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Old June 13th, 2013 #5
Alex Linder
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Join Date: Nov 2003
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Quote:
One of the sure signs that this is Spain is the number of young married women who have allowed themselves to get fat. On my first night in Badajoz, I estimated that Spanish women of thirty years and older weighed about twenty pounds more than American or French women of comparable age and social background. I commented on this to a Spaniard, and he said approvingly, 'It's one of the most beautiful sights in Spain. To sit in the plaza at dusk and watch the fat married women roll by with their husbands and children. It's beautiful because in Spain, once a woman is married, she never again has to fight the dinner table. She has her man and nothing on earth can take him away from her, so she doesn't give a damn how fat she gets. In Spain there's no divorce and her children cannot be taken away nor her home either. She's safe. Of course, her husband will probably take a mistress. Three-fourths of the fine Spanish gentlemen you've been meeting and enjoying so much have mistresses. But they'd have them whether their wives were slim or fat. So our women eat and love their children and go to the movies and gossip and put their faith in the Church, and to hell with dieting, and you won't find a more contented group of women in the world.'
[from Iberia, by James Michener, 1968, p. 51]

[significance: the ultimate contrast with our no-fault divorce culture in USA 2013]

Last edited by Alex Linder; June 13th, 2013 at 11:23 AM.