I ask this question not with the belief that she should have told her husband but just out of curiosity as to why she might not have. But even before that I was wondering if even she knew the consequences of undoing the ribbon. I believe she did know, based on the seriousness of her demands that her husband absolutely not undo the ribbon; however this is up for debate. For this blog post, let’s assume that she did know. If she did, why didn’t she tell him of such grave consequences. My first thought was that she was testing him. She was testing his love and respect for her autonomy. She was familiar with the lack of autonomy that women had with their bodies and wanted to see if the man she loved was different; if he respected her enough to not even ask, not even plead, just respect her boundaries. He clearly failed the test, if it was a test, and wore her down with relentless questioning but I think she had just hoped that he would respect her wishes and chose not to tell him.

My secondary thought was, would her husband believe her? Even if she were to tell him the horrific consequences of undoing the ribbon, there is no way for the husband to know unless the ribbon is untied. Would he stop being persistent about the ribbon? Would he believe her? I am not sure if he would. He might believe her and stop questioning the ribbon. But for how long? He wasn’t always as persistent in knowing about the ribbon until later into marriage, perhaps this pattern would just repeat after she tells him. Or he might blow off such unexpected consequence as an attempt for the narrator  to retain her autonomy through lies.

I think in the end, the husband failed the test, why didn’t she tell him is probably the wrong question. She shouldn’t need to tell him why. The question should be, why didn’t he respect her wishes? Which the author answer through her work. It’s because of the societal patterns in undermining women’s rights, it’s because her husband saw her as more of a possession than an equal partner. He had a choice and his desire for possession of his wife caused a tragic phenomenon.

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