Word: customs
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Rantys & Dhyantys. Jaunswar women who live with their several husbands are called rantys. Custom obliges them to treat each husband with equal favor, but it often happens that a ranty will prefer one brother to all the others. It also happens that a ranty will reject the whole pack of brothers for an outsider. After trial by the entire village, an adulterous ranty is fined the cost of a community dinner (paid for by her parents), after which her husbands may have her back, readily forgiving and forgetting because women are so scarce...
...school he graduated in the top 20 in a class of 500, further distinguished himself by writing a paper on "The Responsibilities of Naval Leadership" in verse and in the meter of a French ballade. At school and throughout his Navy career, Wouk held fast to Jewish law and custom. On the Liberty ship taking him to the Pacific in 1942, Wouk often ate nothing but bread and potatoes, because the ship's menu was dominated by pork. One day he posted a satirical poem on the bulletin board...
...century, was the potlatch. A ceremonial extravaganza that began with gargantuan meals of fish oil and sea food, progressed to bouts of boasting, the potlatch roared to a climax with a prodigious distribution of goods. For a less arrogant, less competitive people, this might have been only a pleasant custom, but for the tribes living an easy life in the mild, rich country between Vancouver and Yakutat Bay, Alaska, the feasts turned into mad giveaway races. Each "gift" was in effect a double dare: to save face, the guest had to reciprocate, usually within a year, with another gift...
...United Jewish Appeal. In his spare hours Feinberg finds time (and an opportunity to display Catalina Bermuda shorts) for golf with his red-haired wife, also likes to swim, play squash,' handball and gin rummy. He has few expensive tastes beyond 60? cigars and conservative, $200 custom-made suits, says: "I drive the oldest Cadillac in Westchester...
...Poll. To find out what the public wants in the car of tomorrow, Chrysler Corp. put on display in its main Manhattan showroom three custom-made dream cars (Falcon, Flight Sweep I and II), fitted out with such futurisms as roofed headlights, curved window glass, external dual exhausts, control panel on a pedestal sandwiched between bucket seats, padded doors, and carpets fused over foam rubber. None of the supercars is a production prototype: Chrysler hopes to whet appetites for its 1956 cars and, by eavesdropping on car fans, to pick out salable features for its 1957 and 1958 models...