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Animal as Bridegroom

Typology of Beauty and the Beast

  • 16 min read
  • 3 chapters

Related on Lably

Through Feminism and Totem

Overview

As consequence of the surge in folktale collecting and the beginnings of folkloristics as a discipline in the 19th century, scholars and folktale collectors compared many versions of "The Animal as Bridegroom" to the tale of Cupid and Psyche.

Folklore scholar Stith Thompson clarified that the animal bridegroom may have been born due to its parents' wishes, or alternates between human and animal shapes. Some tales have the animal son court a princess, but her father demands a brideprice for her.

In some versions, the father surrenders his daughter as his ransom. In others, it is the mother who delivers or promises her daughter(s) to the monster, and it is also by the mother's insistence that the heroine breaks the taboo on her husband: the human heroine must not see him at night, or she must not reveal his true nature to her relatives.

Interpretations

The theme invites all sorts of scholarly and literary interpretations.

Scholar Jack Zipes describes these tale types as a mate selection wherein the human maiden is forced to marry an animal bridegroom as per the insistence of her family or due to her fate. In another work, Zipes writes that, in these tales, the supernatural husband (in animal form) goes through a process of civilizing himself, whereas to the human spouse it represents an initiatory journey.

Researcher Barbara Fass Leavy cited that these tales are interpreted under a feminist reading, which "applauds" the will of the main heroine, in contrast to passive heroines like Snow White and Sleeping Beauty. Leavy, as well as scholar Wendy Doniger, also stated that the "Animal Bridegroom" is the male counterpart of the "Swan Maiden" - both types referring to a marriage between a human person and a mythical being.

Richard MacGillivray Dawkins suggested that its endurance as a myth and a folktale was due to the story "reflect[ing] ... much of the relations of man and wife."

To Donald Ward, type 425 is, on the one hand, an erotic story, the union between divine male sexuality and mortal female virginity, but, on the other hand, also a tale of "love, devotion, and willingness to sacrifice". Similarly, Wendy Doniger sees, in this cycle of tales, a contrast or a "tension" between "the human and the superhuman" (since the animal bridegroom may possess great powers), and between "the animal and the divine".

James M. Taggart stated that these tales underlie a "metaphorical [...] gender division of labor in courtship and marriage": while men take the active role in courtship, and women assume a more passive role, the latter are slotted into a role with "more responsibility" in maintaining the marital status (represented by the trials and ordeals they suffer in these tales).

In her book Off With Their Heads! Fairy Tales and the Culture of Childhood, in the chapter about animal husbands and the human women who marry them, scholar Maria Tatar concludes that the heroine of these tales is part of a complex set of actions and emotions. For instance, Tatar interprets the episode of Psyche's betrayal of Cupid identity (and, by extension, all other heroines and their animal husbands) as a contrast between the heroine's seeking greater intimacy and knowledge of her husband, and her existent attachments to her family - which causes the separation episode.

A line of scholarship (e.g., Charles Fillingham Coxwell, Boria Sax, James Frazer, Viera Gašparíková) associates human-animal marriages to ancient totem ancestry.

Another line of scholarship describes these tales as an initiatory journey for both parties: the husband becomes an animal or wears an animal skin as part of his marriage initiation, while the human wife burns his animal skin and begins her own quest to find her husband as part of hers.

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