Poirot:""Your daddy aint your daddy, but your daddy don't know"."

and that was the punch line, just as in Pynchme's effort. It's interesting that we seem to have glossed over cuckoldry as a society. While there has been a litle focus on it as a result of the advent of DNA parentage testing, it's still not a subject which is discussed much, compared to the alleged wandering proclivities of men (who all require a woman to "wander" with, let's not forget), which I find a little puzzling.

It's the old madonna/whore dischotomy that has been at the heart of our relationship with sexuality for a long time now. As men, we want our women to enjoy sex so we get to do so, but we don't want them to be driven by their desire for it, as we sometimes are.

As women, I suspect that you want your men to see you as above suspicion, since if you are not, it undermines the basis of your essential authority within the home, which is that you carry the next generation for us.

It's gloriously convoluted.

psychophant, keep up the good work!

Antiseptic touches on something I have noticed for many years, when he says men need a woman to "wander" with.

In fact I believe that at there are many more women who wander, than there are men. This observation depends on the fact that the "ladies man" wanderes with a quite large number of women.

This was particularly obvious when I was at school, back in the old days, of course.

I am quite sure that at graduation, there were many more male virgins than there were female. This was all down to just a half a dozen young blokes, who really did understand the ladies. To the virgin blokes, women could have been from an alien race.

A little later, as I started to see some of this, I found it quite funny to watch a change in some of these girls. They would suddenly start mixing in the ranks of the male virgins, then, having selected one, they would take him to bed, & then down the aisle.

The fact that the bloke would think this was all of his doing showed just how naive the average bloke is, when it comes to women.

Heh. Men have been anxious about paternity since before written history - indeed, it's a classic cultural trope about which veritable libraries have been written. For an early Western example just read anything by Aristophanes, but the same hold trues for virtually every society.

Of course, this is precisely the postulated reason why men pretty well universally try and control women through custom and law across cultures and through history. Unfortunately for contemporary men in the developed world, women have largely succeeded in achieving autonomy and equality, just at the point where it's now technologically possible to determine paternity conclusively.

It's quite ironic, really.

CJMorgan:"Unfortunately for contemporary men in the developed world, women have largely succeeded in achieving autonomy and equality"

You think this is unfortunate? Don't tell Severin, will you...

In my view, what's unfortunate is that this wonderful expansion of possibilities for women has been informed and lead and cheered for largely by dysfunctional people who see men as some sort of scary enemy, rather than as a valued and essential partner in life.

It's good to see your expert knowledge of human thought extends so far as to go beyond written history. How do you manage this feat of psychic legerdemain?

hasbeen, I reckon you're spot on. As the old saying goes: man proposes, woman disposes.

"How do you manage this feat of psychic legerdemain?"
By making it up as he goes along.

So Hasbeen and Anti, you are arguing then that women are the strayers and men are the stayers.

That seems to go against any of the other biological and anthropological arguments. How did you come to that conclusion