What is the reason for the prevalence of the “evil stepmother” trope?
In: Other
There’s not THE reason, but it emerged as a consequence of a few tendencies:
* Mothers die. Childbirth wasn’t safe until, like, yesterday.
* Stepparents are, statistically, more dangerous to children than birth parents. Before you get mad (and I realize it’s too late), I’m not saying stepparents are dangerous. They are not. The vast majority are harmless; they are just less harmless than biological parents. This is actually called the Cinderella Effect. The wiki article about it explains it and has some evidence, but I’ll post one here: *Based on data gathered from the Australia National Coroners’ Information System, stepchildren under five years of age are two to fifteen times more likely to experience an unintentional fatal injury, especially drowning, than genetic children*
* The sense of transgression is much worse when “the call is coming from inside the house.” It’s just more heinous to harm someone you’re supposed to help than random violence (and in the past, random violence was a given).
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