"I'm just waiting for my wife to grow up."
— Grover Cleveland, after a reporter asked him why he wasn't married yet. (The quote is unconfirmed, but events bear it out.)
A story where (usually) a man falls in love with a woman, having raised her from childhood. She looked up to the man, thought of him as a father figure or beloved uncle, a guardian, counted on him to be there when she needed him, etc. In more extreme cases, she might have even vowed to marry him when she came of age.
Then, when she is all grown up, the girl falls in love with the man, or he with her, or both.
Known in Japan (and for a while on this wiki) as the Hikaru Genji Plan, after the main character in The Tale of Genji, who kidnapped a young girl from a life of poverty for the purpose of marrying her once she grew up. The current name is a pun, as husbandry is the act of raising something (animal husbandry, plant husbandry, etc.), and also contains the word husband.
A source of Values Dissonance in older works, because it used to be common practice for noblemen to marry younger daughters of friends and acquaintances, so this trope would have occurred a lot both in fiction and real life. It was seen as quite proper for a man to fall in love with his ward and for them to marry if she felt the same. Even in modern times, some people argue that this is not a problem so long as the former child is now an adult and able to properly consent.
The narrative typically does not address how such a relationship might be viewed as inappropriate or morally problematic by contemporary social standards. If the man were the woman’s biological parent, their relationship would be considered incestuous; however, the story emphasizes they are Not Blood Related. Sometimes, it is implied that he initially opposed the relationship and was persuaded by the woman, or he may be shown encouraging her to form relationships with men her own age despite harboring his own feelings, or being unaware of those feelings himself. These elements are often used to portray the relationship as unplanned and mutually desired rather than deliberately pursued, thus making it "more ethical" in the eyes of the audience.
A subtrope of Age-Gap Romance. Often overlaps with either May–December Romance or Mayfly–December Romance, depending on the age gap and whether one of the lovers (typically the older one) is Long-Lived or Immortal. Compare Pygmalion Plot, The Jailbait Wait, Teacher/Student Romance, and Parental Incest. See also Father, I Want to Marry My Brother. Contrast Pimping the Offspring, where a parent prostitutes their own children, usually while they are minors.
Note: A child simply meeting an adult and then them moving on to a romantic relationship when both are adults is not this trope, nor is it for teacher/student relationships that become romantic. The adult must actually raise the child as their legal guardian.
As with all Sexual Harassment and Rape Tropes, No Real Life Examples, Please!
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Comic Books
- American Vampire: Jim Books' goddaughter Abilena fell in love with him. Jim always thought of her as a daughter and never realized she saw him as something other than a father figure until the night she gave him a passionate kiss. She persuades him to give her Someone to Remember Him By.
- Captain Atom: The hero's daughter, Margaret, begins a relationship with Jeff Goslin, her godfather. Not her father, but the implications are the same. The subtext, incidentally, was that she really did have romantic feelings for her father, and was (barely) sublimating them by dating Goslin, who was her father's best friend in addition to being her godfather.
- The Punisher MAX: Nicky Cavella was raised by his aunt and given a... very special birthday bedroom present. Regularly, apparently. While still referring to herself as his aunt. It gets better: she acquired guardianship over Nicky by convincing him to kill his entire family and frame his uncle/her husband for the crime.
- Superman:
- In Superman's Girl Friend, Lois Lane #57, Superman is turned into a baby by some Red Kryptonite, and Lois Lane tries to raise him so that when he reverts to his real age, he'll want to marry her — and so does Lana Lang. In the end, their plans work...but not as intended, since the Superman in question was from an alternate universe, and he ends up returning home and marrying his universe's Lois and Lana.
- Two issues later, Lois Lane uses a time machine to travel back to ancient Krypton to steal Kal-El's father for herself
◊ so she could be her mother. After she finally remembered that Krypton would explode someday, she decided to leave and restore the timeline to normal with her time pod.
- It happens in Lex Luthor: Man of Steel when Lex Luthor creates the superheroine Hope to serve as his own private Superman as well as concubine. He sacrifices her to discredit Superman.
- Lex Luthor does this a lot. In The Supergirl Saga, the Lex Luthor of a Pocket Universe created a protoplasmic Supergirl with the appearance of Lana Lang. While he doesn't end up with her, she clearly adores him sexually and later has a relationship with his main universe double.
Fan Works
- When Anko has trouble finding a boyfriend in Anko's Boyfriend, she decides that she can raise one and chooses Naruto, figuring that he'll latch on to the first person who shows him affection.
- Mao and C.C.'s relationship is explored in-depth in Code Geass: Mao of the Deliverance, with plenty of backstory and flashback, including the implication that C.C. had sex with him when he became a teenager, increasing his Yandere Fanboy treatment of her.
- A Diplomatic Visit: Discussed briefly in chapter 14, where Celestia mentions that there are some who would claim she picks her students so she can train them up and then make them a part of the Royal Harem. She points out that first, she doesn't have a royal harem, and second, that would fall under this trope, and the practice of such has been illegal for centuries. The second story confirms that Celestia has long viewed Twilight as a daughter (and still does) and not a potential love interest.
- Apparently there is a camp of fanfiction writers for Fate/stay night that use this angle on Archer and Rin.
- Specifically, these fanfics follow on (sort of) from the "Childcare is War/Together with House Husband" doujins where Archer is summoned by the Tohsaka sisters (Sakura and Rin) prior to the fourth war.
- Speaking of Fate, this is a discussed in Fate/Harem Antics, with Taiga referencing The Tale of Genji while in the process of giving a Love Confession to Shirou, who she helped Kiritsugu raise for the last ten years, albeit as a sister figure rather than a mother figure.
- Some Gorillaz fanwriters have this happen between Noodle and either Murdoc or 2D (or, very occasionally, Russel). A less-squicky-than-usual variation in the fic A Man Out Of Time involved, thanks to time travel, Noodle meeting and falling in love with Murdoc's sixteen-year-old self, then using another time jump to allow her thirty-six-year-old self to come back to Kong and meet the forty-year-old Murdoc.
- Flippy and Flaky from the Happy Tree Friends are really often prone to this, especially their humanized versions. Many times, Flaky is drawn as a little girl, while Flippy is a mature guy who takes care of her. They are sometimes portrayed in romantic situations even when Flaky is little.
- In Hera x Male!Reader - Change For the Better, Hera decides that her surrogate son Y/n would make the best choice for a husband when she gets sick of Zeus' philandering ways and decides to remarry.
- Hetalia: Axis Powers fics have several of these.
- The Spain/Romano pairing. Romano used to be under Spain's care as a kid, with Spain doting on him and Romano getting jealous whenever Spain paid more attention to his brother than to him. In modern times, Spain's still very affectionate towards the grown-up Romano, and Romano still has his Tsundere streak. They're not quite an Official Couple, but the subtext is definitely there.
- The America/England pairing, actually called the "Reverse Hikaru Genji Plan" in Japanese fandom, is a more complicated example: England and America used to be in a happy big brother-little brother relationship. Then America grew up, decided he didn't want that kind of relationship with England anymore, and broke away from him. It's implied that the two still care about each other after that event, but that the nature of their affections has changed, with England going from Parental Substitute to blushing Tsundere and America from adoring little brother to an equal who enjoys riling England up. Not an Official Couple either, but the subtext is heavy.
- While they haven't had half the subtext these two other couple had (at least in the strips), a potential relationship between France and Seychelles could certainly be seen as an example. The Gakuen Hetalia game (written by and illustrated by Himaruya himself) shows a younger France playing with a child Seychelles in a beach as he helps raise her and then bringing her to the High School AU where the "story" sets in, and one of the game's endings has him hugging a blushing Seychelles and being snarked at by her.
- Often in fanon, France is portrayed this way towards young Canada too.
- J-fen seems to be fond of equaling the Japanese colonization of the Taiwanese islands with Japan raising his younger sister Taiwan as a prospect wife.
- There are several China/Japan works (mostly in the Japanese fandom) where Japan is the "wife" being husbanded. This is of course an extension of China being portrayed as the big brother who raised the other Asian countries. However, when China is shipped with other Asian nations, he is rarely shipped with them being portrayed as children. It looks like that's a special "privilege" reserved for Japan.
- Any nation who was ever responsible for raising a nation in their childhood falls into this. Currently in fandom, England's the biggest bait for this. Having had the largest empire in history, and having the most ex-colonies appearing in the series, it's not that hard to put him in this position. Evidence: The Commonwealth of Nations. America/England was already explained in detail above. There are tags on the Kink Meme (the section where they organize the fills) just for England and his Commonwealth. On dA, some memes include a "Draw England as a pimp with his colonies" section.
- This is also the portrayal used by Turkey fans, in regards to the Turkey/Greece or Turkey/Hungary pairings.
- And one or two Egypt/Greece fanworks, but not half as strongly.
- Maximum Squick factor version in the Hivefled 'verse; Condesce effectively raised the Grand Highblood since she was the equivalent of an eight-year-old and he was an infant, and their relationship has been at least vaguely sexual and possibly more since he hit puberty.
- legolas by laura: Legolas adopts the eponymous Laura as his sister, or daughter, or something — it's unclear — when she's a baby. Ten years later, he rescues her from orcs, and agrees to "be her boyfriend". Even though she's still ten. The So Bad, It's Good quality of the fic suggests that either it's a Troll Fic or the author was also ten, and the Beige Prose makes it far less squicky and more funny than it sounds.
- Lenore and Ragamuffin from Lenore the Cute Little Dead Girl are prone to this, mostly due to the fact that he takes care of her, being her guardian and friend at the same time. Even though she's often paired with him when she's a child, because Lenore can't practically grow up physically. Still, there are instances when fans make Lenore older just to avoid any Squick.
- There are a few My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic fanfics that pairs Twilight Sparkle and Spike, as well as Twilight and Celestia, her own mentor/ruler/sun goddess. Discordlestia fics themselves sometimes depict Discord as Celestia's own mentor who did this to her as well — or vice-versa.
- The story Groomed To Perfection by Rainbow Bob has Discord mocking Celestia for it, implying that she did this to Twilight, and that it was exactly the same thing that he himself had done to her in the past.
Discord: "I couldn't be prouder of you, or love you anymore than I already do."
- The MLP Loops: Suspected to be the case, but ultimately averted, in Loop 194.5 — before they Awoke, Celestia had promised a six-year-old Twilight that she would officiate Twilight's eventual wedding when she was ready, but had said it in a manner that sounded like she was proposing. They clear up the misunderstanding after both are Awake. Twilight herself notes that she considers such a relationship odd, since she normally views Celestia as a second mother to her.
- The story Groomed To Perfection
- Neji and Hinata from Naruto are sometimes portrayed like this in fanwork, since Neji has become Hinata's protector and guardian in canon. Due to the fact that there is only a year difference between them, many fans actually make Hinata little in a lot of fanfiction and fanart, with Neji taking care of her, before the romance happens. Rock Lee's Springtime of Youth did not help stop this interpretation.
- Offspring makes note that Link and Mipha have a Childhood Friend Romance but, due to how Zora age in comparison to humans, Mipha was more like a mother towards Link. When Link got older, Mipha fell for Link. The two ended up married with kids when Link was in his teens; however, Link soon lost Mipha in the Calamity.
- In the Oneiroi Series (an Order of the Stick fanfiction series), Xykon practically raised Tiasal/Deirdre, and he has this weird thing going on where he's almost but not quite started a sexual relationship with her. Unlike the other examples, he never exactly planned on it and she's the only one who's actually interested in the sex, but he uses it to manipulate her. (And Word of God says that he gets enjoyment out of it despite being a walking skeleton because it gives him a power trip.) The trope is also inverted with Deirdre as she actually forces her father (who also practically raised her after a while) into sleeping with her. And she's implied to be planning on doing the same to her uncle (who raised her while her dad didn't), and Word of God says that she wants to do it to all the men who were involved in raising her. She has issues.
- In Raising Link, a fairy leads a nine-year-old Link to the Temple of Souls, and Cia and Lana need to figure out what to do with him. Cia advocates keeping him and raising him to be their lover.
- Second Bite of the Cherry: a downplayed variant, since Wei Ying was adopted into the Gusu Lan Sect with the implicit hopes that she would be wed to one of their Twin Jades.
- In Sibling Love, Elesis became a Yandere for her younger brother, Elsword, after he innocently proposed to her when he was 4 years old, and has since made it her sworn duty to raise him to be the perfect husband and kill anyone who she deems a threat to their relationship.
- In The Swarm of War, Alena was incorporated into the Swarm when she was about five. She is currently an adult with the title of "Queen-consort of the Overmind"... which chapter 60 shows to be no formality.
- In The Taste of Your Magic, Bellatrix explains to Narcissa that because of baby Harry's already great magical power, the two of them can raise him to become one of the greatest wizards of all time, with the two witches as his queens of course.
- The AU Naruto fanfic Tasting Flesh opens up with a betrothal between demon prince Sasuke, who appears to be no older than his early twenties, and mortal but cursed girl Sakura, who is only a toddler. Flashbacks in subsequent chapters show that while Sasuke never adopted Sakura, he did babysit her regularly from infancy to early childhood while addressing her as his future wife, which Sakura enthusiastically accepted and only started questioning once she turned eighteen...for a time, anyway. She is eventually considered married to Sasuke after sleeping with him for the first time, which is apparently how demons get married (and not by, say, signing any paperwork). Most of the characters in the story, including Sakura's own family, treat Sakura and Sasuke's relationship as perfectly normal without ever questioning the dynamics and ethics involved.
- Thundercracker's Glory: Early on, Skywarp jokingly suggests Megatron is planning this for Thundercracker's niece Glory (a sparkling who has recently come to live on the Nemesis since he's her only surviving relative). Thundercracker is not amused.
- Deconstructed and played for squick in certain Twilight fanfics.
- In one story called Seven, Jacob proceeds to consummate things with Renesmee (who looks eighteen but is chronologically and mentally seven years old, hence the title), and she is frightened, confused and unwilling throughout. In its mirror story Eighteen, the situation is reversed where Renesmee is chronologically seven but has the looks and mind of an eighteen-year-old. In this one, she rejects Jacob, finding the whole situation disgusting and twisted, and decides to run away from it all with Claire in tow.
- Claire and Quil are the subjects of this in the story Resisting Devotion. Claire has just turned eighteen and Quil decides to make his move after 16 years of waiting until she was of legal age. Claire, however, is horrified to learn that Quil imprinted on her and wanted her since she was a toddler. Quil tries to win her over by saying they're "destined" to be together, but Claire rejects it, plans to get a restraining order out on him, angrily declares their friendship is over and that she can't forgive him. On top of all that, it turns out that Claire is also a lesbian, so it never wouldn't worked out anyway.
- In the Legend of Zelda fanfic, The Ways of Ruto, the Zora Princess attempts this on Link with an artifact that can change his age at her command, regressing him to a child that she can raise to love her. Unfortunately, it only changes his body, not his mind, so it amounts to her keeping him locked in a room with only her visiting him, waiting for Stockholm Syndrome to take effect.
- White Sheep (RWBY): Variant. In the first chapter, Salem reveals that she took in Cinder as Jaune's babysitter specifically so that they'd grow up to give her lots of grandbabies. She is rather put out that they grew up Like Brother and Sister instead.
- Deconstructed in You Are Mine. As his adopted daughter Agnes grows and becomes attractive to him, the idea of this comes to Frollo's mind. Wife husbandry isn't uncommon, but the problem is that Agnes sees him as a father. Frollo doesn't particularly care and ends up raping her.
Films — Live-Action
- Downplayed in An American in Paris, where Henri was Lise's guardian for a few years after the death of her parents during WW2, but they were later apart for a while and only struck up a relationship after reconnecting. When Lise admits that she's fallen in love with the titular American, Henri decides I Want My Beloved to Be Happy and steps aside gracefully, though he's clearly cut up about it.
- This is an instrumental part of the scheme devised by con man James Addison Reavis in The Baron Of Arizona to give legitimacy to forged Spanish land grants so he can take ownership of the entire state of Arizona. Once he has orphan Sofia brought up as the baroness of the territory in the grants, and once she is all grown up and falls in love with and marries him, as her husband, nobody can dispute his claim on the land.
- Bicentennial Man: The Martin household's Robot Butler, Andrew, loved helping Sir in raising Miss and Little Miss since they were young girls. When Little Miss was old enough, she asked him indirectly about marriage, but chickens out and married someone else. Andrew goes away for a few decades, but when he returns, he meets Portia, Little Miss's Identical Granddaughter, and pursues a relationship with her, eventually getting married, making this a Zig-Zagged example.
- Happens in both Le Bossu and On Guard (based off Paul Féval's Le Bossu), with the girl having fallen in love with her guardian Lagardère and him initially resisting. It still fails not to seem creepy, mostly because he became her unofficial adoptive father sometime when she was a baby, and she went with unnerving speed from regarding him as "Papa" to thinking of him as "husband on the hoof" once she learned he wasn't any blood relation. In the last adaptation to date, the miniseries Lagardère (2003), Lagardère marries her widowed mother instead.
- This is the plot of The Bow by Kim Ki-duk. The main character is an old man, who lives in seclusion on a boat with a 16-year-old girl, whom he found at an early age. It is agreed that they will marry when she turns 17. The girl trusts him absolutely, up to the point when she meets a young boy, who plans to take her away from the old man. The old man eventually marries her, but after the ceremony he rides with her on another boat, then makes her go to sleep by playing a song and jumps into the water happily, drowning himself. The girl wakes up at the bigger ship with a spontaneous orgasm. She acts like she has intercourse with a man, and it ends with blood on her crotch. She rides off with the boy.
- Part of Holly Golightly's backstory in Breakfast at Tiffany's. Holly married Doc Golightly when she was thirteen, with the implication that young Holly was a rural Street Urchin and it was simpler for him to marry her than adopt her.
- Played straight, and for romance, in The Chechahcos. Dexter and Riley, two bachelor Alaskan gold miners, become guardians to Ruth, who is about six. Time Skip 12 years later, and Ruth is a grown woman in love with Dexter, and the maid is joking about Dexter having a baby.
Ruth: [embraces Dexter] No longer your little girl, but your— [kisses him, skips away]
- In the horror film Embryo, Rock Hudson plays a scientist who experiments on a female fetus, accelerating its growth until it's a beautiful and accomplished young woman, at which point they have sex. The young woman then discovers that her body will soon disintegrate due to Rapid Aging, kicking off the "horror" part of the movie. The movie ends with the woman dying of old age while at the same time giving birth to the child she conceived with the scientist.
- Final Girl (2015): Unintentionally on William's part, but by the time Veronica is 18 years old, she is romantically interested in him. He carefully declines her.
- Definitely invoked in Georgy Girl, where family friend banker Leamington has watched the spirited Georgy grow from child to woman, and makes her the outrageous (by today's standards) offer to be his mistress. By the time she's finally willing to give in it's to become his wife — in order to keep the baby's she's been tending. It's implied that by now their promise is in form only, neither looks satisfied after the ceremony.
- A slightly different version occurs in Great Balls of Fire!, where it's suggested that Jerry Lee wanted to marry Myra to raise her (and train her in wifely obedience before she'd be old enough to "Get Ideas").
- I Love You Rosa: When 20-year-old Rosa's husband dies, under Jewish law his little brother Nissim is expected to marry Rosa, despite the fact that he's only 11. Soon after, Nissim runs away from home and Rosa takes him in. They embark on an odd relationship in which she is his guardian but also his semi-fiancee, with Nissim fully expecting to marry Rosa when he's old enough. (He eventually does, after various plot complications.)
- In Hideo Gosha's Kai (桨), a man buys up the pre-teen daughter of a poor family and has her trained as a geisha. In the following years, she develops romantic feelings for him.
- In Legacy A Mormon Journey, Eliza tell the gentleman who's trying to court her that she's sworn to marry Jacob because he was like a father to her when she had no one. He's the kindest man she knows. The gentleman tells her that marriage is a great reward for kindness.
- In The Lion in Winter, the marital rift / civil war between Henry II and his wife Eleanor of Aquitaine exists partly because the aged Henry took Alais as his mistress. Alais is a Princess of France, whom Eleanor had taken into her household as a ward when the girl was 8, with the plan to marry her to one of her sons (the future Richard I) when she was old enough. Alais is a young woman by the point the movie takes place, and Henry probably wouldn't actually have been involved much in her raising, but still. Bonus points for the fact that Alais is actually Eleanor's ex-husband's daughter by his second wife, which causes political problems, because they can't just simply reneg on the original engagement promise and keep her around as Henry's mistress. (Eleanor's problem with it seems to be part jealousy — she and Henry had been a rare royal love match a few decades earlier, so she took the mistress thing harder than most queens would have — and part a sense of being betrayed by her foster daughter.)
- Inverted in Merlin's Shop of Mystical Wonders, when a man accidentally turns himself into a baby, and his wife is left to raise him.
- Inverted in the 2009 movie Orphan- the titular character is actually a thirty-something year old adult who tries to come on to her legal guardians, and kills them when they refuse.
- The film (and presumably the literature it's based on) Portrait of Jennie does an odd variation on this when an artist meets a mysterious, too-young girl. Jennie promises him that they are meant to be together and that she will grow up for him... and does. Very quickly. Of course, she's already dead. Despite this description, it's a beautiful film.
- In The Scorpion King, this trope is never explicitly spelled out but its established that Memnon wants to make the Sorceress his queen and that he has been keeping her his prisoner since she was a child. The viewers can draw their own conclusion.
- Settlers (2021). Jerry is a raider on Mars who kills Remmy's parents and sets himself up in their farm, though he refuses to harm their child Remmy. Several years later Remmy has grown up to be an attractive teenager, but she speaks to him as little as possible, to his annoyance as he'd rather she accept the situation and start a family with him.
- A gender inverted version is explored in a 1973 Turkish film called Sultan Gelin. Beautiful young Sultan note is married off to the sickly son of the wealthiest man in the village in exchange for a hefty bride price, however the bridegroom dies during the wedding night. Sultan's parents don't want to give up the money they received and her in-laws don't want to give up the brand new "helping hand", so a brilliant solution is found in betrothing her to the late groom's 5-year-old brother. The in-laws then proceed to happily dump all of the child's responsibility on Sultan's head, who becomes his full-time caretaker while fully expecting to marry him when he's older. Unsurprisingly, this plan does not go very well.
- In Park Chan-wook's Thirst (2009), Tae-ju is adopted by Mrs. Ra with the intention of raising her as a wife for her son. The protagonist Sang-hyeon becomes her lover, alleviating the misery of her loveless marriage and the slave-like relationship she has to both her husband and foster mother. Then he turns her into a vampire.
- Under Suspicion: It's eventually revealed that Chantal was the daughter of Henry's law partner and that they met when she was 11. After Chantal's father died when she was 14 Henry apparently became her unofficial ward and started taking a more active role in her life...and sometime after she graduated from high school they got married. Victor accuses Henry of grooming Chantal, and this is implied to be why Chantal was so highly suspicious of Henry's encounter with Camille, Chantal's 13-year-old niece.
- In Womb, a woman gives birth to the clone of her dead boyfriend, raises him like a son, and eventually has sex with him.
Live-Action TV
- A gender inversion occurred on Angel, between Connor and Cordelia; later lampshaded in the comics with Connor's line about "My first time was with a woman who changed my diapers?!" (Though she didn't actually raise him.)
- Also lampshaded in the series:
Angelus: She's practically your mother. There should be a play.
- It is played with when it is later revealed, that Cordelia had died/ascended and not been resurrected/returned as they thought. It was actually an ancient Lovecraftian terror inhabiting Cordelia's body. This doesn't keep it from being any less creepy, but it's not Cordy's fault.
- Also lampshaded in the series:
- The Bold and the Beautiful's Taylor and Rick dated for a while, despite the fact that she'd known him from when he was a baby and at one point in his childhood, briefly debated getting involved with his father, while at the same time counseling him (she was a psychiatrist) about the issues he was having with his mother. It's actually inverted as dialogue indicated that he'd had a crush on her for years and was now glad to be an adult with the chance to act on it.
- In Carnivàle, Jonesy was a surrogate father/uncle figure to Sofie when she joined the troupe at a young age, and by the time the series is set (where she is around 18 or 19) it's quite clear he has feelings for her.
- Columbo: Villain of the Week Fielding Chase was a Control Freak who micromanaged his adoptive daughter Victoria's life while sabotaging her attempts to advance her career and potentially leave him, and he reveals to Columbo that he had Secretly Selfish motivations for adopting her as she was the daughter of his The Lost Lenore with the implication he saw her as a Replacement Goldfish. Earlier in the episode, the Victim of the Week Gerry accused Chase of having some un-fatherly instincts towards Victoria while pointing out his possessive, controlling nature. A couple of moments, like the way Chase touches Victoria's cheek when she's leaving, imply that Gerry was right.
- Criminal Minds:
- An episode focused on a family whose tradition it was to "make wives" for their sons. They would do so by having the boy pick a girl he liked and then the whole family would abduct her and murder her parents. Aw, bonding.
- The episode "Hope" took the most disturbing elements of this trope and distilled them into the creepiest possible form. The unsub kidnapped a little girl with whom he became obsessed and waited for her to grow up. After Hope's suicide, he kidnapped her mother, with the intention of "creating a new Hope," i.e. an infant and his own biological daughter to be his new bride.
- Played with and ultimately subverted in regards to River Song from Doctor Who. She's been adventuring with the Doctor her whole life and she's admitted that that's what led her to love him. It's working in reverse, too; the Doctor is young right now compared to River and as they're adventuring together, he's begun falling in love with her. Strictly speaking, she probably doesn't remember their real first meeting, because she was a newborn and the Doctor was initially unaware of who she was. From the Doctor's perspective, he first met her as an adult.
- If you think about it, eventually inverted on Farscape: In the time-travel episode "Kansas", 16-year-old John Crichton loses his virginity to Chiana, and gets his memory of the event muddled. Years later, he meets her for, from her point of view, the first time and rather quickly takes her as a little sister or occasionally even daughter figure, which works really well to her benefit, considering he has little reason to trust her at their first meeting otherwise. Yeah.
- Father Brown: In "The Prize of General Gerard", the General had adopted a young Chinese girl named Jia-Li. As she matured, Gerard's nephew Edward (whose mother had married Gerard after his father's death) had fallen in love with her, but Gerard made it quite clear that he planned to take Jia-Li as his mistress, her own desires be damned, and further planned to have Edward committed to keep him away from her. Considering that Jia-Li ended up murdering Gerald, one may safely assume that the attraction was one-sided. Oh, and Gerard had also killed Edward's father and married his mother. What a sweet guy.
- Game of Thrones: Given the Targaryen tradition for sibling marriage, Viserys likely had this in mind for Daenerys, whom he helped raise in exile.
- House of the Dragon: This nearly happened between Viserys I and his niece Laena Velaryon, but his discomfort with the relationship, as well as being covertly manipulated into falling in love with Alicent Hightower, quickly put the kibosh on that possibility.
- Into the Badlands: Very much implied between Quinn and Jade, his soon-to-be second wife who just so happened to be his son's childhood friend and secret lover. Also downplayed in season two between he and Veil when he forces her to marry him, because then you remember that it was mentioned in season one that Quinn gave an infant Veil to her adopted parents as a gift for saving him (and Veil is around the same age as Jade and Ryder). An then you remember that he's always had this creepy fascination with her since season one.
- One sided version: In the Murder, She Wrote episode "A Murderous Muse," the manager Byron has been pressuring his student Leslie to marry him. The twist is that she isn't quite 18 yet, and Byron has raised her like a father since she was 8 years old.
- In season 2 of The Musketeers, Rochefort thinks this is the case with Queen Anne, who he mentored as a child. Unfortunately, she does not return his feelings.
- A very weird case from Mystery Science Theater 3000. Joel, creator of the Bots, has always been the father figure to them. Except in Wild Rebels, where he and Gypsy have a few romantic moments, such as Joel cheering her up when she's depressed (even if he almost suffocates so he can talk to her clearly) and giving her a serenade later on.
- Once Upon a Time in Wonderland as Gender Flipped. Amara took Jafar in as a child, raised him, trained him… then they make out when he's older. Slightly lessened due to the fact that Jafar has a new actor when he's older, while Amara still has the same actress, and so she appears to not have aged at all. This is possibly intentional, and implies she uses some magic to stay young.
- In season 2 of Orange Is the New Black, we find out in flashbacks that Vee seduced RJ, who was her foster son in all but name, once he grew up. Subverted in that she was only doing it as a ruse to get revenge on him for trying to start his own business without her.
- Gender-inversion again in The Originals. The current Big Bad of the series, Marcel, was adopted by the hybrid vampire Klaus when he was a human child in the 1800s, and was raised by both him and Klaus' sister Rebekah. Years later, Rebekah and Marcel fall in love with each other, much to Klaus' displeasure. It's heavily implied that he and Rebekah still have a thing for each other.
- Gender-inversion on Parks and Recreation: Tammy One, the terrifying tax auditor first wife of Ron Swanson. She delivered him as a teenage candy-striper, she apparently played no small part in his rearing, and taught him at school. This is a particularly strong form in that she actually intended to marry him the whole time.
- Star Trek:
- In the Star Trek: The Original Series episode "Requiem for Methuselah" the Immortal Mr. Flint has created and educated a female android to become his mate. Unfortunately her hormones first start moving for Kirk. Even more unfortunately the powerful conflict between her new desires and her long standing filial love for Flint kills her.
- In Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "The Schizoid Man" dying scientist Ira Graves is desperately in love with and very possessive of his young assistant Kareen, who we are informed has lived with him on his isolated planet ever since she lost her parents while "very young", essentially being raised by him. Initially subverted in that even the creeptastic Graves is too ashamed to make a move on her, but he goes on to proposition her after he takes over Data's body.
- In the Star Trek: Discovery episode "Vaulting Ambition" Terran Emperor Philippa Georgiou implies this was the relationship between Mirror!Burnham and Mirror!Lorca. Lorca started out as a father figure to Burnham, and then became "something more" (she flat-out calls this "grooming"). It's further implied he's trying to recreate this relationship with regular universe Burnham.
- Taken: In "Charlie and Lisa", Mary Crawford and Dr. Wakeman, whom she called "Uncle Chet" as a child, start a clandestine sexual relationship which lasts for nine years. It is something that they had both wanted since she was thirteen.
- The Twilight Zone (1959)
- The episode "The Fugitive" features an alien king who has disguised himself as an old man on earth, where he uses his powers to entertain children. He is close friends with a little girl but is eventually discovered by his people, who want him back. He says he knows it would be thousands of years before he could leave the job. He eventually returns to his planet to be king, but takes the little girl with him, where the epilogue heavily implies the little girl might eventually become a queen.
- A disturbed, gender-inverted example is heavily implied to happen at the end of the episode "A Short Drink from a Certain Fountain". The story has a wealthy, old man fighting to keep up with his selfish, gold-digging and far younger Trophy Wife. He then gets rejuvenated via an experimental serum. By the end, he's regressed to an infant due to the serum not being perfected. As a kind of poetic justice for her self-serving ways, the man's wife now has to take responsibility and raise what was her husband now as her son and the roles will be switched by the time he reaches her age.
Myths & Religion
- The Bible:
- In Book of Ezekiel 16:8, God Himself uses this as a metaphor for how His relationship with the Israelites was supposed to work out.
- Subverted in the Book of Esther. Mordecai doesn't marry Esther, even though he's supposed to as a kinsman redeemer. She married King Xerxes instead. Though, there is some debate among scholars as to whether she was actually abducted after her marriage to Mordecai.
- Classical Mythology: Gender-swapped in the myth of Persephone and Adonis. Aphrodite once entrusted Persephone with a mortal boy, Adonis. Persephone raised him, but when he came of age she fell in love with him and refused to give him back to Aphrodite. Finally, Zeus decided that Adonis will spent one third of each year with Persephone, one third with Aphrodite, and one third wherever he wishes.
- Older Than Print: King Conchobar of Ulster intends to pull this off with Deirdre in The Exile of the Sons of Uisnech, but Deirdre falls for Naoise before he can make his move.
- According to traditional Islamic sources, The Prophet Muhammad was betrothed to Aisha, the daughter of his best friend Abu Bakr, when she was six and she moved in with him three years later. It had unexpected tragic consequences: in order to quell any possible objections that such a marriage should be disallowed, Muhammad issued a specific ruling that there is no such thing as affinity based on wardship alone - and to this day legal adoption of unrelated children is not allowed in Muslim countries...
- Older Than Dirt: In the Enûma Eliš, after the murder of her husband, Apsu, Tiamat births a brood of frightful monsters, and makes Qingu, the youngest, yet most terrifying and most powerful of his siblings, her replacement-husband.
Theatre
- In Beaumarchais' play The Barber of Seville (and the operas based on it, of which Rossini's is the most famous), Doctor Bartholo plots to marry his ward Rosine (Bartolo and Rosina in Rossini). Count Almaviva and Figaro foil the plot. In the play, it's implied that it's just because she has been left a large dowry by her natural family and he wants to keep it for himself. When he realises the man she eloped with is very rich and will let him keep it, he's contented. However, Rossini's opera suggests that Bartolo has some real attraction to Rosina too, as he proclaims that he only becomes more charmed with her the more scornful she becomes of him.
- A recurring trope in the works of Gilbert and Sullivan is an older man or woman trying to marry one or both of The Ingenues, often intersecting with this trope.
- In H.M.S. Pinafore, little Buttercup, the captain's nursemaid, ends up marrying him after revealing that he is no captain at all but was Switched at Birth with a nobleman.
- In The Pirates of Penzance, Frederic's onetime nursemaid Ruth, who is the only woman he has seen in 13 years, convinces him that she is a beautiful woman, and that he should marry her. This plan falls apart the second he sees a group of girls his own age.
- In The Mikado, Ko-Ko attempts to marry his ward, Yum-Yum, though by the end he's paired off with Katisha, a woman closer to his age, who was also trying to do this with the much younger Nanki-Poo.
- In Iolanthe, The Lord Chancellor is as smitten with his ward, Phyllis, as all the other Lords, and decides to marry her himself after Lords Mountararat and Tolloller convince him that it would not be improper to do so.
- This plot is lampshaded and averted in Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest, as while Jack/Ernest has his excessively pretty ward Cecily being raised in the countryside like male characters in similar comedies, he is not interested in a romantic relationship with her. However, his fiancee Gwendolyn's hackles instantly rise when Cecily introduces herself as Jack's "ward", as Gwendolyn is all too aware of this trope.
- In The Lion in Winter, Henry has raised Alais with the intention of making her his daughter-in-law, though she becomes his mistress in the meantime. When he decides to disown his sons, he then plans to annul his marriage to Eleanor, make Alais queen, and have sons by her instead.
- Done in A Little Night Music, but subverted. A paraphrased line: "Just imagine, a few years ago, you were Uncle Frederick. And now, you're Darling Frederick." *Giggle* *Cue squirming and uncomfortable audience.* The girl discovered that it was just a crush and Frederick discovered his true love in a former mistress. His 18-year-old ex-wife ran off with his son, who was the same age.)
- In the 17th-century play The London Cuckolds, one of the title characters has a girl raised in the country to be so much of an idiot that she'll believe just about anything anyone tells her (except that she does know trees don't have rats on them), and when he brings her to town to be his wife, Hilarity Ensues (no, really). Initially he doesn't plan to consummate the marriage, telling her instead her "wifely duties" are to guard his nightcap in full armor, but the two main characters of the play end up interfering with that plan.
- In Pagliacci, this is a possible interpretation of Canio and Nedda's marriage, as we learn that Nedda was an orphaned Street Urchin whom Canio took in. The libretto doesn't say how old she was at the time, but most productions do portray her as much younger than her middle-aged husband.
- Used in Molière's comedies School for Wives and School for Husbands, where in both cases a male character has a female ward they plan to marry — this doesn't end up working in either case, as the girls confront their patrons and earn their freedoms. By the way, in School for Wives, the man's definition of "perfect" is "as idiot as possible".
- Ironically, while the would-be husbands are the butt of the comedy in both plays, Molière himself did end up marrying a girl who had been a young member of his theatre company, and was rumoured to be the daughter of his long-term mistress (scholars now think she was probably her niece). They even played the lead roles in the first public performance of School for Wives.
- Judge Turpin tries to pull this with his ward Johanna Barker in Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, since she reminds him so much of her mother Lucy, for whom he had a major lust and whom he eventually raped. It doesn't work because Johanna wants nothing to do with him in that way and seeks to elope with Anthony the sailor once she finds out what her adoptive father's intentions are. When Turpin finds this out, he is furious enough to have Johanna thrown into a madhouse, where she is eventually rescued by Anthony. And her real father, the title character, eventually catches up to Judge Turpin and takes very bloody revenge upon him.
- The plot to Arthur Miller's A View from the Bridge. However, Eddie Carbone cannot admit to himself or anyone else that he has romantic feelings towards Catherine, his wife's sister's daughter. Every time someone hints he might have "too much love" for Catherine, he says he isn't that kind of person. Tragedy results.
Video Games
- The protagonist Rex Raglen can fall under this in Agarest Senki if you get the True Ending. He can get every single woman who's not part of his ancestor's harem and all of them raised him up.
- Leonis from Agarest Senki Zero also fall under this. Most of the women he can romance has raised him as a baby. (He even considers Alice as his surrogative mother and Mimel as his older sister)
- Bakumatsu Renka Karyuu Kenshi Den. Heroine Shizuki Rin is adopted by male lead Iori, who was in love with Rin's mother.
- A gender-reversed variant in Chrono Trigger — talking to the right people reveals that caveman Kino was found as a child by Nubile Savage Ayla, who raised him. They end up marrying after the credits. Ayla's somewhere in her twenties at the time, Kino in his late teens.
- This can be done by the player in Crusader Kings: the PC take an opposite-gender youth from his/her court (or the court of a lord willing to send his/ her child or retainer's child away), mentor the child, then marry him/her once s/he reaches 16. Eugenic-minded players tend to do this on a large scale: seeking bastards, children of low-ranking nobles or commoners with promising stats and/or traits, raising them or tasking their most skilled retainers to raise them, then marrying the grown children to themselves, or their children, or their other relatives in order to strengthen their dynasty. If anything, players are encouraged to do this due to the way the game's mechanics work: by giving the player's dynasty members the right spouses, it's possible for it to end up with several characters whose stats go through the roof, allowing the player's realm to expand and dominate its rival and neighbors thanks to the hypercompetent generals, lords and councilors serving an equally talented sovereign.
- In Crisis Core, the Final Fantasy VII prequel, one of the little girl NPCs in the slums apparently wants this relationship with her uncle. If you bother the conversation a little further, you find out that it's just from her point of view, sure, but the girl's uncle is DON CORNEO, the notorious mobster and pervert from the original game. He also apparently laughed and patted her head or something similar when she told him she wanted to marry him. Not only is he ugly as sin, he's well-known for being a creeper and morally impossible. So...
- In Cult of the Lamb, the Sins of the Flesh expansion introduced a Creature-Breeding Mechanic that allows the Lamb to breed their followers and raise the resulting children as their own into their cult. There's nothing stopping them from marrying said children the instant they turn 18, however.
- The Player Character in Dragon's Dogma can potentially do this, as the game allows you to romance virtually anyone, including 14-year-old Symone who you're stuck babysitting at one point and potentially rescue from the gutter if you get her father arrested.
- In Fate/Grand Order Murasaki Shikibu, the writer of the original Tale of Genji, pens a script where her character, Gabriella, married her adopted father Miguel, something pointed out by the other characters as not being too surprising given her past work. At the end we learn this was actually a subversion, as Miguel only thought of Gabriella as his daughter and was never romantic towards her, only marrying her to protect her and insure she could live comfortably after he passed.
- Inverted in Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn. Micaiah found Sothe as a child and raised him but due to her long lifespan, she looks younger than Sothe in the current game. However, they are so far ahead of everyone else as a canon couple that they start out with max support for each other. You HAVE to go out of your way to make them not end marrying each other.
- In Harvest Moon 64, Elli's potential suitor was the baker Jeff, who had at least a supporting role in parenting her (presumably her grandmother Ellen was dominant). He arrived in Flowerbud a decade prior when he was twenty. Elli is roughly ten years his junior.
- In Koei's renderizations of the Sengoku Era of Japan (Samurai Warriors, Kessen, etc), Hideyoshi Toyotomi is constantly courting Oda Oichi, a girl 11 years younger than he is. She always rejects him and even calls him a persistantly annoying monkey in the Samurai Warriors series. She later marries the young pretty boy lord Nagamasa Azai and has a daughter who is later known as Lady Yodo. After Nagamasa is killed in a battle against Oichi's brother Nobunaga, Hideyoshi helps raise the young Yodo and she eventually becomes his concubine, producing a son named Toyotomi Hideyori.
- The Princess Maker series of video games have this trope as a possible ending if you develop a close enough relationship with the girl you raise from age 10 on (the youngest you can make the "father" in a later version of the game is 16). It should be noted that, depending on which guardian spirit you have, she will also frown on it but all will approve because they're not blood related and they truly love each other. The only requirement is that the girl have max relationship with her "father" and not have promised to marry anyone specific (since those marriages takes priority over this one). The girl herself can have any non-marriage profession ending, including being queen through her own abilities rather than through marriage.
- Subverted in RuneScape: Char suggests this of Zaros: he raised her after the extinction of her race, trained her as a dancer, and she's very attracted to him, but even Char admits it's unclear whether Zaros reciprocates, or is even capable of romance.
- The Sims:
- It's quite possible in The Sims 2. Basically, it involves taking a child-Sim away from its parents, and sending it to live in the same house as an adult Sim, who from then on takes care of it and acts as a surrogate parent. When the child grows to be an adult, the relationship score should be high enough for them to fall in love and marry.
- In The Sims 3, it's easier, since you can have children not related to you from the get-go.
- In The Sims 4, the relative check stops after a few generations. Hypothetically, a Sim can marry and have children with their great-grandchild. Under most circumstances this wouldn't happen for obvious reasons, but if you've turned aging off or turned the great-grandparent into a vampire, you can cause an extreme variant of this trope to occur.
- In Soul Nomad & the World Eaters, Hawthorne is revealed to be a serial perpetrator of raising, sexually abusing and 'disposing of' female children, his daughter Tricia being the latest victim. Although he is killed before this happens in the normal storyline, in the Demon Path, he succeeds and breaks her utterly. The Nereids' plan for Penn is similar to this since due to their status as a One-Gender Race they need a male from another race in order to breed.
- The Nereids' plan is slightly less squicky since its clear that they care dearly about him as a person and not just as breeding stock. With this example, Penn is in for an... interesting life.
- In the Soul Series, Setsuka realized she was in love with her mentor and father figure after he succumbed to the injuries sustained in a fight with Mitsurugi.
Visual Novels
- Daughter for Dessert gives this a whole new dimension with the protagonist and Amanda, given the incest factor.
- When They Cry:
- Higurashi: When They Cry has Irie, the closest thing Satoko has to a (non-abusive) guardian, who says that he wants to marry Satoko when she grows up. He may have been joking, though; then again he also really likes girls doing cosplay and has quite the range of options prepared too... and since this is Higurashi, it would still be one of the least screwed up things in the series. Satoko's abusive uncle, technically the brother of her stepfather, has also thought that she might one day grow up to be as attractive a woman as her mother, making it more tolerable to act as her guardian.
- In Umineko: When They Cry, it's revealed that Kinzo raised his illegitimate daughter, Beatrice II, as his mistress because he deluded himself into thinking that she was the reincarnation of her mother and his beloved first mistress, Beatrice Castiglioni. However, she didn't return his feelings... even though Kinzo had a child with her.
Webcomics
- In Daily Grind, this happens between Howlett and Jolene. Even with as many mitigating circumstances thrown in as one can possibly imagine, it is still creepy. A
manserpent of Howlett's obvious moral qualities ought to have rejected Jolene's advances rather than declare that reaching a certain chronological age magically makes her able to make her own decision. Of course, their relationship is completely non-sexual, and Howlett is only five years older than Jolene, but even Howlett seems creeped out a bit by the whole thing. He just hasn't figured out how to defuse it without someone getting hurt. - Mandy and Grim in Grim Tales from Down Below. While Mandy never exactly looked up to him, Grim was a major part of her childhood. He used to treat her like his snarky niece, then several years later, he married her.
- Gunnerkrigg Court: Jones has a relationship that looks romantic with Englemore, who she's raised from childhood. Whether it is is another question (she would claim she's not capable of a such a relationship owing to not having any emotions, but she clearly does).
- In Mage & Demon Queen, one of the extra comics shows an AU where Vel adopted Malori. It mentions that "the road to yuri would have been much easier."
- The Dr. Steve/Oasis relationship from Sluggy Freelance has a few overtones of this. After raising Oasis to adulthood and taking control of her brain, Steve's plans include having her give him firsthand accounts of a lesbian date and wearing skimpy clothes while she serves him food.
- Training Slaves to Make a Harem by Aldehyde focuses on a noble who takes in three abused and enslaved demon children and plans on raising them into future members of the titular harem. However, the way he goes about this is him slowly raising them as members of his own house and from all outward appearance treating the children like his own daughters, never once coming onto them. Unbeknownst to him, the girls eventually return the sentiment, as they desperately want to couple with him.
Web Original
- The "Majou Shuukai de Aimashou" ("An Encounter With Witches") art meme consists of "Before" and "After" Pictures showing a witch taking in an abandoned child, and the same people years later (with the grown child as a servant, bodyguard or apprentice, but all too often as the witch's spouse). Of course, the meme proved controversial because of the romance variants, so one popular alternative ended with the witch being a proud adopted (grand)parent of the child...until that variation got subverted, and trends shifted to the witch considering themselves a parent and the child falling in love with the witch anyway.
Western Animation
- Gargoyles
- A rather unusually creepy example, where Goliath's clone Thailog creates clones of the other Manhattan Clan's gargoyles as his family... including one to be his concubine (not explicitly stated, but very heavily implied and confirmed by Word of God). And he designed her by mixing DNA from Demona (Goliath's Psycho Ex-Wife) and Elisa Maza (the human protagonist and Goliath's current Love Interest).
- Princess Katherine, as a young adult, escaped to Avalon along with the Magus (who was roughly the same age as her), Gargoyle eggs, and the child Tom. The Magus later narrates a Flash Back to Elisa, detailing how as Tom grew up, his and Katherine's relationship started to become less child-parent and more romantic. Eventually they began living as husband and wife, raising the young Gargoyles as their own children. Downplayed in this case, as there was no intent on either's part for their relationship to develop in that way.
- In the second Muzzy in Gondoland movie, Corvax's plan to kidnap the infant daughter of Bob and Princess Sylvia to teach the baby to adore him so she'll eventually marry him and let him become king, or at least make him royal advisor again. Oddly enough, such a creepy plot is Played for Laughs, mainly due to Corvax and his minion, Thimbo, sheer ineptitude at getting the baby to do what they want.
- Onyx Equinox: The Flashback Episode reveals that Mictlantecuhtli kidnapped Mictecacihuatl as a baby to make her his bride, and raised her himself. However, it's somewhat downplayed in that he clearly only wanted a wife for ceremonial purposes, and never did anything sexual with her.
- Inverted in Ugly Americans: Mark Lily agrees to raise Callie's sister Lilith (who ages one year per day) so she will marry Dwayne Boneraper when she comes of age. He treats her like his own daughter, but before her wedding ceremony she reveals she plans to kill both Callie and Dwayne before marrying Mark.