Marriage

# Marriage (Harry Potter)

**Marriage** is a legally binding contract that says two people stay together until their death. Many people have a celebration at the start of their marriage known as a ***wedding***. The end of a marriage is known as *divorce*. Two people planning to be married in the near future are known as *engaged*.

### Location

Various

Molly Weasley claimed that during the First Wizarding War many people were "rushing into" marriage in the worry that they might not be able to do it in the near future lest they were killed.
The exact legal nature of marriage in the wizarding world is unknown, although it is known that ***Celestina Warbeck*** married three times, and divorced two times.

## Types of marriage

### Respectable

Nonetheless, some wizards and witches had made their families proud by making "respectable pure-blood marriages" like ***Narcissa Black***, ***Bellatrix Black***, ***Orion Black***, and ***Irma Crabbe***. Apparently, in some cases the contractors were not in love, but still married to maintain purity within their families, making it sort of an "arranged marriage". For example, Bellatrix's true love was Lord Voldemort rather than her husband Rodolphus. The ***House of Gaunt*** had a tendency of marrying their own cousins to remain pure, which led to severe genetic problems in the later generations.

### Low status

 File:Tonks Lupin.jpg
There existed some notorious discrimination toward "morganatic" marriages. Many Pure-blood families disowned their own relatives for their marriage to Muggles, half-bloods, Muggle-borns, and blood traitors, and such outcasts were seen as "second-class" wizards and witches, e.g. ***Andromeda Black***, ***Cedrella Black***, James Potter, ***Eileen Prince***, and ***Merope Gaunt***.

Andromeda married Muggle-born Ted Tonks. Cedrella married ***Septimus Weasley***. The Weasley family had been considered blood traitors ever since they protested their inclusion in the ***Sacred Twenty-Eight***, thus Cedrella was disowned and burned off the ***Black family tree tapestry***. Eileen Prince and Merope Gaunt married Muggles, Muggle/wizard marriages were seen as lesser unions.

Many marriages would have likely been looked down upon, such as James Potter's marriage to Muggle-born Lily Evans, or Ron Weasley's marriage to Muggle-born Hermione Granger. Harry Potter's marriage to Ginny Weasley may have been looked down upon as Harry was a half-blood and, although a pure-blood, Ginny was considered a blood traitor. Remus Lupin and ***Nymphadora Tonks***'s marriage was also looked down upon, because of Lupin's werewolf status.

### Magical marriages

The marriage between a witch and a wizard or a witch/wizard and a non-human, in rough chronological order.

* Cornelius Fudge and ***a woman***

### Muggle marriages

The marriages between two Muggles.

### Mixed marriages

The marriage between a wizard or a witch and a Muggle.

## Behind the scenes

* ***J. K. Rowling*** has stated that ***homosexual*** relationships do not suffer as much discrimination in the wizarding world as in the Muggle world, so it is possible that Template:W is legal in the wizarding world; however, this has not been confirmed.

## Appearances

* Template:DH Template:1st
* Template:DH
* Template:COG Template:Mention
* Template:COG Template:Mention
* Template:SOD
* Template:SOD
* Template:PM
* Template:WW
* Template:WBS Template:Mention
* Template:WBP Template:Mention
* Template:HM Template:Mention
* Template:WU Template:Mention

## Notes and references

Template:Reflist

.

1. ↑ Arthur Weasley was born in February 1950 and Molly Weasley was born in October 1949. They both attended Hogwarts from 1961 to 1968, and they had their first child together, Bill, on November 1970. They must have married sometime between their graduation from Hogwarts and the birth of their first child.
2. ↑ Template:HPFW - see this image
3. ↑ In *Deathly Hallows*, Chapter 33, Dumbledore refers to James as Lily's "husband" in the scene where Snape asks him to protect Lily. This scene can be determined as having occurred in autumn 1979, based on the description of the setting ("...the sound of the wind in the branches" and "Though leaves and branches still flew through the night air around them..."), and J. K. Rowling's statement during her 2007 Carnegie Hall appearance that the Potters went into hiding when Lily was pregnant. James and Lily must have thus married sometime between leaving Hogwarts in June 1978 and autumn 1979.
4. ↑ Template:DH