it what it is -- rape and assault.  There should 
be no double standard.

Carol:
>  Once he got over the initial outrage and humiliation,
>he should have seen that she, a lifelong victim of abuse, only
>wanted to be loved, that she was sorry for her mistake, that as a fellow
>human being, she deserved to be treated with compassion even though
>she had hurt him. Does being sorry and trying to make amends for a
>mistake count for nothing?
>Alla:
>Mistake? Trap another human being in her bed is a mistake? In my book
>it is a crime, a horrendous crime.
>And no, being sorry for rape does not count for much, although I
>don't remember her saying that she is sorry either.

PJ:
I don't remember her saying she was sorry either, only that she had hoped 
he'd been with her long enough to come to actually love her and, if not, at 
least feel something for the child they created.  Not much of an apology... 
more like manipulation.

And I'm curious to know how Tom was supposed to know she had been abused all 
her life and only wanted to feel loved for the first time in her life.  They 
didn't mingle in the village and all we hear him say about them is that they 
were odd.  All she says about him is that he'd treated her kindly.  She 
repaid that kindness by drugging him, binding him to her through a marriage 
he was not able to give true consent to and then presenting him with the 
prospect of a child.  You feel sorry for her?

Carol:
>He, however, did not forgive her or relent in his cold,
>cruel punishment of her transgression. He blamed her, abandoned her
>and their child, and went off to live with his parents, not providing
>her with a penny. He did what was easy, not what was right.
Alla:
>I cannot imagine a worst punishment for rape victim that staring in
>the face of the child conceived under such circumstances

PJ:
I don't see him running off as punishing Merope, I see it as him getting as 
far away from her and her entire family as he could get and then huddling in 
the house for the rest of his life.  That is *fear*, not punishment.  Even 
after he got away he was effectively a prisoner of the WW because of that 
fear.  Things didn't improve for him just because she stopped giving him the 
potion.   She didn't just sleep with him and let him go, she took everything 
away from him, and then, 16 years later, their son finished the job by 
taking his physcial existence as well as that of his parents.  How can he 
not be seen as a victim?

>Carol:
>He had a moral obligation to care for his
>child regardless of the circumstances of its conception. And his
>injuries did not justify deliberate cruelty and neglect toward someone
>who had asked his forgiveness.
Alla:
Not in my book. In my book he suffered enough without being imposed
on with his child and I don't remember anywhere in canon Merope
asking him for forgiveness, by the way.

PJ:

I agree with Alla 100%.  I didn't read anywhere about her asking for 
forgiveness.  Even if somewhere off the page she did, when you ask 
forgiveness you take your chances.  The person you wronged has no obligation 
to *grant* you the forgiveness you seek.  I also think TomSr. had been 
through enough and was under no obligation to raise or provide for that 
child she drugged him into producing.  Sorry.

 > Pippin:
 >> Till death us do part. Marriage was pretty much an unbreakable vow
in
 >  those days.
 >
 > By the laws and customs of that era, Tom  owed Merope support as
 > long as she was faithful to  him, and I don't think anyone  has
 > suggested that she wasn't.

A marriage is informed consent between two adults to create a union.  Tom 
was drugged and could not give that consent "with a clear mind".  He 
couldn't remarry because he was already legally wed to Merope and it's kind 
of hard to explain to people that your wife is a witch (most men would say 
MINE TOO!) and get out of the marriage but that doesn't mean he has to 
provide for either her or her child once he gets away...   I don't blame him 
one bit for anything he's done.

PJ