The Bride with a Past

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

A friend, family member, or employer brings his fiancée to the family house. One of the cast knows the woman already, revealing that she was a hooker, stripper, and/or transgender. Family debates on whether the groom-to-be should be told. Hilarity Ensues, except not.

Often, the prospective groom already knows, and the episode ends with An Aesop about tolerance... usually, going directly against the attitude the episode took to such things up to that point.

Examples of The Bride with a Past include:

Literature

  • This is the basic plot of the novel Redeeming Love, in which a former prostitute in the Old West marries a good man who treats her with kindness and respect, despite the attempts of people he knows to convince him to get rid of her.

Live-Action TV

  • Happy Days: Howard remembers that he saw Fonzie's fiancée as "The Lone Stripper" at a hardware convention. Having been under the impression that his lady was a virgin, they break up.
  • Step by Step directly rip-offs Happy Days when Frank recognizes Cody's potential bride as a stripper by her distinctive laugh just as Howard recognized Fonzie's.
  • Family Matters Carl's boss's woman. It turns out he knew about his fiancée's past.
  • Inverted in Friends when Phoebe visits her boyfriend's stuck-up parents and proudly announces a few shocking details of her past to them without any prompting. The Aesop-y end result is the same.
  • Moonlighting: Addison's father was all set to marry a younger woman, who Addison recognizes instantly as he had engaged in some extremely intense sex with her some years earlier. Finally confronting her, she tells of her troubled past in which she slept with so many men that she didn't even remember their faces (including his). And that Addison's father had won her over not only be not sleeping with her, but treating her like a lady. Shamed and guilt-ridden, Addison gives the marriage his blessing.
  • In The George Lopez Show, Ernie is dating a woman who has a history of alcohol abuse and gambling problems. Angie tells George that the woman is pregnant, but not sure who the father is. Unfortunately, she tells Ernie it's his.
  • On Angel, Doyle's ex-wife visits with her new fiancé, who turns out to be a demon. The ex-wife is informed, but already knew. In this case, it's Played for Drama in a different way—Doyle is half-demon himself and assumed that this was why his ex-wife left him, but this proves that no, it was his reaction to the news that ultimately ruined their marriage. (Oh, and also, the new beau wants to eat Doyle as per his species' tradition, though the ex-wife doesn't know that part).

Music

  • The George Jones song "She's The Rock" is about a guy who's married to a woman with a shady past. He not only knows about it, but he forgives her for it and defends her to people who bring it up.
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