Something else occurs to me in all this.
Neil points out that the men regress to the primitive, whereas A Woman keeps the dying flame of culture alight. Now, if Wendy will allow me to read an anthropological interpretation into this :-), I'd like to point out that in most societies, or at least Indo-European ones, women are seen as being the ones who are the guardians of culture, as they are the ones who educate the children; among immigrants to the UK, women are initially under a lot of social pressure not to assimilate, regardless of whether or not the men do, because this is usually seen as a situation in which one's culture is under threat.
Now, interestingly enough, in these same cultures, although the women are the guardians of culture, it's the men, specifically the elite men, who guide what the values of that culture are. So, for instance, it's literary professors (most of whom are still male) who determine that Jane Austen is a great writer, even though it's women who pass on this value to the children and ensure that it stays in their society.
Sound a lot like some bird safeguarding the gene banks and some bloke coming along and firing them off?
Fiona
The Posthumous Memoirs of Secretary Rontane Available for public perusal at http://nyder.r67.net
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