This is exactly the kind of question that usually makes me feel like
throwing a classic storyteller’s hissy fit; yet here I am asking it.
People usually think of “all stories” in terms of the classic fairy tale
canon, the list of tales solidified by years of telling and re-telling, and
also by Disney. You know the ones I am talking about. Even when you are a
storyteller with long years of experience, your brain automatically jumps to
Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, or Little Red first, just like when someone throws
a ball at you and you use your dominant hand to catch it. It’s the way most of
us is Western culture are wired when it comes to fairy tales.
Usually, when people ask big general questions like the one above, the
Trickster in me jumps up and goes off collecting tales to torpedo it into
oblivion. In my philosophy, there is a folktale out there for everything, even
the most unlikely of life situations, because stories are a reflection of
things people think about often and long. Life-changing events such as birth,
death, love, marriage etc. are the most common examples. So, when someone comes
up to me and asks “Why is marriage always the end of the story?” my first
instinct is to answer: “Not always.”
With that said, the tales most often told do little to nothing to
prepare anyone for life after marriage.
Marriage, more often than not, IS the end of the story. It’s the
ultimate goal. They won, they got married, they lived happily ever after.
Curtain, credits, copyright note, no animals were harmed, and not even a bonus
scene in the end for the fans.
What does this tell to children who hear these stories over and over
again, I wonder? That marriage equals the end of story, for one. No more dragons,
no more adventures, no more exploring the world. The End. Game over. The only
thing that comes after is happiness, forever and ever (or, in the case of
Hungarian tale ending formulas, happiness until they die.)
But what if they were not happy ever after? Shhh. We don’t talk about
that. If you are not happy, you bet on the wrong prince. Or princess. The whole
thing is botched from the start. You just gotta wait for the One to show and
save you.
Of course, there are folktales that talk about problems within married
life. Most of them talk about not having a child. But it is usually the
beginning of someone else’s tale (usually the child’s). Some of them, like
selkie legends, tell you how you will lose your freedom to a significant other.
That is, in the end, just another version of “game over.”
As a storyteller, one has to know the context these tales come from: in
terms of marriage and happiness, it was a very different time. The idea that
connects romantic love to marriage is a fairly new one, and far from universal
even today. The idea of getting married and coming into one’s power is often
connected – even the latest progressive Disney movie, The Princess and the
Frog, ends with a common girl transformed into a princess through marrying a
prince (sorry for the spoliers). Merida, everyone’s new favorite Mary Sue, only
gets away without “game over” because she refuses to marry at all.
So, what message are we sending when we solely rely on these stories to
determine the “fairy tale canon?” That marriage is a terrible thing? I would
argue that not even that. What happens after the fairy tale wedding is a large
white spot on our mental map, a “here be dragons” uncharted territory, and
folk- and fairy tales that have held our hand through all the adventures of
parent-child relationships, brotherhood, sisterhood, coming of age and
courtship, stop at the border and toss us forward into oblivion without as much
as a hand-drawn road map. Figure it out for yourselves, guys.
I am NOT saying that there are absolutely no folktales about married
couples. Actually, there is a LOT of them. I am saying we don’t hear them
enough.
Someone should compile a list.
(By the way, the illustration above is from the Persian manuscript of Nizami's Haft Paykar, the tale of the Seven Wise Princesses. The Yellow Princess from Greece tells one of the best marriage-negotiation stories I have ever read. Because Nizami is amazing, that's why.)
Posts
