Warning: reading too much Cinderella to your daughter may damage her emotional health in later life.
A paper to be delivered at the international congress of cognitive psychotherapy in Gothenburg next month suggests a link between the attitudes of women abused by their partners and early exposure to the wrong sort of fairytales.
It says girls who identified with Cinderella, Rapunzel and Beauty in Beauty and the Beast were more likely to stay in destructive relationships as adults.
The theory was developed by Susan Darker-Smith, a psychotherapist and masters student at the University of Derby. She interviewed 67 female abuse survivors and found that 61 put up with serial abuse because they believed they could change their partner with patience, compassion and love.
Hardly any of the women in a control group, who had not experienced abuse, thought they could change a partner in this way. The same view was taken by male survivors who had been abused as children. These women and men said they would leave a relationship rather than put up with abuse from a partner.
Ms Darker-Smith looked further into the differences between the groups and found the abused women were much more likely to identify with Cinderella and other submissive female characters in fairytales, who were later rescued by a strong prince or hero. Although most girls heard the stories, damage appeared to be done to those who adopted the submissive characters as role models.
"They believe if their love is strong enough they can change their partner's behaviour," she said yesterday. "Overexposure in childhood to stories that emphasise the transformational qualities of love may make women believe they can change their partners."
For example, they might never have understood the obvious flaw in the story of Rapunzel, who remained locked in a high tower until rescued by a knight on a white horse, who broke the door down. The question, said Ms Darker-Smith, is why she did not break the door down herself.
She acknowledged that the size of her interview sample was not large enough to draw definitive conclusions. But her study is being treated seriously enough for discussion at the congress by the world's most influential therapists.
Ms Darker-Smith's advice to parents was to carry on reading to their children, but choose a variety of role model, including Pocahontas, the adventurous native American heroine. Thomas the Tank Engine and Paddington Bear were also suitably unsubmissive.
Older girls could usefully identify with the bright independence of Hermione in the Harry Potter series and the sparky Sabrina the Teenage Witch.
Ms Darker-Smith said younger generations exposed to television and other entertainment media might react differently and be less submissive than those weaned solely on literature.
Margaret Smith, who runs the Prevention of Domestic Abuse Centre at Derby, said: "It is an excellent study for others to research further. We learn about ourselves and how we relate to others through stories in childhood. "If we hold these beliefs deeply enough, and have submissive personalities as adults, it can be difficult to break away from destructive relationships."
The theory was regarded more sceptically by Kim Reynolds, professor of children's literature at Newcastle University. "We have heard these arguments about fairytales since the 1970s, particularly from feminist critics," she said. "It is far too simplistic to say that girls who grow up reading fairytales with submissive characters will themselves become submissive."