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

[festuco]

No: HPFGUIDX 152519

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "pippin_999" <foxmoth at ...> wrote:
>

> Pippin:
> Would it? Wizards invented the Goblet of Fire, which seems to reflect a 
> moral philosophy very much like the one informing the old idea of
marriage.

Gerry
??????Even in 1926 there was no forced marriage. 

> Just as the Goblet chose the best person to compete in the contest
regardless
> of that person's desire  to compete, God was supposed to choose the
> best people to be married to one another. 

Gerry
Even in 1926 there were reasons for a divorce. Adultary for example.
Rich people even could get divorced in the 19th. century. So even then
they recognized that God did not always do a perfect job. 

As interfering with the Goblet's
> choice was taboo, so was interfering with marriage.  Lack of desire
> to compete did not invalidate the Goblet's choice, and lack of desire
> to be married did not invalidate a marriage.

Gerry
Oh, that is why people got into hotels with another woman, made sure
they were seen so they could get the divorce they wanted. If they had
enough money of course, because I believe it was still rather
expensive. So looking at it from that angle, Tom certainly was in the
right social class for getting divorced.
> 
> The marriage was made as soon as the partners gave free consent
> in a recognized way...and the law in 1926 did not recognize
persuasion by
> means other than force as coercion.

Again, Mufflre law. Wizarding law undoubtedly would. 


> Pippin:
> "Again this is guesswork," said Dumbeldore,"but I believe that
Merope, who was
> deeply in love with her husband, could not bear to continue enslaving
> him by magical means." --HBP ch 10 

Gerry
There is no time frame here. 
> 

> Pippin:
> The exchange in chapter 5 where Molly explains why she thinks Bill
> and Fleur have hurried into their engagement and should delay 
> reflects a view most people would have held in 1926. It also
> may reflect JKR's own personal experience and her first disastrous
> marriage.

Gerry
And Ginny immediately replies that Bill and Fleur are doing exactly
the same as Molly and Arthyr did themselves. So, I'm sorry, but I
don't think this very convincing.
> 

> for very long. The potion made Tom desire someone whom he 
> never would have thought suitable without it. But did it produce
> the  urgency to consummate the relationship that (presumably)
> made him rush into marriage? Or was that his own headstrong
> nature?

well, he was not married to Celia, which if he was the not waiting
kind he would have been. Besides, it does not matter, unless you don't
 want to see he was drugged and keep looking for a way of blaming the
victim.
> 
> Ron becomes very eager to see Romilda, and Harry becomes reckless 
> under the spell of the Veela, but in both cases, they only seem 
reckless 
> to get their attention, not to possess them. 

Gerry
\marriage is not about posession. And the first step when somebody is
in love is wanting the other person to notice they exist. There is
nothing that suggest that the effect would stop when the other person
would notice them. But as it is a loive potion, that is very, very
unlikely.

I'm sorry, but I get the impression you try to twist canon to support
your theory instead of seeing if your theory holds up in canon. 
> 
> I utterly agree with you that Merope took advantage of her husband-
> to-be. I'm just pointing out that in 1926, the discovery of that would
> not necesssarily have invalidated the marriage, even if a crime had
> been committed in the process, 

Gerry
And I pointed out that that was because society did not believe that
possible. 

 just as the discovery that Harry had 
> been forced to  enter the contest through criminal activity did not
invalidate
> the goblet's choice. He was still bound by the contract. So was Tom.
> So much for the good old days.

Gerry
Well here is some information about them which I found:
  Towards the end of the 19th century and the early 20th century, a
number of bills were put forward in an attempt to further reform
divorce legislation. The Hunter Bill, which attempted to extend the
grounds for divorce was rejected by 71 votes to 40 while the Russell
Bill, 1902, although also rejected became the precursor to the 1937
Matrimonial Causes Act.  
            The first real sign of change in the 20th century became
apparent with the passing of the 1923 Matrimonial Causes Act. This act
adjusted the grounds of divorce so that women now had the same rights
as men. According to Phillips this meant that the number of petitions
filed by women rose above that of men for the first time. He states
that between 1923 and 1939 50-60% of all divorce petitions were from
women. This Act appears to have had a marked impact on the number of
divorce petitions however; this rise can also be attributed to the
change of law allowing women who would have normally just separated
from their husbands to divorce them.
http://www.swan.ac.uk/history/teaching/teaching%20resources/PlaguetoAids/2004presentationNew_Folder2/DivorceDelyth.htm

I think this society would certainly have made legislation if they
knew what magic could have done.
> 
> Pippin
> glad to find some reason for the goblet of fire besides a plot device

Gerry, who thinks this is terribly far fetched
>