Mawwiage, that bwessed awwangement

[melannen]

Poll #23823

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 100

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Which is best?

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Accidental marriage - "we didn't know it was legally valid!" subtype
34 (34.0%)

Accidental marriage - "one night in Vegas" subtype
17 (17.0%)

Arranged marriage
46 (46.0%)

Aliens make them get married
19 (19.0%)

Boston marriage
29 (29.0%)

Confirmed bachelorhood
19 (19.0%)

Confirmed spinsterhood
28 (28.0%)

Elopement
17 (17.0%)

Fake marriage
44 (44.0%)

Forgot they were married
22 (22.0%)

Group marriage
38 (38.0%)

Long, happy marriage
55 (55.0%)

Ludicrously long engagement
21 (21.0%)

Ludicrously short engagement
14 (14.0%)

Marriage of convenience
47 (47.0%)

Marriage of inconvenience
31 (31.0%)

Married in all but name
46 (46.0%)

Platonic marriage
37 (37.0%)

Secret marriage
26 (26.0%)

Shotgun marriage
4 (4.0%)

You left off the most important one!
3 (3.0%)

Comments

[melannen]

"Forgot they were married" seems rare as a fic trope, except as a corollary to Accidental/AMTDI, but turns up sometimes in, like, TV comedies? Usually as an obstacle to the OTP rather than the actual OTP, though.

But I first encountered it in Arthurian romances, where it's pretty standard for a knight to go out questing, rescue the maiden fair, marry her, go out questing some more, go back to Arthur's court for awhile, do more questing, go back to court, and then his wife shows up at court going, "Umm, sir, I think you forgot about something!" and the knight smacks his forehead and goes "D'oh, right," and they live happily ever after.

I have no idea what was going on in high medieval Europe to make this a recurring trope (...I suspect a lot of family abandonment, which is less fun) but I enjoy it a lot in the stories.

[lea_hazel]

That's... fascinating, and now I'm sorely tempted to see if I can work it into a fic indirectly, as one of the Escapades that a certain OC's favorite fairytale protagonist gets up to.

[stellar_dust]

It also might have been a lot of random people tacking on new adventure stories for decades, and then one person was like "how dare you all forget about my fave from season 1" and generated plot to add her back in.