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 and raised 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.
- Bob has been good friends with Carol, Alice's mother, since before she got pregnant with Alice, meaning he has been the Honorary Uncle for her entire life. They still get together once Alice is of age.
- Downplayed: Bob became Alice's guardian when he was 20 and she was 14— they begin dating as adults.
- Justified: Bob and Alice are from Noble Families in period setting and it is an Arranged Marriage.
- Inverted: Alice and Bob are arranged to marry, but instead he ends up raising her as a daughter.
- Gender-Inverted: Alice, an adult, has known and raised Bob since he was a little boy. When he turns 15–19 years old, they begin to court each other and marry.
- 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 and raised 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 five, 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.
- 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 with 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 seven years younger than Alice.
- Both Bob and Alice can reincarnate after dying, and have raised each other multiple times, and resume their relationship once the memories come back in full.
- Bob dies and leaves Alice widowed, and she finds young Charlie to take his place and raises him. Then, some time after Alice and Charlie are married, she dies and leaves him widowed, and he finds young Betty to take her place and raises her.
- 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.
- Exploited: As Alice's peer Charlie discovers I Want My Beloved to Be Happy, he realizes the more-than-paternal role Bob plays in Alice's life and encourages her to be with him romantically.
- 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 ..."
- Implied: Though Bob and Alice obviously have a notable age gap between them, the only thing that could imply such is how they came from the same city — otherwise nothing suggests they knew each other before becoming a couple.
- Deconstructed:
- Bob is ostracized or arrested for pedophilic behavior.
- Due to the Westermarck Effect, the plan backfires since Alice now sees Bob as her father/brother/uncle.
- The plan works, but it's questionable how much choice Alice had in the matter of marrying a man who's had that kind of authority over her.
- The plan works, but now Alice is trapped in a forced child marriage that she can't escape from lest her family murders her. And then there's the domestic abuse...
- Reconstructed:
- Alice reveals that she has secretly felt the same way about Bob, and the couple then work to regain his status. Moving away from their hometown and assuming different names optional.
- Though Alice sees Bob as her big brother, she nonetheless still wants to be his wife since she considers marriage one of the ultimate expressions of love.
- While Bob did intentionally plan for Alice to fall in love with him, she isn't actually romantically in love. Instead, she considers it common sense to accept the one person who loves and supports her the most, which is an undeniable fact about Bob even if he dreamed of romancing her.
- Played for Laughs: Bob spends Alice's childhood acting like a lovestruck child around her. Her parents (and Alice) treat this as entirely normal.
- 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, but it's implied it goes much, much deeper than that.
No, Bob, Wife Husbandry is not going to be okay in a few years...
