I do know there is an amazingly large gap of time between the Grimm tale's origins and the Victorian understanding
Actually, that's not true. The Grimm boys were contemporaries of the Victorians, and though they actively promoted the idea that the stories they collected were ancient and unadulterated tales going back to Ancient Times[TM, the truth is that they edited and rewrote them quite heavily, because they had a political agenda to end Germany's current political system (They started out studying the roots of German law, and that led to a study of the German language, and that led to an interest in German legends and "household tales"). And they marketed their collection of stories quite heavily (for the time) as a way to spread their ideas of "Proper German Virtues" to the upper middle class people, whose support they would need to bring about those political changes. And part of the "Good German Values" they wanted to promote was strict gender roles between the sexes.
(It's one of the reasons, after I learned this history, that I no longer feel like I'm "Corrupting the originals" when I sot down to rewrite them, to express my own values. If they could do it, I can, too!)
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Actually, that's not true. The Grimm boys were contemporaries of the Victorians, and though they actively promoted the idea that the stories they collected were ancient and unadulterated tales going back to Ancient Times[TM, the truth is that they edited and rewrote them quite heavily, because they had a political agenda to end Germany's current political system (They started out studying the roots of German law, and that led to a study of the German language, and that led to an interest in German legends and "household tales"). And they marketed their collection of stories quite heavily (for the time) as a way to spread their ideas of "Proper German Virtues" to the upper middle class people, whose support they would need to bring about those political changes. And part of the "Good German Values" they wanted to promote was strict gender roles between the sexes.
(It's one of the reasons, after I learned this history, that I no longer feel like I'm "Corrupting the originals" when I sot down to rewrite them, to express my own values. If they could do it, I can, too!)