Amortentia and re The morality of love potions/Merope and Tom Sr.

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 152466

> Pippin:
> Goodness me, no! Did I say all that? The question was in what 
sense,
> if any, Merope could be called a victim. My answer was, because she
> was deserted by her husband, who failed to fulfill his legal 
obligation
> to support her and their child. That does not exclude Tom from 
> being a victim as well. I wouldn't say Merope didn't deserve 
Azkaban
> for improper use of magic and violating the secrecy act. I'm not 
giving
> her a pass.

Magpie:
Ah--I see then, sorry about that.  Presumably if Merope had been 
able to pass herself off as a Muggle and bring Tom up on charges, 
he'd have been stuck.

Pippin:
> Tom knew, or should have known, that he was consenting to all 
> this when he got married, and I see no canon that he was incapable
> of withholding his consent or that he was so overcome by the potion
> that he didn't know what he was doing.

Magpie:
Yes, I think he did know, and made the promise to fulfill those vows 
in good faith.  It was the basis for his making the promise that was 
false, not the promise itself.  

Pippin:
> 
> By the laws and customs of his time, Merope had the right to her
> husband's support if he had the means to do it unless the marriage
> was proved to be invalid. I am not saying she  had *earned* the 
right. 
> We have rights to all sorts of things we  have done nothing to 
deserve.  
> But legally, and, by the morals of her time, morally, she was 
wronged, 
> IMO. 

Magpie:
Actually, I would amend that to say that by the morals of Tom's 
Britain he was a legal husband with responsibilities.  Merope is not 
a citizen of Tom's Britain, however.  By the laws of her time and 
place, she may have had nothing of the sort.  Her own country would 
have seen her as what she was: a witch who'd used probably illegal 
magic on a Muggle.  According to Tom's Britain Merope probably 
didn't legally exist at all except on her marriage certificate.

> Pippin:
> According to Slughorn, the potion does not produce feelings of
> love -- it produces feelings of obsession and infatuation. As much
> of the novel turns on the difference between  love and such 
feelings,
> I think it has to be relevant whether there was any way Tom could 
> have distinguished between love and infatuation before taking such 
> a solemn and in his time nearly irrevocable step as marriage. 
> 
> Canon suggests that had he been willing to wait, Merope would have 
> tired of his make-believe passion and revealed herself before she 
> became pregnant.

Magpie:
Well, yes, but I don't see how that has any relevence to Tom's 
situation.  It still all hinges on Merope stopping the Potion.  He 
couldn't very well be expected to know he ought to wait until the 
woman he loves stops feeding him a Potion that's causing the 
feelings of love he thinks are genuine.  

Pippin:
> Canon implies the villagers believed Tom's talk of 
being "hoodwinked" 
> referred to a fake pregnancy, because that was the readiest 
explanation 
> for his hasty marriage. Dumbledore says that what Tom 
> really meant was that he was enchanted,   but  is it not valid to
> ask whether the enchantment produced the haste as well as the
> desire?

Magpie:
I think it's as fine a question as any to wonder about Love Potions, 
in general, but I don't know that it makes any difference to Tom's 
position.  If what Tom felt had been a natural emotion of Tom's 
there would be no reason he should have to wait a certain amount of 
time before acting on it.  Falling out of love or getting over his 
infatuation when he was already married would still be very 
different than a Love Potion wearing off, I think. Tom himself seems 
to feel the difference keenly.

> Pippin:
> Your example illustrates my point very well. If Tom had consented 
> in fear of his life, he would have been entitled to an annulment
> in 1926. But I don't think people would have recognized artificial
> emotional attachment as a problem, because they  didn't see the 
lack
> of attachment as invalidating the marriage. He might have done
> better to claim that Merope didn't tell him she was a witch, but 
it 
> would still be hard, IMO, for him to prove that he wouldn't have 
> married her if he'd known that.

Magpie:
Right, but that's one of many different angles to look at it from. 
Tom, as a Muggle, had a lot of things working against him.  His own 
society would not know what was going on, so couldn't judge it 
accurately.  In his society he would pretty much just have to 
divorce the girl.  But Merope isn't subject to the laws and customs 
of Tom's time, so in this case it's her society who would be the 
only ones who really saw what was going on.  They could easily 
identify the Love Potion.  Btw, not that you mentioned this, but 
that's why I think talk of her not being able to have an abortion or 
a divorce because of the year is irrelevent.  There's no reason to 
think that Merope would be at all effected socially by a divorce 
from Tom, and traditionally abortion Potions are probably the first 
thing one associates with the idea of witchcraft.  That is, Old 
Wives Tales are all obsessed with female matters, and causing 
miscarriages is a big one.  I can't imagine she'd have to be seeking 
out a Muggle doctor for any reason.  I can't imagine that in her 
world, miscarriage Potions wouldn't be real. Not that that is 
brought up in canon, but her story doesn't turn on Merope's problems 
stemming from pregnancy.  The baby doesn't seem to factor into 
either of the parents' decisions.  He's only important for who he is 
as a person himself.

-m