when I first began to work in the New Guinea highlands, I often became enraged when I saw how grossly women were abused. Along jungle trails l encountered married couples, the woman typically bent under a huge load of firewood and vegetables, carrying an infant, while her husband sauntered along
bearing nothing more than his bow and arrow. Men's hunting trips seemed to be opportunities, yielding only a few prey animals little more than male-bonding consumed on the spot by the hunters. Wives were bought, sold, and discarded without their consent.