Ah, ok. In Germany it is the other way round!

[Daphne – Yes, and over here in Malta it is women who work who are disparaged and looked down upon. In fact, only yesterday I watched an episode of a soap opera on the Labour Party’s TV station Super One, and this woman was asked by her factory manager to go to Dubai (if she would) to run their new operation there, with provision made for her family – housing, schooling, etc. When she broke the news to her husband, he went nuts, played the martyr and drama queen, called her names, accused her of thinking only of herself, and when she stuck to her guns and said that she would go anyway, he told her that he would not allow her to take the children. She went, a nanny was organised, the nanny was a lovely mothery type not like the nasty mother who worked (but of course, the nanny was working too) and daddy fell in love with the nanny because she was SO much better at wifely and motherly duties than the nasty wife was. Moral of the story: women with careers lose their husbands to women without careers.]

Do you know how many indictments were instituted on the basis of complaints made by women against their husbands?

[Daphne – No, but I do know that it was grounds for divorce in England and the cause of a scandal that drove Lord Byron out of that country. It is irrelevant how many indictments were in fact made (though interesting). The relevant point is that women could use that law to fend off demands for sodomy, with which rather a lot of men appear to be fascinated and most women regard as a humilating and violent assault, at a time when women were absolutely powerless to refuse in other ways. Homosexual men forget that this particular law was not all about them.]

That particular minister will be remembered for her diatribes against teachers at every prize day. Thanks to the MUT the minister stopped these harangues.

[Daphne – Of course it was the goverment’s fault! The government failed to repeal that rule. It was perfectly possible to do so but they never bothered because they really did think and apparently still do that women’s place is in the home. Women no longer have to resign from the civil service when they marry.]

[Daphne – I don’t see any of that happening here, Katrin. Only 30% of women between the ages of 25 and 61 work in Malta. It’s the women who work who are sneered at and regarded with contempt. I know that through experience.]