The Most Delicate One

I can't imagine even noticing if one petal from this flower hit my foot.

Salutations, reader! My apologies for the slow updates. I was struck down with the flu. I do not recommend it. Fortunately, I'm all better and ready to look at more fairy tales! This week's story is The Most Delicate One, and it comes to us from Austria. I have to say, I thought I was overly dramatic sometimes, but not compared to the ladies in this story. Happy Women's History Month, right? Click the link above to read the story and continue with me below to analyze it.

This story reminds me a bit of the Princess and the Pea, but this time it's only the prince who wants a delicate wife. His parents just want him to marry someone. They've probably been dealing with him being...particular for a long time. I'm assuming that's why they don't argue. Well, that and they might think he can't find a woman "delicate enough" for him. Let's dig into that a little, shall we?

This prince wants a woman who is so delicate that she can't live a normal life. It's fortunate that he's a prince and not a peasant because he can probably live such a pampered life that his wife would be able to be this delicate and survive. I can't imagine any of the three women in this story living the life of a peasant. They'd be laid up in bed with pain every day and that would be a large liability if they had to work to live. So, this delicate woman has to be rich and do as little as possible. This plays well into the stereotype of a woman who exists to look pretty and make her surroundings pleasant. What better kind of woman to be a queen? Besides, you know, a woman who could actually rule. Then again, I suppose it's possible this delicate woman could be a shrewd ruler. If she wasn't constantly distracted by her aches and pains.

Which brings me to another dimension of this "delicate woman". The women in this story seem to have something medically wrong with them. Obviously, I have no idea what, but we've all had a hair pulled out of our head, or slept on a wrinkle in our sheets, or had something as light as a flower petal hit our foot. I doubt most of us were injured by those things like these women. It's a shame that whatever was wrong with them, they likely didn't get the treatment they needed in that time. Such a life would be very difficult, and I don't envy them at all. I hope they weren't outcasts for their illness.

I have to wonder why the prince wanted a woman who would be in pain all the time. I suppose he didn't think about it like that. He probably just wanted a woman who fit his standards without thinking through what that would mean. We've all had thoughts like this, but hopefully we think it through a little better than he did. Then again, we have no idea what kind of life he and she had after they got married. Let's be optimistic and think it was happy most of the time. And that she never got hit by a flower petal again.

The moral of this story is: if you want a woman made of glass, talk to three miserable looking women, and you'll find her at the end. Alternatively, if you're an incredibly fragile woman, put yourself near a prince in search of a wife and hopefully he'll choose you.

I've referenced Gail Carson Levine before in this blog, but she had a large influence on me learning to love fairy tales as a child. So, I have to talk about her again to recommend her book The Princess Test, which is a delightful retelling of The Princess and the Pea.

Annoyed no one got a name in this story? Have a different moral? Rethinking putting women on a pedestal? Comment below!