A LEGEND WITH A MODERN MORAL

By Edwin Cooney

A few days ago, someone sent me a delightful story with a modern moral. It was about the legendary Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. Here is the story:

One day, the young King Arthur is captured and imprisoned by knights from another land. So handsome, charming and wise is youthful Arthur that, rather than executing him, the foreign potentate only conditionally sentences him to death. Arthur is allowed to return to his court for one year so that he might have sufficient time to answer the age-old question: “What does a woman really want?”

On the last day of the year, having exhausted all the wisdom in his kingdom, Arthur faces reality. He must consult the wicked, ugly, smelly witch who will demand that he pay her price before answering his inquiry! Her price is the hand in marriage of Sir Lancelot, the handsomest and most noble knight of Arthur’s round table. So gallant is Sir Lancelot that he agrees to sacrifice his freedom for marriage to this horrid female so that King Arthur’s life might be spared.

As you can guess, the old witch answers the question and marries Sir Lancelot. When his wedding night arrives, Lancelot is stunned to find in his bed not a smelly old witch, but a beautiful princess. While assuring him that she is really who she says she is, the once horrid witch says that since he was so kind to her, she would be her ugly self only half the time. She asks her new husband what half of the day he’d like to have her be beautiful and what half of the day she can go back to being the horrid wicked witch she has always been. When he responds that it’s up to her, she vows that since he’s willing to let her take charge of her own life, she’ll be eternally beautiful -- just for him.

So, we are assured that what a woman wants, more than conveniences or riches (and, you can be sure, much more even than any man!) is to be in charge of her own life.

Of course, one of the things men and women have in common is the reality that none of us is absolutely in charge of our lives, that situations exist in both society and nature that cause us to respond to rather than to direct life. Nevertheless, women progressives’ emphasis on women’s separateness too often appears that they’re anxious to rob both sexes of what they need most -- intimate romance!

No person, regardless of the depth of intimacy or the length of marriage, possesses another person. Telling someone that you are theirs or that you belong to them doesn’t make you their property. Any man who expects a woman to deny her personhood isn’t seeking a partner, he’s taking a prisoner and he ought to be arrested.

Historically, men have had a financial, legal and even physical advantage over women. Much of that advantage has been inherited from yesteryear when human survival was largely dependent on physical brawn. Humans being human, the physically fit who chopped down the trees, built the cabins and castles and hunted the deep dark forests for animals to feed and clothe the fair gender, naturally became dominant when it came time to establish societies with legal and moral standards.

At our worst, we men, whom I suspect are much weaker emotionally than women, too often become “bully boys” rather than real men when women don’t respond in a way that meets our needs. I’m not at all surprised when middle-aged women who have helped husbands get through college, supported the exacting demands of husbands’ professions and have occasionally suffered both physical and emotional abuse, decide not to remarry if they are abandoned or widowed. Why should they want to? As I see it, the woman who possesses sufficient energy to be romantic at middle age is worth her weight in gold.

Lest this male appear to be belittling his gender, I now turn to the best in men and (oddly enough) we find it implied in our modern legend.

Notice that Arthur is allowed to return home for one year to find the answer to the question put to him by his captor. How could that be?

The answer is because Arthur is a man of honor. Men of honor keep their word to their ladies and even to their enemies. Hence Arthur, being the man he is, would return to tell the potentate that he hadn’t found the answer to his inquiry “What do women want?” and would face his punishment.

What the story implies but doesn’t say is that Arthur did return and offered his captors and potential executers the answer to the puzzle. Arthur knew that really wise and honorable men of every land benefit most when their ladies feel supported and appreciated for their personhood.

Finally, even if Arthur returned and told the foreign potentate that what a lady wanted most was diamonds, even if he then went to his execution, he would have known that his land was under the capable guidance of Sir Lancelot who did know what a woman really wants!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY