The Mating Habits of Wizards

Now that the Harry Potter series is all done and dusted and we finally know who dies and who gets together with who, it's time to address the question: How is it that wizards are so conservative in their mating habits?

See, if we accept the proposition that magic is generally used by people who wish to impose their sexual desires on other people (and we will, because it's my blog and I say so) then these guys have the power to do whatever with whomever they want. But do they? No! What do they do? They marry the first person they ever dated seriously, that's what! Usually from their year at Hogwarts and almost certainly from their own house since they never seem to mix with anyone else.

Furthermore, with no university equivalent of Hogwarts there's no accepted period of sowing wild wizard oats. Rather you're expected to be married by eighteen with a baby on the way by twenty. Interestingly, even the evil ones are paragons of monogamy. No one has affairs or gets divorced. If you happen to be brought up by someone other than your two parents it can only be because your parents were murdered or (in Neville's case) tortured into insanity. As far as I can see there are no single parent wizarding families. There is not even the suggestion of pre-marital sex. Hard to see how the books have got certain Christian groups so worked up if you ask me.

Clearly wizards and witches imprint upon each other from an early age and as irrevocably as the robot kid from A.I. How else to explain the case of Snape, who spends his whole life pining for Harry's mother even after it's apparent that, like Mormons, she'll still be married to his rival even after death? A clear hiding-to-nothing there and Snape surely would have done much better turning his considerable abilities to getting over it. Think about it, if he'd really wanted to he could have knocked up a get-over-it potion in five minutes and there you go, free to live a full and rewarding life as Hogwarts master/Dark Lord's First Lieutenant, take your pick. But no, instead he devotes himself to the memory of his doomed love by spending seven years bullying her son. What a loser. Snape is not a hero, he is an arse. Arse, I say!

Something that is not explained in the series is how children with magical abilities are sometimes born to non-magical parents (muggles). I don't know if any research has been done on the matter but my theory is this - that wizarding DNA spontaneously manifests itself in non-magical bloodlines because it knows how irritatingly insular the species is. Since the kids at Hogwarts can't even be bothered to talk to the kids at the next table, it knows that if wizards are left to their own devices, they'll all become horribly, horribly inbred.

This applies especially to Lord Voldemort. You thought his freaky complexion and slits for eyes were the physiological manifestation of his descent into evil? No, it's because his parents were brother and sister and that's why he looks like the kid from Deliverance. Forget the Elder Wand, he should have duelled Harry Potter with a banjo.

This for me is the essential reason why Harry ultimately defeats Voldemort. Judged by his actions, Voldemort, far from being a brilliant wizard, is actually rather thick. He's just slightly cleverer than the retarded pure-bloods he surrounds himself with. So defeating him is essentially no different - or harder - than getting one over on Draco Malfoy.

Here endeth the rant. On a more positive note, I'd just like to end by saying that I added the 'Sorting Hat' application on facebook and it put me in Ravenclaw. I knew it - I've always known. "Wit beyond measure is man's greatest treasure." Plus I could impress Cho Chang with my Cantonese.