Interesting Male Viewpoint on Bluebeard

Since I am a female, I notice things in the versions of "Bluebeard" that most women notice -- the man was a murderer, the wife discovered his gruesome secret in the forbidden room, Bluebeard was terrrifying, she must get away from him or she will also be murdered. The focus of the story is on Bluebeard, and how crazy and dangerous he was. But one of the guys in our class had a different perspective that I thought was intriguing. He said that the women were only out for Bluebeard's money, and said this as if the wives were in the wrong and maybe even deserved what they got. Instead of disliking Bluebeard and worrying about the wife's safety as most females who read this tale will do, he was concerned about Bluebeard being the victim of gold-diggers! Men seem to be touchy about this subject. I saw an interesting discussion on Oprah back in the summer about gender roles and sexuality. To show how women feel about a man's financial situation, they told about the following experiment. A group of women were shown three pictures of three different guys and asked to rate them in order of attractiveness. This they did, based solely on the guys' looks. Then they (and I think a control group who had not seen the pictures yet) were told what each man did for a living and how much money he made. When the average-looking guy was suddenly a record exec making a six figure income, his attractiveness rating went up. When the physically appealing guy who had rated tops in the beginning was just a store clerk making a bit above minimum wage, his attractiveness to the women in both groups dropped. The guest on Oprah explained that women throughout the ages have looked for the mate that can be the best provider for her offspring. She said that even back in caveman times, the woman would want the highest ranking male who could bring home the biggest piece of meat to feed the family. It is not that women are being mean to think this way, it is programmed into us to desire a man who can be a strong and good provider. It sounds horribly anti-feminist, but I think I agree with this theory presented on Oprah. Even if a man is very good-looking, if I were to find out that he is uneducated and works at a low-paying job, I probably wouldn't be very attracted to him, just based on his looks. But looking back at the Bluebeard story, the woman even found Bluebeard to be very ugly until she started looking at his riches. Then she accepted him. She may have been a bit of a golddigger, because most women would not want a man that they found unattractive, even if he did have money. The guys in the class can rest assured that most women are not out just for their money -- they have to be intelligent, nice, and handsome too. Oh dear, this might make them more worried! But it was interesting to note that the male perspective of the Bluebeard story was quite different.
Next blog I will talk about how the story may point out other male fears.