The traditional initiation break clearly is preferable, and sidesteps the violence. But all over the country now one sees hulking sons acting ugly in the kitchen and talking rudely to their mothers, and I think it’s an attempt to make themselves unattractive. If the old men haven’t done their work to interrupt the mother-son unity, what else can the boys do to extricate themselves but to talk ugly? It’s quite unconscious and there’s no elegance in it at all. A clean break from the mother is crucial, but it’s simply not happening. This doesn’t mean that the women are doing something wrong: I
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