Monk

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For what experts say is probably the first time, more American women are living without a husband than with one, according to a New York Times analysis of census results.

In 2005, 51 percent of women said they were living without a spouse, up from 35 percent in 1950 and 49 percent in 2000.

...“This is yet another of the inexorable signs that there is no going back to a world where we can assume that marriage is the main institution that organizes people’s lives,” said Prof. Stephanie Coontz, director of public education for the Council on Contemporary Families, a nonprofit research group. “Most of these women will marry, or have married. But on average, Americans now spend half their adult lives outside marriage.”

-- Sam Roberts for The New York Times

Where is the love, people? Cats cannot be all that satisfying.

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POLYGAMY: Cult or Calling?

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Preparing his roast beef sandwiches and fries for dinner, Monk sees that title banner on CNN's show. He snickers, "More like excessive horniness."

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In China, it seems that even dead men can get lucky. That is pretty depressing. Even smelly, rotting corpses can do better than Monk:

For many Chinese, an ancestor is someone to honor, but also someone whose needs must be maintained. Families burn offerings of fake money or paper models of luxury cars in case an ancestor might need pocket change or a stylish ride in the netherworld.

But here in the parched canyons along the Yellow River known as the Loess Plateau, some parents with dead bachelor sons will go a step further. To ensure a son’s contentment in the afterlife, some grieving parents will search for a dead woman to be his bride and, once a corpse is obtained, bury the pair together as a married couple.

“They happen pretty often, especially when teenagers or younger people die,” said Yang Husheng, 48, a traveling funeral director in the region who said he last attended such a funeral in the spring. “It’s quite common. I’ve been in the business for seven or eight years, and I’ve seen all sorts of things.”

But who handles the divorce if things don't work out? I guess you cannot really complain, all things considered, unless you get one of those straw brides!


(source: Jim Yardley for The NY Times)

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