Free Republic

Seeking a deeper bond in a new marriage? Maybe tossing the groom into deep snow can help. Such a unique Lunar New Year tradition was held on Friday at Matsunoyama Onsen in Tokamachi, Niigata Prefecture. The custom is said to have started as vengeance against a stranger who took a girl from the village, and has a history of more than 300 years. Last year, the event was held at a different location due to shortage of snow, but returned to its usual setting this time after the area received over 2 meters of snow. A 31 year-old man and...

Getting married saps your testosterone 18 October 2007 NewScientist.com news service TESTOSTERONE gradually declines with age, right? Not for the Ariaal - subsistence pastoralists living in northern Kenya. They experience a decline in levels of the male hormone only when they get married. The finding provides a social and evolutionary explanation for the decrease in testosterone, rather than an age-related one. Ariaal men remain single "warriors" until they are around 30, at which time they marry one or more women. Peter Gray of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and colleagues measured testosterone in 205 Ariaal men and found that...

What does it say about the Republicans - and about mainstream American culture - that so many current and potential GOP presidential candidates have track records as party animals? Not so long ago, the folks who marketed themselves as exemplars of traditional "family values" were insisting that President Bill Clinton should be thrown out of office for lying about his personal peccadilloes. Yet today, these same folks have anointed, as their front-runner, a thrice-married former mayor whose kids barely speak to him. And Rudy Giuliani's chief challenger is John McCain, a self-confessed youthful philanderer who courted his future second wife...