Inbreeding of Witches and Wizards/Statute of Secrecy and marriage

[muscatel1988]

No: HPFGUIDX 176292

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, Mellanie Crowther 
<magpye29 at ...> wrote:
  
> I think it's sometimes hard for us in the States to understand 
> how pervasive an influence school is in British society. 

Private schooling is an important factor for some British people - a 
small number of the titled and the wealthy.  The books are enjoyable, 
but they are very far from an accurate portrait of education in the 
UK.

> I would think that in England, regardless of where you live or 
> where your parents might move to, if they've made up their minds 
> that you're going to a particular school, that's where you're going 
> to go.  And since that usually entails boarding, you're even more 
> dependent on the people you encounter at school. 

I'm curious as to where you get the notion that most British children 
board.  They don't.  90% of secondary schools are comprehensive 
(state) schools (http://www.archive.official-
documents.co.uk/document/ofsted/seced/chap-1.htm gives figures which 
cover the HP years); even among fee-paying schools, most are day 
schools.  Of the c. 700 schools that do offer boarding places (and 
not all are completely boarding), a large number of boarders would be 
from overseas (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boarding_school).  
Boarding schools are typically single-sex, so for most students, 
their peers at school are unlikely to include a future life partner.  
The matter of boarding status is further confounded by the fact that 
the term is also used for children attending special ed. schools on a 
residential basis.

If you're a witch or wizard, there's only one school.  Unless you 
stay single, marry a Muggle or marry a foreigner, there's an 
overwhelmingly high chance that you'll have met your spouse at school 
(along with pretty much every member of your society within seven 
years either side of you).  British society really doesn't work like 
this.  In 1998, there were 3,567 secondary schools in England alone 
(http://www.dfes.gov.uk/rsgateway/DB/VOL/v000417/schools_volume_2003.p
df).

One wonders, though, how your average witch or wizard meets a 
Muggle.  The MW and the WW are shown to us as very strictly separate 
from each other; once you have been to Hogwarts, your chances of 
meeting a Muggle are probably quite limited.  I wonder if the Statute 
of Secrecy has anything to say about disclosure during a relationshp -
 the only case I can think of where we get told about disclosure is 
Ma and Pa Finnegan, where he only found out afterwards.  (The other 
example, Tom Snr. and Merope, I think we can put aside - though if 
wizarding tradition is *not* to tell until after marriage, then she 
is less to blame for not having done so.)  One could imagine that it 
would be in the interests of the WW (or in the interests of keeping 
it secret) to stop people telling too early in a relationship.  Not 
the sort of thing you want to happen on the third date.  Better save 
it till after the wedding.   <g>