We kept hearing about how this was a small conservative Catholic town. Both of the families involved attended church every Sunday. The girl's mother was in charge of the Family Values Committee. With all this mind, I would have expected there to be a shotgun wedding. Why was there not?
shareAnd especially from someone like Jesse's father who appears to be a very powerful, rich, and high class lawyer. I'm sure someone like him would be extremely embarrassed to know what his son did to have an illegitimate son. It will hurt his own reputation as a lawyer when everyone knows that he has a illegitimate grandchild from his misbehaving, unlawful (statutory rape as he said) son.
I guess in the end though, Jesse's father transcended traditional values and still forced him to follow the same path as he did by entering college.
On another note, we see that Jesse has found a new girlfriend. Do you think the new girlfriend will dump Jesse once she finds out that he has fathered an illegitimate kid? Well...maybe not because in small, poor towns girls will still suck up to rich men.