Wife Husbandry/Playing With

Basic Trope: A man takes a younger woman that he helped raise as his wife when she comes of age.

• Straight: Bob, an adult, has known Alice since she was a little girl. When she turns 15-19 years old, the two begin to court and eventually marry each other
• Exaggerated: Bob begins to romance Alice when she is younger, like say 8-10 years old.
• Justified: Bob and Alice are from Noble Families in period setting and it is an Arranged Marriage.
• Inverted: Alice has known Bob since he was a little boy. When he turns 15-19 years old, they begin to court each other and marry.
  • Alice falls in love with her adopted father and courts him when she comes of age.
• Subverted: Bob begins to court Alice when she comes of age but she is so repulsed by the idea that she rejects him.
• Double Subverted: But eventually Alice realizes that no one has ever loved or cared about her more than Bob and comes to accept his advances. Things proceed from there.
  • Bob has known Alice since she was a small child, and when she turns of age, they begin courting. But Bob eventually puts a stop to the relationship, and sets her up with a nice young man. Turns out, Bob's a time traveler and this nice young man is Bob's younger self.
    • ...and so is the girl
• Parodied: Bob is a loner who can't get a date. Bob declares his undying love for Alice when she's only 5, yet she's sane enough to be weirded out by the idea. Flash forward a year, where the same declaration is made, with identical results. Repeat for fifteen years, during which Bob never ages (or change his clothes) and Alice sports the same weirded-out look on her face.
• Deconstructed: Bob is ostracized or arrested for pedophilic behavior.
  • The plan backfires since Alice now sees Bob as her older Sibling.
• Reconstructed: Alice reveals that she has secretly felt the same way about Bob, and the couple then work to regain his status.
  • Alice becomes of legal age when the wedding day arrives.
• Zig Zagged: Bob is like a father to Alice. As she gets older people start to suspect that he has a romantic interest in her, and is raising her to be the ideal wife. When confronted w/ this Bob denies it, and seems squicked out by the idea. Then it turns out he has been raising her to be the ideal wife for his son, Charlie (who is 7 years younger than Alice).
• Averted: Bob does not view Alice as anything more than a child and makes no advances towards her.
• Enforced: The authors either lived in an earlier time where this was perfectly acceptable or wish to capture the feel of such an era as accurately as possible
• Lampshaded: "Alice, would you marry me?" "Uh, you've been like a father to me for years, but whatever..."
• Invoked: Bob takes up a father role for Alice specifically so that when she grows up, she'll want to marry him.
• Defied: "Marry her? You're talking about my daughter here! Of course, we're not related by blood, but still!"
• Discussed: "That's a real sketchy thing Bob's doing, asking for the hand of Alice in marriage. It's like...a father asking his daughter to marry him."
• Conversed: "Wait, so the hero is raising the girl so she can be his lover later? That's...uh..."
• Played For Drama: Bob stole Alice from her brother Charlie and had him shipped off to a remote labor camp. Bob is often seen engaging in some mild I Have You Now, My Pretty.

---

No, Bob, Wife Husbandry is not going to be okay in a few years...