Farm Horse or a Fancy Horse

This particular line comes from the beginning of Fanny Fern’s, Folly As It Flies. While having a discussion with a man, Fern begins to explain the unreasonable demands that men make of women. She achieves this point by comparing how men select a wife to how they would select a horse. Fern states that a man could choose a farm horse which is less aesthetically pleasing, yet wholly functional, or he could choose an ornamental horse which is beautiful, but ill-conceived for hard labor. This metaphor shows that a man should not expect a picturesque trophy wife to be as able at hard work, just as he would never expect an ornamental horse to serve him by plowing fields. The use of animals is also done to compare how men are more readily able to understand a spouse as property rather than humans, a tone which is found throughout the piece.

Tyson Ramirez