What with women now outnumbering men in higher education about 60:40, it certainly seems that the writing is on the wall for the patriarchal age.
So this report on mating customs in an island off Guinea-Bissau by Rukmini Callimachi has some salience, as the social scientists say.
On this remote island the women chose their mates. Have done since the dawn of time.
In this archipelago of 50 islands off the western rim of Africa, it’s women, not men, who choose. They make their proposals public by offering their grooms-to-be a dish of distinctively prepared fish, marinated in red palm oil.
It’s unthinkable to refuse. Anyway, why would you want to? But the fish ritual certainly gives a renewed power to the old wives tale that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.
Listen to this old codger. Before his wife to be offered him a plate of fish,
"I had no feelings for her," said Nananghe, now 65. "Then when I ate this meal, it was like lightning. I wanted only her."
Well girls, what do you think of that?
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