This short story is fate themed, which includes a beautiful young princess of a semi-barbaric king falls in love with a young prince. The king didn’t like this so he implemented his “justice system” on the prince. He believed in fate and justice , so fate would decide what happened, but would it?
To math geeks, this is just probability , fifty fifty chance. Yet, back then, it was fate, (because people were slow in the head). Anyway, the kings “system” accommodated of a beautiful, young maiden (not the princess, but the most beautiful girl in the empire), and a hungry, vicious tiger. He would summon the prince in front of two doors, one was the maiden, and the other the tiger.
If the prince were to get lucky and chose the maiden, he was forced to marry her. If you got the tiger, it would rip you apart and eat you alive. My sentiment towards this would be, get lucky and suffer for about 3 seconds, or get hunted down and POSSIBLY die.
This means, you pick the tiger and die a painful, bloody death, or you pick the maiden and get your girlfriend or wife to come after your head. Basically, it sucks both ways. Also, you might not like the maiden, she may be beautiful and all, but her personality is what really matters.
There is an advantage to getting killed by the tiger, it will be a quick, but painful death. The alternative would be your wife torturing you with Chinese water torture ( developed by the Chinese, it sucks, search it up). Although there is a slight chance you can get away without getting hunted down by your wife, whereas the tiger kills you 100% of the time.
Also, people might have not considered the fact that, even if you die from the tiger, you die with loyalty to your wife and her family. That is a happy thought. Alas, when you marry the maiden, you betray your family and your ex-wife’s family.