Story - The Old Woman Against the Stream

An old married couple were forever quarreling. They never agreed on anything. Whatever the old man wanted, the old woman wanted the opposite. One day, the old man declared he would shave his beard. The woman immediately contradicted him saying one "clips" a beard, not "shaves." The husband angrily disagreed. (1)

The two argued for a long time. Frustrated and angry at his wife's constant arguments, the old man wanted to teach her a lesson once and for all. He dragged her to a nearby stream and pushed her head under water. (2) Then he kept shouting "Say shave! Say shave!" (3) Drowning and unable to talk, the woman still held up two fingers, and moving them like a scissors signaled that the word was "clip." (4)

Furious, the old man abandoned her and went home. (5) Later he felt he should at least give her a decent burial. But when he went back to the stream, he could not find the body.

He asked his neighbors for help (6), and they all discovered that her body had floated upstream. She was contrary to the end.

1. conflict between wife and husband

2. husband uses violence to control his wife

3. husband demands obedience

4. wife is disobedient and refuses to change

5. husband kills a wife who will not conform

6. community does not condemn the husband, and he is not punished for his crime