What Women Want...

an ancient riddle for modern times

Some stories find you when you’re ready to hear them.

There’s one that’s been circling me lately — one I’ve heard before but used to skim over, barely noticing. But now? It’s landed and it won’t let me go.

It begins, as many ancient tales do, with a woman no one wants to look at.

Her name is Lady Ragnell.

She is described as monstrous. Loathsome. A punishment in human form. The kind of woman whose mere presence is seen as a curse. But like so many "ugly" women in myth, she is the one who holds the power.

In the story, King Arthur has been cursed, and his very life depends on answering a single riddle:

What do women most desire?

Being the King, he sends his squires across the kingdom in search of the answer that will save his life. He gathers opinions from noblemen and peasants, ladies and courtiers. He hears beauty, wealth, romance, children, admiration. None are quite right.

Only Lady Ragnell claims to know the true answer. But she offers a bargain: she will only give it if Arthur allows her to marry his most noble knight, Sir Gawain.

Gawain agrees. Willingly. Without hesitation (ok maybe he hesitates a moment). Not because he finds her beautiful, but because he is noble and loyal and that’s what knights do.

And with that, Ragnell gives the answer:

“What women most desire is sovereignty—the right to choose for themselves.”

Arthur speaks the words aloud. The curse is broken. His life is spared.

But the story doesn’t end there.

On their wedding night, Gawain prepares himself for what he expects to be a difficult encounter. But when he turns to her, he finds that she has transformed into a beautiful woman. Relieved and delighted but also confused he asks what has happened to the loathsome lady.

His bride tells him that she has been cursed and must assume her hideous form each day and yet she can be beautiful by day and hideous by night, or the reverse. The choice is his.

Gawain, with the same honor and grace that led him to marry her in the first place, responds: "The choice is yours."

And in that moment, she is freed entirely. She becomes beautiful all the time. Not because of magic, but because someone finally gave her the very thing she desired most:

Sovereignty.

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How many of us arrive at midlife and realize we’re living a life that doesn’t quite feel like our own?

It doesn’t happen all at once. It’s slow. Subtle. Like the proverbial frog in hot water. One compromise here, one performance there. A role accepted because it looked good on paper. A dream deferred because it made sense to someone else. A version of ourselves shaped more by approval than by authenticity.

We wake up with resumes, relationships, routines — and a flicker of grief we can’t name. Not because we failed. But because somewhere along the way, we stopped choosing for ourselves. Or more truthfully, we stopped believing we could choose differently amidst the clamor of voices that need us.

Maybe you haven’t even admitted it aloud yet, but perhaps some part of you feels it. That ache. That quiet rebellion inside. That whisper that says: this doesn’t feel like my life anymore.

And you may tell yourself, "This is not my beautiful house"
And you may tell yourself, "This is not my beautiful wife" The Talking Heads

And then midlife arrives — not always gently — and hands us the riddle again:

What do you most desire now?

And more and more, the answer becomes clear:

To regain choice. To regain agency. To live a life that feels like it’s mine again. Not just beautiful in theory. But honest. Whole. Unapologetic. A life I don’t have to shrink to fit.

But let’s not pretend it’s easy.

To choose ourselves at midlife often means letting go of what made others comfortable. It can mean stepping away from the curated image, the expected identity, the approval we once mistook for love. It can mean feeling, for a time, like we are letting others down.

And that’s the real beauty of the story of Lady Ragnell. It isn’t just a tale about making noble choices — it’s a tale about dignity. About the power that returns to us when we stop asking to be chosen by the world and start choosing for ourselves.

It’s no accident that Gawain was asked to decide: should his bride be beautiful by day (for the world), or by night (for his private comfort)?

How many of us are still living with that choice?

How often have you shaped your life to look good by day — for others to admire — even if it means sacrificing what would bring you joy in the quiet hours?

Maybe Gawain is the part of us trying to do what’s right (he is after all loyal and noble to a fault). And Lady Ragnell is our hidden self, our real self, our self that we may have hidden away thinking she is too ugly for the world to see - and now she is asking: Will you let me choose now?

Maybe that’s what midlife really is — not a crisis, but a conversation. A return. A reckoning … with all of those parts of ourselves that we deemed too ugly and who are no longer willing to be silenced.

Because what women most desire isn’t perfection, or permission, or praise.

What we desire is to belong fully to ourselves.

And when we are given the freedom to choose? We become something luminous.

Not because we are finally seen as beautiful.

But because we no longer have to split ourselves in two.