Just Marry and Be Happy

Traditional fairy tales do not share the same view on love and marriage as Americans do today; they teach that marriage is the ultimate goal in life. Because of this, characters typically marry young. Normally their relationships also work out well, even if the couple does not know each other until the day before the marriage. The essential piece in the true love story is the marital act, regardless of age or experience, and always ends in happily ever after. The only love that exists is romantic.

Martine de la Rochere in her, “But Marriage Itself is No Party” points out that fairy tales are so focused on weddings, but not on married life. Here is a list of many examples of fairy tales ending in weddings:

• ·       Disney’s The Little Mermaid
• ·         The Brothers Grimm’s and Disney’s Rapunzel
• ·         Madame LePrince de Beaumont’s and Disney’s Beauty and the Beast
• ·         Charle’s Perrault’s and Disney’s Cinderella
• ·         The Brothers Grimm’s and Disney’s Snow White
• ·         Hans Christian Andersen’s The Princess and the Pea
• ·         Hans Christian Andersen’s Thumbelina

Even so, many fairy tales continue after the wedding, but tell very little of the couple’s life before or after marriage. The main focus is on the actual event of the marriage. Dutheil Rochere, however, disagrees that Charles’ Perrault’s “Sleeping Beauty” follows this pattern. To support her claim, she explains that there is no “true love’s kiss” between the Princess and the Prince. Furthermore, the marriage between the Princess and the Prince takes place halfway through the story, with the remaining part of the story showing trials the couple faces.

“The lack of a romantic kiss in the source text, however, and the fact that the eventual marriage of Sleeping Beauty to the Prince is not without its trials seem to have suggested to Carter that this narrative was not simply an endorsement of saccharine patriarchal romance.” (Rochere 2010)

However, what Rochere does not discuss is the fact that although a “true love’s kiss” does not wake up the Princess, nor any clear act or presence on the Prince’s part, the Princess and Prince marry the very day that they meet, not “eventually” as Rochere puts it. The beginning of the story shows not even a mere acquaintance between the Prince and the Princess before her awakening. After all, the Princess had fallen sleep one hundred years before she and the prince met, long before the Prince was born. Furthermore, the Princess was only about fifteen or sixteen when she was married. To get a better understanding, let us see word for word what Charles Perrault writes about the Prince and the Princess’ first meeting:

“Since the end of the enchantment had come, the Princess woke up, and gazing at him with greater tenderness in her eyes than might have seemed proper at a first meeting, she said: ‘Is that you, my prince?’… the Prince did not know how to express his gratitude and joy, but he told her that he loved her more than himself.” (Perrault 89).

That very day, the Prince and the Princess marry, not only in Perrault’s original version, but in the Grimm Brothers’ and the Twentieth Century North American Drama’s versions as well. Just because there is no magical kiss in the original version, that does not mean there is not excessive romance and lack of a message of any other kind of love.

Furthermore, the “Moral” of the story as given by Perrault himself is the blissfulness of marriage. Essentially, a handsome husband is worth waiting for, but women should still marry young because of the joy it brings.

THE MORAL OF THIS TALE

For girls to wait awhile, so they may wed

A loving husband, handsome, rich, and kind:

That’s natural enough, I’d say;

But just the same, to stay in bed

A hundred years asleep – you’ll never find

Such patience in a girl today.

Another lesson may be meant:

Lovers lose nothing if they wait,

And tie the knot of marriage late;

They’ll not be any less content.

Young girls, though, yearn for married bliss

So ardently, that for my part

I cannot find it in my heart

To preach a doctrine such as this

However, Rochere provides an alternate translation of this moral, which may give a new insight:

The Moral

I

To get a husband rich, genteel and gay,

Of humour sweet, some time to stay,

Is natural enough, 'tis true.

But then to wait an hundred years,

And all that while asleep, appears

A thing intirely [sic] new.

Now at this time of day,

Not one of all the sex we see

To sleep with such profound tranquillity.

II.

But yet this Fable seems to let us know

That very often Hymen's blisses sweet,

Altho' some tedious obstacles they meet,

Which make us for them a long while to stay,

Are not less happy for approaching slow:

And that we nothing lose by such delay.

III.

But warm'd by nature's lambent fires,

The sex so ardently aspires

Of this bless'd state the sacred joy t'embrace,

And with such earnest heart pursus [sic] 'em:

I've not the will, 1 must confess,

Nor yet the power, nor fine address,

To preach this moral to 'em.

(Barchilón and Pettit 57-58)

Then Rochere proceeds to argue that Perrault is actually teaching girls to be patient and endure long engagements. I don’t believe it is clear enough to discern, though. In the last stanza, Perrault expresses the beauty and joy of marriage as something to aspire for. Although the Princess waits one hundred years in a cursed sleep, she still marries the prince after only just meeting him, and she is still only about fifteen or sixteen years old (and Perrault states that it was as if she never aged during her cursed sleep.) If Perrault were encouraging long engagements, he would have included an engagement lasting longer than a day in his story.

As for their married life, the main “trials” that the Prince and Princess face are unrelated to their relationship. The Prince is not even present during them; he is off fighting a war while his mother-in-law, who is part ogress, tries to eat the Princess and her two children. It is a steward who faces this trial with the Princess and her children, not the Prince. The Prince merely shows up at the very end to unintentionally frighten the ogress mother-in-law to her death by his unexpected presence.

https://zoesays.com/tag/sleeping-beauty-wedding-dress/

To better understand Perrault’s purposes, one can also look at his version of “Cinderella.” In this story, the Prince does not even know Cinderella before falling deeply in love, “She [Cinderella] asked them [the stepsisters] the name of the princess, but they replied that no one knew it and that the king’s son was so in love that he would give anything in the world to know who she was.” (Perrault 125). In this passage, the mysterious princess that Cinderella and her stepsisters speak about is Cinderella herself dressed in her gown she received from her fairy godmother. To continue, Cinderella only meets the Prince at two balls, and a few days after their reunion via the glass slipper, they marry. Walter Disney’s movie version, which is based off of Perrault’s, shows only two significant difference towards this message: first, there is only one ball. Secondly, the King is the one who arranges the ball, and he does so in determination to start a family for the Prince.

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/15199717468706431/

 Looking at a fairy tale by another author will broaden the spectra, so one should also consider the Grimm Brothers’ “Rapunzel.” In the original story by the Grimm Brothers, Rapunzel agrees to marry the prince upon just meeting him for the sake of escaping hardship, “Then she lost her fear, and when he asked if she would have him for her husband, she agreed… ‘He will love me better than old Mother Gothel does,’ she said to herself, and she laid her hand in his.” (Amy Ehrlich, 30). She was only twelve years old.

In the Grimm Brothers’ “Snow White,” a young prince meets the seemingly dead Snow White for the first time and instantly falls in love, saying to the dwarves, “Give me the coffin, for I cannot live without Snow White. I will care for her coffin and keep her always as my own.” (Ehrlich 71-72). When Snow White spits up the apple, wakes up, and sees the prince for the first time, the first thing he says to her is, “You are with me. Please stay with me and we shall be married. I love you more than anything on earth.” (Ehrlich 72). The story ends at their wedding.

http://giphy.com/search/snow-white

Hans Christian Andersen also wrote the famous “The Real Princess,” also known as “The Princess and the Pea.” In the original story, the problem presented is that the prince wants a princess to marry. The whole purpose testing the princess’ sensitivity to a pea under twenty mattresses is to determine whether she is a princess and thus fit to be the prince’s royal bride. In the end, the protagonist wins the conflict simply by marrying. Interestingly, there is no account of the princess and prince ever even meeting until the wedding.

Lastly, Madame LaPrince de Beaumont’s original version of “Beauty and the Beast” initially seems to contradict the theme of the single act of marriage being a means to happiness. Beauty actually spends a considerable amount of time in the Beast’s home. She even denies his first few offers of marriage before finally agreeing to marry him. However, her love is focused on the magic of the caste, the galleries, and “precious things.” (Ehrlich 88). When she reminisces, her first thought is how much she misses the castle, not Beast, “But though their fortunes had changed and they were living in the town again their entertainments seemed hollow and Beauty often thought of the castle, where she had been so happy.” (Ehrlich 90-91). Furthermore, the only time Beast ever interacted with Beauty was during dinner time, so the reader gets very little details about their true relationship.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3083969/From-Sleeping-Beauty-Beauty-Beast-Snow-White-Robin-Hood-Disney-s-recycled-animation-scenes-revealed.html

Consequently, traditional fairy tales encourage to seek out romance, the main ingredient to a happy marriage. Children do not learn about the appropriate behaviors before marriage or anything of the trials and joys of married life afterwards. They see fairy tale characters falling in love instantaneously at very young ages and showing no lives of love other than a kiss, a wedding, and perhaps a heroic act to obtain the unknown spouse. Although Rochere believes Perrault’s “Sleeping Beauty” demonstrates family life and and love as something beyond sentimental romance, she ignores that the Prince and Princess still marry the very day they meet and their trials are only adventures between the Princess, her children, and the steward.  Perrault continues to demonstrate the same theme in his “Cinderella”, as well as the Grimm Brothers in their “Rapunzel” and “Snow White.” Although “Beauty and the Beast” seems to contradict this pattern, the contradiction is only superficial. According to traditional fairy tale writers, marriage is nothing more than a blissful act of romance and it always works out.

References:

Ehrlich, Amy, comp. The Random House Book of Fairy Tales. New York: Random House, 1985. Print.

Perrault, Charles, and Betts, Christopher. Complete Fairy Tales. Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press, 2009. ProQuest ebrary. Web. 26 April 2016.

de la Rochère, Martine,Hennard Dutheil. ""but Marriage itself is no Party": Angela Carter's Translation of Charles Perrault's "La Belle Au Bois Dormant"; Or, Pitting the Politics of Experience Against the Sleeping Beauty Myth." Marvels & Tales 24.1 (2010): 131,151,185. ProQuest. Web. 26 Apr. 2016.