- "Ladies and gentlemen, we are gathered here today to celebrate the union of two faithful souls..."
- — Ceremony official[src]
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.
Often the female takes on the surname of the male during marriage, however this is not always the case (such as when Minerva McGonagall married Elphinstone Urquart in the 1980s).
In the wizarding world, many couples have been married, such as Arthur Weasley and Molly Prewett, and James Potter and Lily Evans.
Molly Weasley claimed that during the First Wizarding War many people were "rushing into" marriage in the worry that they may not be able to do it in the near future lest they were killed.[1]
Known marriages
Magical marriages
The marriage between a wizard and a witch & a wizard or a witch and a non-human, in rough chronological order.
| Bride and groom | Wedding date | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Between summer 1968 and November 1970[2] | The Weasleys settled on a large Tudor pigpen located on the outskirts of Ottery St. Catchpole, in Devon. As the family grew over the birth of their children, the couple started building upward with add-on bits of architectural salvage they picked up wherever they could find, thus building The Burrow.[3] | |
| Between summer 1978 and autumn 1979[4] | Lily and her sister Petunia were not on good terms, so neither Petunia nor her husband Vernon Dursley attended the ceremony. The best man was Sirius Black. | |
| 1982 | Elphinstone had been Minerva's boss at the Ministry of Magic in the 1950s. When they married, they were both in or close to their fifties and it was ultimately childless. The marriage was a very happy one, and a period of great fulfillment for Minerva, although she did keep her maiden name, as she had always been something of a feminist. They lived in a small cottage in Hogsmeade, where they frequently received Minerva's nephews and nieces (children of her brothers). The marriage was cut short in 1985 after Elphinstone's accidental death from a Venomous Tentacula bite. | |
| July, 1997 | The ceremony was quiet and hurried as it took place during the height of the Second Wizarding War and because the Ministry of Magic had just passed legislation that was not favourable to werewolves. The couple had one child, Teddy Lupin (godson of Harry), who was born shortly before both of his parents' deaths. | |
| 1 August, 1997 | The bride and groom's younger sisters, Gabrielle Delacour and Ginny Weasley, served as bridesmaids, and Bill's younger brother Charlie Weasley served as the best man. The reception was interrupted by the news that Lord Voldemort had taken over the Ministry of Magic, and guests fled as Death Eaters arrived to try and capture Harry Potter.
The couple went to live at Shell Cottage, a house that belonged to an aunt of Bill's, in the outskirts of Tinworth, Cornwall, which was presumably also where they raised their children: Victoire, Dominique, and Louis. | |
| Late 1990s or early 2000s | The couple goes on to have three children: James Sirius, Albus Severus and Lily Luna. | |
| Late 1990s or early 2000s | The couple goes on to have two children: Rose and Hugo. | |
| Late 1990s or early 2000s | The couple lives in the ancient Malfoy Manor in Wiltshire,[5] and have a single child: Scorpius Malfoy. | |
| Late 1990s-2010s | As Hannah becomes the landlady of the Leaky Cauldron, the couple lives above the pub, a fact that Neville's students consider to be "cool".[6] | |
| Late 1990s-2010s | The couple goes on to have two children: Fred Weasley II and Roxanne Weasley. | |
| Late 2000s or early 2010s | The wedding takes place "rather later" than her friends' marriages.[7] The famous Magizoologists have two twin children: Lorcan and Lysander. |
- Mr. Potter and a woman
- Percy Weasley and Audrey
- Mr. Prewett and a woman
- Septimus Weasley and Cedrella Black
- Orion Black and Walburga Black
- Rodolphus Lestrange and Bellatrix Black
- Ted Tonks and Andromeda Black
- Phineas Nigellus Black and Ursula Flint
- Licorus Black and Magenta Tripe
- Jimbo Blishwick and Misapinoa Black
- Sirius Black I and Hesper Gamp
- Cygnus Black I and Ella Max
- Cygnus Black II and Violetta Bulstrode
- Cygnus Black III and Druella Rosier
- Herbert Burke and Belvina Black
- Arcturus Black II and Lysandra Yaxley
- Arcturus Black III and Melania Macmillan
- Pollux Black and Irma Crabbe
- Charlus Potter and Dorea Black
- Harfang Longbottom and Callidora Black
- Caspar Crouch and Charis Black
- Ignatius Prewett and Lucretia Black
- Lucius Malfoy and Narcissa Black
- Reginald Cattermole and Mary
- Percival Dumbledore and Kendra[8]
- Cornelius Fudge and a woman
- Bartemius Crouch Sr. and a woman[9]
- Hagrid Sr. and Fridwulfa
- Monsieur Delacour and Apolline
- Tilden Toots and Daisy Hookum
Muggle marriages
The marriages between two Muggles.
| Bride and groom | Wedding date | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Sometime before 1959 | They settled at Cokeworth, and lived in walking distance from Spinner's End, where the Snapes lived. The couple had two daughters: Petunia (born in or before 1959) and Lily (born 30 January, 1960). | |
| Late 1977[10] | Fearing that she would be overshadowed, Petunia refused to have her sister Lily as a bridesmaid, which upset Lily. At the reception, Vernon would not talk to James Potter, but described him as "some magician" within his earshot. Petunia had little contact with her sister thereafter.[11] Vernon and Petunia settled at 4 Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey, shortly after their wedding. They had a son, Dudley, on 21 June, 1980. | |
| Sometime before 1979 | The couple had one child, Hermione, a witch. She was raised in the Grangers' house, on an unspecified location in England. | |
| "When [Dean] was a kid"; between 1980 and 1991 | Dean Thomas's biological father was a wizard who abandoned his Muggle wife and infant son in a courageous effort to protect them from the Death Eaters. He was soon after killed by the Death Eaters when he refused to join their cause. He never told his wife that we was a wizard and, shortly after his death, his wife married Dean's stepfather, a Muggle, who raised Dean as his son. | |
|
c. 2000s | The marriage produced two Muggle children[12]. While Dudley and Harry Potter (who married Ginevra Weasley) were "on Christmas-card terms", the two couples would visit each other out of duty, and sit in silence so that their children could see their cousins.[13] |
Mixed Marriages
The marriage between a wizard or a witch and a Muggle.
- Cho Chang and a Muggle
- Robert McGonagall Sr. and Isobel Ross[5]
- Tobias Snape and Eileen Prince
- Lyall Lupin and Hope Howell
- Tom Riddle Sr. and Merope Gaunt
- Mr. Finnigan and Mrs. Finnigan
- Mr. Thomas and Mrs. Thomas
- Mr. Lockhart and Mrs. Lockhart
- Mr. Wright and Mrs. Wright
- Bob Hitchens and Isla Black
Marriage laws in the wizarding world
There is no note of any divorce in the wizarding world, so its legal status is unknown.
J. K. Rowling stated that homosexual relationships do not suffer as much discrimination in the wizarding world as in the Muggle world[14], so it is possible that same-sex marriage is legal, however this has not been confirmed.
Respectable marriages and Marriages of Low Status
Even though there is no discrimination for homosexuals in the wizarding world, there has existed notorious discrimination toward "morganatic" marriages. Many Pure-blood families have disowned their own relatives for their marriage to Half-bloods, Muggle-borns and Blood traitors, and such outcasts are seen as "second-class" wizards and witches, e.g. Andromeda Tonks, Cedrella Black, James Potter, Merope Gaunt and Eileen Prince.
Nonetheless, some wizards and witches have made their families proud by making "respectable pure-blood marriages" like Narcissa Malfoy, Bellatrix Lestrange, Orion Black, and Irma Crabbe. Apparently, in some cases the contractors are not in love, but still married to maintain purity within their families, making it sort of an "arranged marriage". For example, Bellatrix Lestrange's true love was Lord Voldemort rather than her husband Rodolphus.[15] 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.
Many marriages would have 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 would have been looked down upon as Harry was a half-blood and, although a pure-blood, Ginny was a blood traitor.
Appearances
- Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (First mentioned)
- Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Mentioned only)
- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1
- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 (video game)
- Pottermore (Mentioned only)
Notes and references
- ↑ Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
- ↑ 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.
- ↑ Harry Potter Film Wizardry - see this image
- ↑ 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.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 Pottermore - "The Malfoy Family"
- ↑ JK Rowling comments at Carnegie Hall
- ↑ 30 July 2007 Web Chat with J.K. Rowling
- ↑ Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
- ↑ Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
- ↑ In a deleted scene on disc two of the Blu-ray edition of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1, Petunia tells Harry, "I have lived in this house for twenty years", indicating she settled at 4 Privet Drive in 1977, since the scene is set in 1997. Since the Pottermore backstory for Petunia mentions Lily was still in her final year at Hogwarts during Vernon and Petunia's engagement, and Lily's final year was 1977-1978, the engagement must have thus occurred on or after 1 September, 1977 and the wedding and moving in together by 31 December, 1977.
- ↑ Pottermore - New from J.K. Rowling: "Vernon & Petunia Dursley"
- ↑ After "Harry Potter", J. K. Rowling's First Novel for Adults at The New Yorker
- ↑ 19 October 2007 J.K. Rowling at Carnegie Hall
- ↑ Pottercast Interview "So I think you could be gay, pure-blood, and totally without any kind of criticism from the Lucius Malfoys of the world. I don't think that would be something that would interest him in the slightest."
- ↑ Bloomsbury.com web chat