Parental Marriage Veto: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}{{Needs Image}}

 

 

You are a grown adult. You've found your true love, and he or she loves you back. You want to get married. Everything's great, right? Wrong! Your parents are convinced that you've picked the wrong person, and will do almost anything to prevent the marriage.

 

Even though most people in the western world choose their own spouses, this ''isn't'' a [[Dead Horse Trope]]. It can still appear in historical fiction, fantasy, in stories not set in the western world, or in any story where parents believe that they have a right to meddle in their grown children's lives. Contrast [[Child Marriage Veto]].

{{examples}}

* An episode of ''[[Planetes]]'' inverted this when it turned out that Edel had to stay away from her husband for five years to prevent her parents from vetoing their divorce.

* Happens more than once on ''[[Maison Ikkoku]]''. One is in the [[Backstory]], where Kyoko's parents objected to her marriage to [[Hot for Teacher|her former teacher Soichiro]], another is at the end, where Kyoko's father again objects {{spoiler|to Godai's impending proposal. He gets over it in the end}}. A minor one is Godai's cousin, who ends up deciding to elope. {{spoiler|Her father catches on and decides that if she and her boyfriend are willing to elope, then he'll give his blessing.}}

* In ''[[Final Approach]]'' Ryo learns late in the show that this is why his fiance was given to him at the start of the story. His grandmother and her grandfather were once in love but were torn apart by her grandfather's family for being from a poor family. He relented to his family's wish and married another woman. It turns out the entire setup for the series is her grandfather using his tremendous wealth to create a situation where his granddaughter can marry the grandson of the woman he lost to Parental Marriage Veto.

 

* The first words {{spoiler|Megatron ever says to Sarah}} in 'Shadows Of The Past' are along the lines of "Break up with Will or die."

 

== Film ==

* In ''[[The Lord of the Rings (film)|The Lord of the Rings]]'' movies, Elrond tries to keep his daughter Arwen from marrying Aragorn, since this would require her to give up her elven immortality. Unlike most examples of this trope, he makes a very sound and very logical argument against it, and has no actual quarrel with Aragorn. Emotionally, he wants his daughter to be happy, but he understands the consequences, and he wakes her up to reality. She marries him anyway, and accepts the consequences.

* ''[[Bend It Like Beckham]]'' is set in present-day England. The groom's Sikh parents try to break his engagement because the bride's younger sister has joined a women's football team and has been seen hugging a 'boy' in public (the 'boy' is [[Keira Knightley]]).

* In the [[Bollywood]] film ''[[Kabhi Kushi Kabhie Gham]]'', adopted son Rahul marries Anjali against his father's wishes and is disowned. The father's main objection against Anjali - implied, rather than specifically stated - is that she is Muslim and not Hindu, and therefore cannot understand and carry on the family's honored traditions. Also an example of ''[[I Have No Son]]''.

* ''[[Letters to Juliet]]'': this was the reason the romance stopped in 1957.

* This is essentially what ''[[Guess Who's Coming to Dinner]]'' is all about.

* ''[[Something New]]'': Its made pretty clear that Kenya's mother would disapprove of a relationship with Brian. Her father gives his support to her unconditionally, however, giving her the strength to pursue their relationship.

* ''[[The Godfather]] Part III'': Although Vincent and Mary are cousins and didn't get married, Michael shows disapprove of their relationship because it would endanger his daughter. When Vincent becomes the new head of the family, he tells him the price: give up his relationship with his daughter.

* In [[Gene Stratton Porter]]'s ''[[Freckles]]'', McLean tells Angel she can't confess her love to Freckles for fear of her father's disapproval. She assures him afterwards that Freckles would not take her even with her father's consent, owing to his fear of disgracing her.

 

== Literature ==

* Many of [[Anthony Trollope]]'s novels contain this trope.

** In ''Doctor Thorne'', Frank Gresham's parents don't want him to wed Mary Thorne, who is illegitimate and poor. However, {{spoiler|illegitimate and rich is fine}}.

* In ''[[Little Women]]'', Aunt March tries to do this to Meg when she wants to marry John Brooke, a poor Englishman and Laurie's tutor. It backfires, rousing Meg's anger and turning her reluctant 'no' into a defiant 'yes.'

** In ''Jo's Boys'', Meg won't let Daisy marry Nat because—besides his being an ex-homeless nobody—Meg (a widow by this point) doesn't think the sensitive, very young and inexpert musician will be able to man up and provide for Daisy. However, when he returns to the States after two years' European study, an established violinist with a steady income and excellent future prospects, Meg relents. The beard he grows in the meanwhile helps.

** In ''[[Pride and Prejudice]]'', Mr Darcy's aunt attempts to veto the marriage. Despite the fact that Darcy and Elizabeth aren't even engaged. This actually instigates the marriage, which she still disapproves of.

** The lovers of ''[[Sense and Sensibility (novel)|Sense and Sensibility]]'', ''[[Northanger Abbey]]'', and ''[[Persuasion]]'' also face this.

* In the second ''[[Apprentice Adept]]'' trilogy: Stile and Lady Blue object to Bane (or rather [[Freaky Friday|his Photon doppelgänger, Mach in Bane's body]] marrying Fleta the unicorn. Not for any species hangups but because Fleta wouldn't be able to provide an heir to the title of Blue Adept. Since this was a case of [[Shoot the Dog|Reason Before Honor]] in a [[Piers Anthony]] work, this bites the good guys hard in the ass later.

* Sorta used in Andersen's ''The Shepherdess and the Chimney-Sweep''. The Chinaman isn't the Shepherdess's father for obvious reasons (they're porcelain figurines), but he still wants her to "marry" the mahogany satyr instead of the chimneysweep she fancies.

* In the [[Agatha Christie]] novel ''The Murder on the Links'', Paul Renauld forbids his son Jack from marrying Marthe Dubriel, and cuts him out of his will. {{spoiler|It transpires that Marthe is [[In the Blood|the murderous daughter of a blackmailing murderess]], so he had a point.}}

** Another [[Agatha Christie]] example comes from the [[Miss Marple]] novel ''A Pocket Full of Rye.'' Rex Fortescue threatens to cut off his daughter Elaine without a cent if she marries the Communist Gerald Wright. Elaine would have married him anyway, but Gerald was only interested in Elaine for her money and promptly dumped her. At least until Rex died, leaving Elaine a large amount of money...

{{quote|''Adam was the one son of the seven who had ignored his father's law that all of his boys were to marry strong, healthy young women, poor women, working women. Each of the others at coming of age had contracted this prescribed marriage as speedily as possible, first asking father Bates, the girl afterward. If father Bates disapproved, the girl was never asked at all.''}}

 

* In ''[[Waterloo Road]]'', Tom is unhappy that Chlo wants to marry Donte. When she goes off to a registry office in secret to do it, he arrives, does the [[I Object]] thing (at the right time) then discovers he can't stop the marriage. He is not her legal guardian, her absent father has agreed to it (she's under 18, so he has to under UK law) and her mother is too dead to object, by virtue of having been murdered at the end of the previous season. Tom has now accepted the whole thing and the couple (having gone through a brief break-up) now intend to do the proper [[White Wedding]] thing.

* In one episode of ''[[House (TV series)|House]]'', a married couple had assumed the parental veto was because of the father's apparently racist tendencies, and eloped anyway. It's much [[Incest Is Relative|squickier]] than that.

* A bit of a retroactive one in [[CSI]], with Betty Grissom upset because Gil didn't marry Julia and did marry Sara and because of their [[Long-Distance Relationship]].

 

* [[Older Than Dirt]]: The [[Egyptian Mythology|Egyptian]] air god Shu tried to prevent his son and daughter, Geb and Nut (earth and sky), from marrying each other and having kids. In another version, the sun god Re tried to prevent their marriage. Either way, it didn't work, and Geb and Nut became the parents of Wesiri/Osiris, Aset/Isis, Sutakh/Set, Nebet-hut/Nephthys, and maybe Haruw/Horus the Elder. Nonetheless, Shu still holds them apart.

 

* [[Shakespeare]]an examples:

** ''[[A Midsummer Night's Dream]]'' by [[William Shakespeare]]—Egeus wants his daughter Hermia to marry Demetrius rather than Lysander, the man she loves.

 

== Video Games ==

* In John Woo's ''Stranglehold'', the major contributor to the game's emotional drama is the fact that [[Big Bad|Mr. Wong]]'s daughter Billie is in love with maverick cop Tequila. Wong despises Tequila both because he is a cop and because back in the movie ''Hard-Boiled'', {{spoiler|Tequila killed Johnny Wong, whom it turns out is Mr. Wong's son}}. Eighteen years ago, Wong intimidated Billie, who was pregnant with Tequila's daughter Teko, into breaking up with Tequila so that Wong wouldn't kill them all, and when Wong had to entrust Tequila with the task of rescuing Billie and Teko from the Zakarovs, Wong {{spoiler|[[Offing the Offspring|had Billie killed]] by Tequila's own partner Jerry, both to protect his syndicate (Zakarov had threatened to make her reveal everyone connected to Dragon Claw in a court of law to protect Teko's life) and to deny her to Tequila forever in a nasty [[Kick the Dog]] moment}}.

* In ''[[Rhapsody: A Musical Adventure]]'', the King of the Frogs doesn't approve of Princess Caroline's relationship with Michael, a commoner. After catching Michael inside the castle, he almost has him executed on the spot, but then claims that Michael can only earn his respect if he helps Cornet retrieve the Earthstone. {{spoiler|After they succeed, he then promptly declares that now Michael must be executed for breaking into the castle ''and'' defeating the guardian, and has him killed on the spot. [[It Got Worse|This solves nothing]], leading to Caroline and Michael being [[Together in Death]].}}

* ''[[Super Paper Mario]]'' had Blumiere's father banishing Timpani to [[And I Must Scream|wander all dimensions forever]] because she was of a different race and he didn't want Blumiere associating with her. [[Apocalypse How|Didn't]] [[The End of the World as We Know It|work]] [[Nice Job Breaking It, Hero|out]] [[Omnicidal Maniac|for]] [[Love Makes You Evil|him]].

* ''[[Tekken]] 6'' has [[Jerk with a Heart of Gold|Miguel]] planning on killing his sister's boyfriend, but eventually declines [[I Want My Beloved to Be Happy|to make her happy]].

 

== Web Comics ==

 

== Web Original ==

* One of the laws of the Pantheon in ''[[Thalia's Musings]]'', even for the Twelve Olympians. Apollo tries to invoke this as Governor of the Muses, but is quickly shot down by [[Team Mom|Calliope]]. It's strongly implied that Artemis, as her twin brother Apollo's legal guardian, can invoke this to him.

 

== Western Animation ==

* ''[[Princess Sissi]]'' is all about the trials and tribulations Sissi goes through to try to marry the unapproved-of Franz, being loosely based on the life of Elizabeth of Bavaria. In real life, it didn't end up as happily as the cartoon says.

 

* There's an old joke based on this:

{{quote|One Sunday morning William burst into the living room and said, "Dad! Mom! I have some great news for you! I am getting married to the most beautiful girl in town. She lives a block away and her name is Susan."

"Dad has done so much harm.. I guess I'm never going to get married," he complained. "Every time I fall in love, Dad tells me the girl is my half-sister."

His mother just shook her head. "Don't pay any attention to what he says, dear. He's not really your father." }}

{{quote|And I would marry Johnny but my father up and said:

I hate to tell you, daughter, what your mother never knew,

The lads in town are all my kin and my father is the cause.

If things should thus continue, I shall die a single miss

 

Your father sowed his wild oats, on that you needn't fret.

Your father may be father to all the lads but still....

He's not the one who sired you so marry who you will! }}

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Bollywood Tropes]]

[[Category:Marriage Tropes]]

[[Category:Older Than Dirt]]

[[Category:Romance Novel Plots]]