ABSTRACT
As we all know full well, the beast and the frog almost always get their women. Their stories are engraved in our hearts and minds. Two of the most popular fairy tales in the world, “Beauty and the Beast” and “The Frog Prince,” have developed regular narrative schemes which have outlined the rules of courtship and mating that have evolved in different countries over thousands of years. In the field of folklore these tales have been categorized as tale type ATU 425, “The Search for the Lost Husband,”164 which is a misleading title for a group of tales with subsets that demonstrate how women are more or less coerced into relationships with bestial men. Indeed, men set the rules of mating games in which they woo and copulate with young women to reproduce for their own gain. Marriage is often incidental. Men also set (and continue to set) the narrative schemes that rationalize the manner in which they use power to teach women proper lessons and to dominate them, or if not dominate then persuade them to accommodate themselves to male rules and regulations. The subsets of ATU 425 have titles such as “The Animal as Bridegroom,” “The Son of the Witch,” “Beauty and the Beast,” “The Vanished Husband,” “The Enchanted Husband Sings a Lullaby,” “The Snake as Bridegroom,” and “The Insulted Bridegroom Disenchanted.” The focus is always on the male protagonist as some sort of enchanted animal or reptile, who seeks to appropriate an “appropriate” wife. What the titles do not tell, however, is that these tale types involve a young woman, who is generally forced or obliged by her father or parents to sleep with and wed a revolting bestial male.
