The role of the parents in the Beauty and the Beast-type fairy tales is to provide the plot enough logic for the story to make sense (I get the feeling that we can accept the fact that a handsome prince can be cursed into a dreaded, ugly beast, but we would have a hard time following the story if the "beauty" randomly encountered the beast and stayed with him longer than that split-second of fear without some kind of obligation to him). Some versions, like Beaumont's, accredit the Beauty's devotion to her father and willingness to sacrifice her own life/free will in order to save him. It is only over time that she gets to know the Beast and ends up falling in love with him, or whatever the 18th century equivalent of "true love" was. In "Hans My Hedgehog," the marriage only occurs because the King has already promised his daughter to Hans My Hedgehog in exchange for saving his life.
While this notion doesn't exactly make a lot of sense in today's terms of true love and happily ever afters, the payment of daughters to satisfy a debt isn't necessarily meant to be demeaning. Rather, it is meant to instill the values of self-sacrifice and virtue among the female audience in a time when marriage in the name of love was an unknown concept. If you can't be in love, you might as well narrow your search to those that you "treat you nice" and that you "respect." That's where parents come in, to bridge the gap into these forced interactions.
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I agree that the "Beauty and the Beast" tales must be understood as a product of their historical eras. I think, above all, the tales tried to urge reluctant new brides to find some good in their otherwise unfavorable situation--to see the "prince" inside the "beast."
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