The main character in my next novel will discover that his daughter, his favourite child, is not his. His wife obviously betrayed him. While it was not totally a love match, they are after all medieval nobles, it was one in which they were fond of each other and agreed to the match, so love had grown between them. On top of which, the father is something of a rival for the king's favour and they have always been at odds. So this is a betrayal on all kinds of levels. What I am struggling with is how someone would deal with this. The character is not only honourable but perhaps quite stubbornly honourable to the point of having caused himself problems by being quite stiffnecked about it. He has matured since then. He is now willing to admit he is not always right, but that is still his basic nature. Any thoughts or suggestions would be appreciated.
"Obviously betrayed" is not the only possibility here, though given a stiff-necked, stubborn, self-righteous husband, a young wife might well look for more sympathetic and entertaining company. That being said, objections to the, um, usage of his wife by his rival would likely be as much about property rights as alienation of affection (however temporary). Given that he is generally pretty sure he's always right, I'd expect him to have his pride hurt worse than his heart. He'd also need to come to terms with his own betrayals of trust and affection toward a wife he took for granted, and any changed feelings toward a daughter that he feels loss of ownership over. Other cynical assessments available on request.
Reactions are often mixed. Both his pride and his heart might be damaged at the same time. He is usually right which probably adds to his assumption that he is. I think there might be some shock thrown in because he would never have expected to be betayed.
An interesting scenario. Lots of ways to approach it. But there are many mitigating factors to consider as well. Does the real father know the daughter is his? Has he been bragging about it? In other words, is public humiliation of your main character also a factor in this story? What were your character's wife's reasons for the betrayal? Has she owned up to her betrayal? Has she told him the truth about what actually happened? How did he actually discover the truth? Again, it might be easier if she tells him about it before anybody else does, or before he figures it out on his own. What were the circumstances of the actual betrayal? It's probably easier to forgive a one-off incident than if there was an ongoing affair. Is the daughter now grown up, or is she still a child/baby? What is her personality like? Does she love her 'legal' father, and are they close? Or is she rebellious and not easy for your main character to influence? Does SHE know that her paternity is not what was originally believed? What is her attitude toward her mother? And important ...was the child born /conceived while the couple was married? In other words, is the main character her 'legal' father? Keeping in mind there is no DNA test in a medieval setting, or any way to prove one way or another ...unless there is some obvious physical quirk or resemblance to the real father that can't be disputed? I presume you know your character well, but if you don't—if this betrayal is just a new idea you're developing—then do what you can to get to know him. Write a few scenes (not necessarily keepers or in chronological order) where he interacts with the other characters. Maybe explore how he interacts with the real father (before and after he knows the truth.) How do they interact in public? Are they different with each other in private? How does your main character interactwith his wife, before and after the discovery. And his daughter. Write a few scenes and see what kind of personalities emerge. Is your main character focused on self-righteous anger and betrayal? Or does he want to make the best of the situation now? Does he actually love his wife, or does he see her as a possession? Did he just assume she'd be faithful, or did he actually know her and trust her? What is his wife's attitude—before and after? (That will be quite important, I imagine.) What is her attitude toward the child's real father now? Is she still attracted to him? (I'm presuming there was an attraction, and that this wasn't rape ...which would provoke an entirely different reaction.) Does she hate or dislike him now? If so, why? What is her relationship with this other man now? Does your main character believe this situation might repeat itself? Either with his wife and this same other man, or with his wife and somebody else? These aren't questions I need the answer to, here on this thread, but are questions you might want to think about as you build your story. The best way to do that, in my opinion, is to start writing these scenes, if you haven't already. Even if you never use these scenes, or if you change them out of all recognition, writing them won't be time wasted. Writing your character puts him through his paces, and gets him interacting with other characters. You will surprise yourself at how he develops, and ideas will start to flow. Not everybody would handle this kind of betrayal the same way, so it's important to watch your character in action, observe how he thinks, and what others think of him. You might even hint at some backstory as to why his personality is the way it is. If you can bring him to life in your own head, his reactions to betrayal will be believable—whatever they might be.
It depends, I mean, even if they aren't love's young dream, is he still a good, loyal husband? How vindictive is the husband? Would he want to humiliate his wife in public, illuminate her betrayal to the world. Does he care too much about his position and would continue to pretend all is well on the surface but make her life a misery. Does it change his relationship with his daughter? The only one who can answer that is you, because you know his personality and the situation and that will contribute to his feelings. Typically you'd feel angry. But it's not about how he expresses it.
Keep in mind modern ideas about love and romance didn't exist at the time. Of course, it's common to write stories as if they did, so apologies if this is irrelevant in your story world, but: Before the 18th century, many marriages were not arranged, but rather developed out of more or less spontaneous relationships.[citation needed] After the 18th century, illicit relationships took on a more independent role. "When the young women of the Nord[who?] married, they did so without illusions of love and romance. They acted within a framework of concern for the reproduction of bloodlines according to financial, professional, and sometimes political interests." Anthony Giddens, in The Transformation of Intimacy: Sexuality, Love and Eroticism in Modern Society, states that romantic love introduced the idea of a narrative to an individual's life, and telling a story is a root meaning of the term romance. According to Giddens, the rise of romantic love more or less coincided with the emergence of the novel. It was then that romantic love, associated with freedom and therefore the ideals of romantic love, created the ties between freedom and self-realization. Courtly love and the notion of domnei were often the subjects of troubadours, and could be typically found in artistic endeavors such as lyrical narratives and poetic prose of the time. Since marriage was commonly nothing more than a formal arrangement,[21] courtly love sometimes permitted expressions of emotional closeness that may have been lacking from the union between husband and wife.[22] In terms of courtly love, "lovers" did not necessarily refer to those engaging in sexual acts, but rather, to the act of caring and to emotional intimacy. Source Of course this didn't mean people who were married didn't develop feelings for each other. But I think it was largely a matter of state for aristocrats—a matter of public approval or scorn.
The MC will discover that "his" daughter is not "his" biologically. Aside from the very excellent points raised by @jannert, if you character is honorable, if this girl was his favorite child, I highly doubt anything would change for him. "My" two oldest children are not "mine" biologically, having come from my wife's previous relationship, but they are "mine" none the less. I don't treat them any different than my biological children and they have lived with me since they were 3 and 5 years respectively and they are on my will as equal heirs. The very idea of treating my kids differently because they don't have my DNA is so...foreign of a concept to me that I just can't entertain the idea, and if your MC is an honorable man, I don't think he would see "his" daughter any differently. There are plenty of medieval cases of adoption as well, so, if he really loved her, that would be a recourse as well. Betrayal. How the MC deals with this really is going to depend on his personality type and his place in court, as well as that of the unfaithful wife. I am assuming "the father" is her father, so the MC's father-in-law? If that is the case, unless he wants to commit political suicide, he would probably move her to her own chambers or to a nunnery and never sleep with her again. Going to a nunnery or monastery, voluntarily or otherwise, was often the fate of a scheming or unfaithful spouse or looser in a political struggle. Some of them actually joined the religious order, others were sent there on "retreat" and just never left. It was a great way to move them out of the way without pissing off the aristocratic establishment with a public shaming. Not a love match, medieval nobles after all. I used to think this way too, until I started reading love letters between husbands and wives while the husbands were away on campaign. Some of them are so flowery romantic you would think it was a badly written YA romance novel. It made more sense after talking to a girl from India who married an Indian guy born and raised in the U.S. She came from a high status Indian family and was arranged by her parents. She got to see a single old yearbook photograph of her future groom that her mother accidentally left out before actually seeing him at their wedding. She explained it as a good thing, because, in her view, you got to know and learn each other after the wedding, you grow and bond rather than feeling butterflies for someone, getting married with unrealistic expectations, then divorced. I imagine that there were many marriages that were arranged that were not happy, but I also know plenty of non-arranged marriages that have ended very poorly as well. As a side note: just because the arranged marriage wife was at home, don't think that they were soft weak-willed women. In modern parlance, I think you would call them "bad bitches". They were often highly educated and expected to run the estate while her husband was away, including all the economics and managing household staff. Check out Emma, Countess of Norfolk: her husband rebelled against William the Conqueror and was forced to flee England when the rebellion failed. The king besieged Norfolk Castle but Emma so skillfully defended it that William was eventually forced to make terms with her. She was allowed safe passage to meet back up with her husband in Brittany, went on the First Crusade with him and lived to return. And that is just one example. When you actually start reading history, you see the record is so much more interesting, the women so complex and their intelligence and intrigues so fascinating that you alternately laugh and cry and their achievements and successes. Even the ones forced into loveless marriages guided their own fate through their own intelligence. Henry VII's mother, Lady Margret Beufort, had Henry at the age of 13, something that was considered wrong even for the time. But through her intrigues, marriages, alliances and schemes, she put her son on the English throne with the shakiest claim of anyone competing for it. Sorry for the rant, but it is a subject I love and I think its a disservice to medieval women to think they lived in loveless forced marriages with no hand in their own destiny.
It pretty much goes without saying that the husband would not bring himself into scorn by revealing that he had been cuckolded. No man is likely to spread that around, certainly not a proud man. It was a one-time affair that happened years before. (The husband had left for a lengthy war campaign the day after the wedding, the wife was feeling neglected and unhappy, the real father was particularly charming, just happened to be there, and they were both drinking. Things happen.) No, she never told her husband, being mostly a sensible woman, and never expected him to find out. The father had guessed because the girl looks a lot like him, but he would certainly never brag about having done it. That would have led to bloodshed since they were both knights of very high standing. The king probably would have forbidden a fight to the death, but it would have been very serious. They are both war leaders. The husband is the nephew of the king and named to be regent upon the king's death. The real father is the king's closest friend, companion, and famous for his war exploits. They will go on of course as man and wife because that was what people did then. But I am not sure what his feeling would have been. How hard it would have been to really forgive her. Saying "I forgive you" and really feeling that are two different things. I'm not sure if he might have then had affairs as he had not been unfaithful. He was not extremely religious but took vows seriously. How much would he have struggled with his feelings for his daughter? Obviously, he would not tell or reject her, but it is very possible it would make a difference in how he felt. Saying something is 'the honourable thing' does not do away with feelings and feelings are a large part of making a novel interesting. Angst is ... a good thing. Edit: Perhaps I should mention that this is the fourth novel in a series and the husband and 'real' father are established and reasonably well-liked characters, so it will probably shock some of my readers. People who do something like that are not necessarily 'bad' people, and these aren't. They made a mistake that they regret and believed that no one would ever know about.
I think that the saying goes, you can forgive but not forget. It would probably be something along those lines. Since both the father and the cuckold husband are knights in high standing, I doubt anything really would happen between them, and since the jilted husband is of high status, his wife is probably from a good family as well, which precludes him from doing anything to her. I think life would go on, he might trust his wife less and personally think a little less of the guy who slept with her, but nothing is going to happen. Feelings toward his daughter will probably not change...unless she makes moves to distance herself from him.
The daughter will never know. I think when the husband realises that something will happen partially because he is so shocked. They may be pulled apart and the king command them to make peace. The reason for the conflict would never become public. The wife is from a very, very highly placed family and her brother is a close friend of the husband. In this case, she did not go to a nunnery but they had no further children either, so their relationship could have been cool. I think part of what he might feel about for while about his daughter is a sense of grief or loss. Blood relationships were extremely important in their society (typical in medieval societies but particularly so in Scotland where this is). When something like this happens there is likely to be a range of emotions that have to be dealt with over time. He certainly would not stop loving his daughter, but his feelings wouldn't necessarily be simple either. Remember this is not a situation where he decided to adopt someone he knew was not of his blood. He will put it aside, but it would not be something easily forgotten. There was absolutely nothing weak or passive about medieval women. Christina de Bruce (sister of King Robert de Bruce) held Kildrummy Castle against an English army until her husband could bring an army to defeat them. Agnes of Dunbar held her own Dunbar Castle against a large English army for six months so successfully that the army was eventually forced to retreat. And I agree absolutely that an arranged marriage did not preclude love. There are numerous cases where love very much developed. On the other hand, the daughter of King Edward I defied her father to marry Ralph de Monthermer, something her father did not take well. And it is said that King Robert de Bruce's rather indomitable mother held her future husband prisoner until he agreed to marry her. They then had at least 10 children. Life in the middle ages even the late middle ages was not as simple and straightforward as a lot of people believe.
I think he would feel a loss...as in she isn't his daughter and he had to find out the hard way...but I think he would never let on to the daughter he knew her secret. If anything he would put more of the blame on his wife than the daughter. At least that is what I would think.
