What triggered ancient magic? WAS: Re: James and Intent

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 187121

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> Alla:
 
> If you think that this is too much to ask of twenty one year old to make an assumption that the woman is **happy** in her marriage and would not want to be alive at the expense of her husband and baby, well all I can say is that I strongly disagree.
<snip>
> He knows that Lily is married and had a baby for quite some time now, and I think he should have made an assumption (absent any knowledge he has to the contrary) that she is happy rather than not.
> 

Pippin:

In the traditions of courtly love (and arranged marriages), the general  assumption is that the wife is *not* happily married. In fact the courtly lover could never be his lady's husband. That romantic love could lead to happy marriage is a thoroughly modern idea which many people in the past would have thought insane. So even if he'd heard that James and Lily had married for love, Snape wouldn't necessarily assume they were happy, especially if he feared Lily's love was the product of a potion or an Imperius curse. 

Bellatrix doesn't seem to care much about her husband, and if Snape got his ideas of what marriage was like from her and from his own mother, it would confirm whatever he knew from tales of courtly love. Lucius and Narcissa seem to be close as of DH, but they didn't in earlier books, and it could be that adversity drew them together. 

Slughorn isn't married, Dumbledore never married, Hagrid never married, and if Flitwick or McGonagall are married, they never refer to the fact. So I am curious about where you think Snape should have gotten this assumption of happy marriage from.   He doesn't seem to have been close to Arthur and Molly and I don't think he'd have been watching "Ozzie and Harriet" do you? :)


Pippin