ABSTRACT
The older men of the Highlands villages instruct young men to avoid contact with women. Young men are repeatedly warned to avoid the repellant and polluting dangers of association with women, sometimes in ritual contexts and at other times informally. There is quite a bit of evidence that the sentiments of younger men toward women are heavily influenced by older men. Women are the major source of productive labor in Highland societies; their contribution to production outweighs by far the contribution of men. Women very often commit suicide, in numbers very disproportionate to those of men, probably because they are driven to it by the untenable nature of their lives. The ideology concerning women also happens to reinforce in an important way the two major structural elements which maintain a sense of corporate identity for the local group of men, namely, patrilineality and the men's house.
