(no subject)

[iniquiticity]

Anonymous asked
After reading the latest greenhouses chapter (which was wonderful as always) I started wondering if Washington would let Alex leave him, divorce him, if Alex really wanted to? I'm just wondering how far he would go for his duty, since it will always come first. And would a divorce make the public view Washington in a bad light or would Alex be the one to be blamed for it?

so this was covered very briefly a lot earlier in the story but there are a variety of reasons why washington would never consider divorce:

1. it doesn’t look good for him if he gets divorced after he spent so long being unmarried. it’s basically proving everyone who thought he was a wierdo who would never be able to get married…. correct. like he tried and failed at this thing, and that’s not the place he wants to be.

2. in some ways hamilton’s viciousness represents a threat (not just to his reputation by shit-talking jefferson, but also as a person who washington’s allowed himself to be vulnerable to), and them being married does in some way allow him to analyze, mitigate, and deal with that threat. basically it’s like you’re probably going to shit-talk your company more once they lay you off.

3. the divorce would be catastrophic for hamilton, because washington is of course known as someone who is super considerate, thoughtful, famous, kind, a fucking hero, etc etc. and hamilton wasn’t super marriageable before this, but now he would be WORSE. and while HE might think that’s advantageous, even if washington’s reputation maintained SOME hit from the divorce, no one would ever really want to deal with hamilton in any significant manner that hamilton would want to deal with. anyone normally in washington’s side would be like “fuck you, i am not using your service,” and of course washington’s enemies would be too busy mocking both of them in the press and wouldn’t give him any business.

4: regarding 3), remember that alex is nominally phillip schuyler’s kid, so if the divorce is tantamount to failure, then phillip schuyler looks pretty bad as “adopted this guy and he was completely uncontrollable and not even general washington could deal with him.” like, phillip + washington are allies, and divorcing alex would also damage phillip schuyler and washington would not do that.