ABSTRACT
The ban on initiating sex applies even to the married woman. A woman is forbidden not only to talk to a man first but to smile at him or make eye contact. If he does not notice you first, the Rules: Time tested secrets for capturing the heart of Mr. Right ladies caution, it was not meant to be. So strictly do they stick to this principle that when they tell the reader to follow The Rules "from the second you meet him," they quickly correct themselves: "or should we say, from the second he meets you." No less striking is The Rules' quasi-religious tone. Large numbers of women never abandoned the old conventions of courtship, at least to the extent of waiting for the man to take the first step and expecting him to pay on most dates; some surveys show that more, not fewer, young women at least sometimes depart from these practices.
