Unlike even with Cinderella, in which recognition pays a role, and Beauty & The Beast (of course) where the relationship itself is on the line, in the listed tales the relationship is the excuse for the action rather than the action feeding the relationship.
It's rather like chick lit. The relationship IS
the container for shoe shopping, conversations with friends, family
interventions, exiles and slogging travels.
Likewise, the Goose Girl provides us with fights, stolen identities, dead animals, stalking (inappropriate) suitors, and spying before the couple ever gets together. The father in Davenport's film appears to do most of the work!
Rapunzel gets the couple together rather early, but that's simply an excuse for blinding, babies being born in exile and other highly dramatic events.
However, I can't help but wonder: The "prince" pretends to a peddler and takes the "haughty princess" to live in a hovel, where she has to learn how to "make do." If she really does adjust to life in the hovel, might she just possibly wish
herself back there? Once she makes the leap--Here's my new role. Hey, I
can do this!--might she prefer to put her newfound skills to the test?
Nobody
likes to be poor. But if the point is simply to make her suffer,
rather than to grow, the tale comes across as somewhat sadistic. And if
the point is for her to grow, why would she want to stop?
The
husband just might wake up one morning and find that she went off with
another peddler, took over his business, and set up in the next
town.
After all, tales about weddings are often...about something else.
