Observation on the posted DigiTrad lyrics as performed by Joan Baez:

On one hand, I'd be reluctant to try and read old-school traditional ballad lyrics with eyes sensitized by present-day awareness of abusive behavior.

On the other hand, I think that set of lyrics, as posted, has been pared down a bit too much. The young woman from whom we are getting the story says in stanza four that she's resolved to sleep alone all her life...

...after telling us in stanza one that her mother is in the bed beside her.

At best, this is what writers of prose fiction would call an unreliable narrator (and/or a profoundly mixed message); alternately, the (presumably) abbreviated version has been edited in a way that badly confuses the original intent. Either way, it's less than satisfying from a storytelling perspective.