Beschrijving
Who Can Rule his Wife? (Including the previous Type 1366A*.) This type exists chiefly in four different forms:
(1) A man goes on a journey to discover whether husbands or wives have more power. He takes along two (more) horses (symbols of masculinity) and many eggs (nuts, hens, other symbols of femininity, agricultural products that belong to the female sphere of work). Wherever a husband rules the house, the traveler gives him a horse, and wherever a wife is the master, she receives an egg. There is a great demand for eggs [T252.1].
Finally the traveler finds a man who claims to be master. When this man chooses a horse, his wife contradicts him and he has to settle for an egg.
(2) A ham is offered as a price to any man who does not regret his marriage vow during the following year (and a day), or who can prove that he is not afraid of his wife.
(3) A piece of bacon is hung at the city gate with a written message: “It will go to whichever husband will swear that his wife does not dominate him.” The farmer who claims the bacon refuses to hide it under his smock, because he is afraid of what his wife will say if he gets marks from the fat on his Sunday coat.
(4) A priest asks all the men who consider themselves to be masters of their house to sing the song “Christ Is Risen”. All the men are silent and all the women (only one man) sing.
Or the priest sings the song by himself. The next year, even he is silent, because now he has a housekeeper.
(1) A man goes on a journey to discover whether husbands or wives have more power. He takes along two (more) horses (symbols of masculinity) and many eggs (nuts, hens, other symbols of femininity, agricultural products that belong to the female sphere of work). Wherever a husband rules the house, the traveler gives him a horse, and wherever a wife is the master, she receives an egg. There is a great demand for eggs [T252.1].
Finally the traveler finds a man who claims to be master. When this man chooses a horse, his wife contradicts him and he has to settle for an egg.
(2) A ham is offered as a price to any man who does not regret his marriage vow during the following year (and a day), or who can prove that he is not afraid of his wife.
(3) A piece of bacon is hung at the city gate with a written message: “It will go to whichever husband will swear that his wife does not dominate him.” The farmer who claims the bacon refuses to hide it under his smock, because he is afraid of what his wife will say if he gets marks from the fat on his Sunday coat.
(4) A priest asks all the men who consider themselves to be masters of their house to sing the song “Christ Is Risen”. All the men are silent and all the women (only one man) sing.
Or the priest sings the song by himself. The next year, even he is silent, because now he has a housekeeper.
Motief
T252.1
Commentaar
Documented in the Middle Ages, e.g. Jacques de Vitry, Sermones communes (Jacques de Vitry/Frenken, No. 61). Known as proverbial phrase, “To stand Upon one’s pantoufles”.
Oorspronkelijk Verhaaltype
1375
Subgenre
mop