Madame de Beaumont's Beauty and Cinderella

While reading the "Beauty and the Beast" fairy tale by Madame de Beaumont, it was interesting to compare her tale to the story of Cinderella, particularly the female characters. Both stories start out with a wealthy man that has a very pretty daughter. (Beauty had five other siblings, and her two sisters end up being very much like the two ugly stepsisters in "Cinderella." )
Something happens either to the father's wealth or his life that leaves the family destitute. In both stories, the beautiful daughter makes the best of the situation and keeps a good attitude. Beauty gets up at 4:00 everyday to start making breakfast and cleaning the house. Cinderella also worked all day to keep the house clean and serve her step mother and step sisters. Beauty had two selfish sisters who stay in bed until late and do not help her with the chores. They complain about the loss of their father's wealth and do nothing to help. Cinderella had two mean step sisters who also do nothing to help around the house, but instead they complain and order Cinderella around. During each of these two stories, the pair of sisters or step sisters become very jealous of the beautiful sister and try to undermine her success. In the end, the mean sisters or step sisters get what they seemingly deserve in both tales. In Grimm's version of Cinderella they get their eyes plucked out by birds, in other versions they die. In "Beauty and the Beast" the sisters are turned into statues by the fairy because of the malice that was in their hearts. That is another similarity; both stories have a helpful fairy that can do magical things.
However, even though it is fun to look at all these similarities between the two tales, it is most interesting to realize the possible message sent by these portrayals of women. They may be saying that beauty on the outside equals beauty on the inside, and that you can judge a book by its cover. Further, that selfish, hateful people are generally not attractive and don't succeed in the end. Notice that both of our female heroines in these tales were kind, gentle, hardworking, and good, as well as being very beautiful. This idea of the outside telling you about the inside was prevalent in the Middle Ages. For example, people with leprosy were thought to be bad, immoral people. Since these fairy tales were written down from old oral tradition, they may have been started at a time in history when people held this belief. I do not think this theory is true today when some of the actors and actresses of our time are physically attractive but not necessarily very good people.