Even still in today's male-dominant society, it wasn't a matter of
men forcing themselves on the women, but the women making themselves
available (or unavailable). If you watched PBS lately you would have
seen this also: How the dominant male of the tribe gets the girl
until the girls get tired of him. Then they shun him and he becomes a
"poor little rich boy"------snip----The dominant male (he-man) gets
used. He thinks it's his
children he is fathering but it isn't.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
That would have been an interesting show to watch.
I remember watching "Untamed World" when I was about seven and I would
take notes because I had this fanatic love for popular science tv. I
used to dress up as a scuba diver and pretend to be Jaques Cousteau
exploring the Great Barrier Sofa....( if you pull your socks until they
are almost off, they make excellent flippers.)
*nostalgia mode off*
I recently watched a rerun of Untamed World and was absolutely shocked
at the tripe.
(paraphrasing) The dominant male hunts for food for his wife and
children... The female of the species is normally placid and docile
unless her children are threatened- then she becomes a force to be
reckoned with... The noble lions feast on their kill while the cowardly
scavengers lurk on the periphery...
It became clear that the popularity of these shows had to do with their
1960's prime time family hour values. I won't even go into how the show
portrayed "primitive societies". Suffice to say this episode on India
featured a hindu trance dancer (photgraphed in the most unflattering
way) with the voice over saying something like "these people cling to
superstitious beliefs that stand in the way of western progress"
Gaaaaa! >:p
The reason why I point this out is-- it would have been interesting to
see the PBS show you mentioned and look at it for its central value. I
find television science to be... television... first and foremost. It
constructs nature in much the same way as 90210. My suspicion is that
the documentary actually had little to do with the marital practices of
other cultures, but everything to do with sexual harassment cases in the
U.S.
-- Regards +--------------------------------------------------------------------+ Ken Pantheists http://www.lucifer.com/~kenpan +--------------------------------------------------------------------+