Happy Easter everybody

/SB

/SB

Phyllis’s skewed version of women looking for the hypergamy angle is just plain dumb and elementary, its a twisted version of the DNA drive to look for certain biological markers in mates by males and females, sorry to make that sound clinical but markers I look for may not be the markers another woman looks for though they are drives that are biological first and subconscious second, the rest is governed by your world view – and again, hers is skewed by decades of believing her own nonsense without looking out the window at how others live.

They say a sign of maturity is to see any sutuation from different viewpoints other than just your own, she doesn’t pass that test and she’s as old as god, it won’t improve from here…

Luv, Zen Lill

In the original as we know it (French version), Cinderella’s father is still very much alive and pretty much under the heel of his wife (the wicked stepmother, who, with her children, is the epitome of the vulgarity of the 1%).

The entire family is extremely well off, although it is not clear how much money Wicked S brought to the family in the story. Cinderella cares for her father and basically keeps him alive (“Virtue rewarded”), despite the obvious wishes of Wicked S that he should just die and leave her totally free to pursue whatever she chooses–

Mostly she is occupied with finding more rich/titled suckers for her two daughters, but it’s pretty clear that while the girls are indulged and spoiled, Wicked mostly wants them off her hands.

This is satire on the “marrying mommas” of the court, who were obsessed with shoving their daughters into an “advantageous” marriage regardless of what the man himself was like.

To illustrate the lengths to which these women (and their daughters) would go, at the end of the story when the slipper-and-Prince turns up, in the original, one girl cuts off her toes to fit into it, and the other cuts off her heel.

Blackburn would be right at home with Wicked and the Steps, and probably commend them for mutilating themselves to get a good “catch.”

The point of the original story being, there certainly are venal, shallow women out there who would do anything to marry for money or title, but they certainly are not admirable and not to be emulated.

A lot of the story is bound up in this satire, for Wicked despises her daughters, they despise each other, they despise the father and they deeply despise Cinderella–and not one of them is happy.

It is to be noted that in most versions of this story, either Wicked and the Steps are themselves handsome women, or they can disguise their faults by means of dazzling jewels and gowns.

In at least one of the French versions I am aware of, Cinderella actually meets with, does kindnesses for, and talks with the Prince (disguised as a servant) when she is sent for water several times.

But of course, even though she likes him a great deal there is no way Wicked is going to let her marry anyone (and she would, in fact, be marrying down, for love, since the family is wealthy), and she can’t leave her father at the mercy of Wicked.

When the reveal happens (“Hidden Treasure Revealed”) Cinderella is shown to be what she is; the Prince’s equal in wealth (if not rank) and gets her reward for having cared for her put-upon father and for having such a good heart (“Virtue Rewarded”).

The moral of the story is that while beauty is a fine thing to have, it is virtue, that and kindness that are the most valuable. This is especially driven home in the versions in which Cinderella already knows the Prince as a fellow servant.

It’s the Disney version (quelle surprise) that dumbs the whole thing down to “she’s pretty so she deserves to marry up.”