Thoughts on a monk having a son ?

One of my characters is a monk, in his forties. He has a son, who's fifteen by the time he shows up in the story. Mom has died, and his father has taken him into the monastery as a student. The boy looks like him, so it's obvious what was what, but everyone is too polite to say anything.

Any thoughts on a serious monk (though not as serious 16 years ago) having a son and then taking that son in without ever having met him? He'd kept in touch with the mother through periodic letters, and he told her where he was in case her hamlet was ever in danger from a malicious spirit or whatnot.

I'm trying to gauge reader reaction and plausibility. Jokes about untoward monks are common in my setting (and real-life for the period). I figured I'd take that joke concept and turn it into a character.

It all depends on the setting, religion, and the time period, of course, but it's not that implausible. People often were not born monks, they joined the monastery for various reasons, not necessarily religious. And not always on their own accord. There was a Medieval saying that the way of the eldest son is to be a warrior and a heir; the middle son's to be a banker and a castellan; and the junior son's is to be a cleric. Hell, aristocrats were blatantly locking up their inconvenient relatives in the monasteries.

I'm thinking of three possible scenarios:

1. The Atoner. Either a bandit or a hedonistic son of a lord who became religious in his later years.
2. The aforementioned incovenient relative.
3. Simply a corrupt monk. That's also possible.

Hope this helps.

edited 27th Nov '17 7:34:12 AM by Millership

I should have clarified that in my original post. Setting is Medieval Japan. The religion is Buddhism, specifically Zen, and more specifically the [[Rinzai school {{ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rinzai_school}}]]. The specific time slate for all of this is the 1360s and 1370s. The monk is actually a serious love interest for the main character, a prostitute. Their relationship is largely non-sexual. (He's not that great at keeping to his vows of chastity, clearly.)

The man himself is the third son of a minor noble family, and went into the religion as a serious student in his late teens, because he could see he was never going to get anywhere in aristocratic life and didn't particularly like it to begin with. Mainly, all the posturing and bowing and scraping while most of their land, earnings, and food get taken by the Emperor (or current Shogunate) anyway.

In that heirarchy, he's 3. He's sincere in his studies, but he has that vice that prevents him from actually attaining enlightenment or real spiritual power (which does exist in this particular universe). The main character is a [[Main/Yokai]]. If he were a decent and completely committed monk, she wouldn't be able to go near him without at least some discomfort.

I wasn't aware of that medieval saying, though! Thank you! And those classifications do help.

My main point was, "he doesn't have to do anything with the son, but he does.'' Given how different medieval parenting structures were (both in Europe and in Japan), I'm wondering how plausible that is. Especially for a former aristocrat (where hands-off parenting was the norm, to an extreme).

My knowledge of the period is limited, but as I understand it, monks, like fools, were considered somewhat outside the normal social structure, and a monk making a decision that would otherwise be worthy of comment, or even censure, could quite likely be brushed off as "... friggin' monks. Who even knows?" by the majority of the population.

If he already didn't like the structure of noble life, then staying in even limited contact with his son could just be one more aspect to his rather genteel rebellion against it, and something his monastic status could let him get away with.