Can’t remember if I’ve said here before, but I’ve long thought that the “point” of the wicked step-mothers in so many stories was to be a warning all around:
- To husbands: that they might think about how it affects their child(ren) when they remarry
- To the women: that they would grow an antipathy for the injustice they hear in the stories
- To the young girls: so they would understand that things could always be worse than with the mother they were born to.
This is very true!
I think I was one of the young girls who needed to understand that. My parents were strict. This made me laugh though, cuz I thought of all the young girls who need to know it.
Funny! Never thought about it before – but how true!