I tried to re-read the thread to add something new. (Good one, Jennifer.) We haven't covered all the confusion/conflict that relates to families:

a).Lovers needing permission to marry from fathers/mothers, (when denied, double suicide)

b).Brothers and sisters meeting without recognizing each other, usually in the context that the brother is abusing or murdering the sister.

c).Paternity questions abound.... intermarriage to the confusion of realtionship (I'm my own grandpa type of deal) and infanticide/suicide because of incest, or rocking of the cradle when the baby is not his own.

d).Mother's long suffering hope that the son will return and when he gets there, she died 5 minutes earlier. He has to watch her coffin be buried and live in guilt the rest of his drunken days (the ungrateful jerk).

e).A daughter goes astray and hangs out in the tavern getting syphilis until on her death bed she repents and calls for mom and dad to come and get her body and bury it with roses.

f).A son asks his father to tell the REAL story of the family past and it turns out that either he is not really their son, (and is a foundling prince or magical something or other) or that the family once had a great disgrace or persecution that now requires the son to defend family honor.

There is more, but I have to get back to work.

alice in montana