Percy Weasley had a forced smile on his face as he looked over the assembled crowd. Although he was still only the Minister's Assistant, a fact which he was quite annoyed at, Rufus had trusted him to give this Very Important Address, an Address that would Reform The British Wizarding World while the good minister was attending a symposium in Vietnam.
At this point, though, Percy "Weatherbee" almost wished he hadn't been delegated this Important Responsibly. Press releases had been given to some of the Prophet reporters who could be trusted to keep their mouths shut. In theory, notes should have been owled to every reporter, as the Prophet had been more-or-less under the Ministry's control since the then editor-in-chief Cindrae Rowle killed the son of then-minister Reoulf Dearborn in 1799. However, in recent years they had begun to struggle against the chains that had held them for so long, and some of the writers had even started to print anti-Ministry statements! Percy himself was disgusted at their audacity, but he had been told in no uncertain terms that he was to leave the Centaur Liaison Office, the front for making sure England's finest magical newspaper stated only preapproved propaganda, alone.
Due to the aforementioned press releases, reporters had been hovering around the Ministry since it opened at nine. At first, Percy was happy to answer their questions, being the next-best thing to the Fudge himself, as the Senior Undersecretary was in St. Mungos due to a bad case of Red-Leg. The way they quickly scribbled down his replies on parchment made him feel very important. It was a nice feeling.
Soon, though, they started asking things which made him feel…very uncomfortable. Things like, "Don't you think some of Minister Fudge's constituents will leave due to this?" and "Is this even legal?" He had to make up something on the spot to get them to go away, and what he came up with was "I am not authorized to tell you that." Weatherbee knew they'd be suspicious considering what else he had said, but if they got beyond anything but notions he'd do a little off-the-job problem-fixing and bribe someone from Centaurs to take care of it.
As he saw the good purebloods in front of him, waiting to hear what he had to say, all his issues with the whole thing slowly melted away like a Popsicle during a hot summer day. Here he was, on the same stage countless Ministers and other important officials had given all sorts of talks and lectures, including the (in?)famous 1953 announcement by Albus Dumbledore that, following an agreement by every ICW Mugwump except that of Iran, Flying Carpets were illegal in all member states. This was also the stage where new ministers gave their victory speeches and were sworn in, and where old ministers gave speeches about how awesome the new minister was, even if during the entire campaign he had spent every last second extolling the virtues of himself and saying the person who eventually won was a greedy Dark-Lord wannabe who would eat your children for breakfast and your grandmother for dinner. So naturally Percy was very excited.
He cleared his throat, and began to speak. "Good witches and wizards of Great Britain, I thank you all for coming here today. Our numbers, as many of you may know, are dwindling. At one time, we had as many as 50,000 wizards amongst us. Now, the number is closer to 25,000. In London alone, which does have some magical families but is mostly muggle, there are 8 million people alone. If all of them took up arms, what would happen to us? Intelligence reports indicate that particular scenario is highly unlikely, but the precedent is still there. We need more wizards, and we need them fast. To deal with this, Minister Fudge, Senior Undersectary Delores Umbridge, several distinguished Wizengamot members and myself, have created a piece of legislature that shall resolve this problem. I now present to you: the Matrimonium Pactum Lex, a law that will make sure we have as many wizards in England as muggles have themselves!" At this statement, some of the more educated members of the audience frowned. Matrimonium Pactum Lex translated in Marriage Agreement Law, and with that sort of title…well, you could see fairly easily where this was going.
Percy paused for applause. There was none. Half of his brain, the power-hungry part, was screaming, "WHY AREN'T THEY APPLAUDING MY…ER…OUR BRILLIANCE?" The rational part of his brain told him that he hadn't given enough information. For once he listened to the rational part, so he continued. "In this new law, each of-age witch or wizard of reproduction age is required to marry another socially-appropriate witch or wizard, so th…" Whatever he was going to say was cut off by an angry pureblood, who yelled, "What about pre-existing betrothals and engagements and marriages! You can't break those up! I don't care what so-called authority you've got!"
Percy gave him another forced smile. "Of course, good sir, we will not break up marriages, betrothals, engagements, and other official relationship agreements, as this would not only break our laws but also the laws created by the Monarchy of England."
Actually, nobody involved in drafting the legislature really cared what the Monarchy of England, especially as a random Muggleborn plucked from the street had told Delores under Veritaserum that the current Monarch was a "corgi-loving old lady, although her army can do some pretty mighty things." Unfortunately for Fudge, said Muggleborn was Irish and Delores was not a big fan of those with dogs, magical or not.
Speaking of Mudbloods, the whole thing was designed to be un-fair to them. At first, Fudge suggested everyone 17+ and under -60 without children would have to participate, but some clever wrangling and judicious use of Imperio's on the part of one of those distinguished Wizengamot members, namely Lucius Malfoy, had gotten him to agree that only those single would be forced into marriage with an unknown. This appeared innocent enough your Joe Doe would be fooled; I mean, what sort of government would break up a loving, sanctimonious, bond between a witch and a wizard? In reality, though, it was for a much more nefarious purpose: subjugation of mud bloods and the poor. Most rich purebloods had arranged betrothals for their young children at an early age. Occasionally, a half-blood or muggle-born would create one of these for their son or daughter, and even, in very rare cases, a muggle who was related to a witch or wizard and had found out before age eleven their child was magical would create one with a known parent in the same situation.
However, it was generally only rich purebloods. Muggleborns and half-bloods with a muggle-born or muggle parent usually found the practice barbaric. The un-educated didn't want to fill out the forms. Sadly, in the Wizarding World the stereotype of those without being dumb often rang true. The Weasleys were a prime example. They weren't hated, per se, but most regarded them as "country bumpkins", even their neighbours, the Diggorys and the Fawcetts (Nobody had bothered to ask what a Lovegood thought in several hundred years). Some of them-Percy himself being a prime example-had worked to get out the rut they were in, but almost all were content with minor Ministry jobs with low pay.
And if there was anything more than muggles that people like Lucius Malfoy hated, it was the poor and the stupid. He had inherited a large fortune but due to shrewd investment skills managed to expand it twofold, and the common thought was that if one was wizard could do something, why couldn't all?
So the Ministry was looking forward to being able to force all the unmarried mud bloods and halfbloods into marriages with stupid purebloods without twelve knuts to their name and make them have children.