Don't have a sister? Then adopt one fast

[NGONGE]

The benefits of girl siblings are obvious

 

Melanie McDonagh

 

Not having any sisters of my own, I took the precaution as a baby of adopting the three older girls next door. So I ended up with surrogate sisters, who spoilt me. Quite how fortunate I was is clear from a British Psychological Society gathering this week, at which Professor Tony Cassidy, of the University of Ulster, suggested that having sisters is good for mental health: “Sisters appear to encourage more open communication and cohesion in families. However brothers seem to have the alternative effect.”

 

Sisters are good for girls as well as boys and are particularly handy when a family undergoes divorce. They break down the natural tendency of boys not to talk.

 

It might seem just another version of the sugar-and-spice view of girls, and the slugs-and-snails view of boys. But I'd say there's something more in it. Girls are more garrulous than boys (fact, we use more words) and in a family environment there's no impediment to the flow of talk. And while we can all think of exceptions, experience suggests that sisters are protective rather than otherwise about their siblings - it's a way of playing mother.

 

There are good cultural precedents for setting store by sisters. In the Bible, it is brothers who cause the trouble, from Cain and Abel on. Sisters are far less problematic. In Greek tragedy, Antigone invites certain death by burying her brother, saying that she wouldn't have broken the law for a husband or a son, because you can always replace them, “but, father and mother lost, where would I get another brother”?

 

Her brothers, by contrast, killed each other. You might say she was the ultimate sister. The historian Harry Hodgkinson identified this approach in Balkan, particularly Albanian, societies where, until recently, sisters owed their first loyalty to their siblings, and husbands were also-rans.

 

There are hair-raising stories about sisters killing their husbands to avenge their brothers and satisfy family honour, and being well regarded for it. You get much the same sentiment in Icelandic sagas such as Gisla, in which sisters unhesitatingly side with their brothers against their husbands.

 

But where does that leave those without sisters? At a disadvantage. According to Professor Cassidy: “We may have to think carefully about the way we deal with families with lots of boys.”

 

This is just one more argument, along with girls' superior literacy and exam performance, to change our entire mindset about maleness, and drop any remaining illusions about women as the underdogs. And I'd recommend anyone without a sister to adopt someone else's - and fast.

 

 

Source

[NGONGE]

When I read this article I remembered my school days and a poem we were forced to memorise. It was by the greatest Arab speaking female poet, Al Khansaa!

 

She wrote poems lamenting the death of her brothers and praising their bravery, generosity, achievements and good manners. The poem I remembered was about her half brother Sakhar, who died whilst avenging the death of her other (full) brother. In it she says:

 

O my eyes, be generous and do not stop crying!

Will you not weep for Sakhr

the handsome youth,

the young chieftain_____

who had high pillars and a long sword?

He undertook the chieftainship of his tribe when a lad.

When his tribesmen went seeking grace,

he, too, sought it.

His hand (status) was far above that of his tribesmen

Yet he kept ascending the ladder of grace and honour

 

In another poem she says:

 

What have we done to you death

that you treat us so, with always another catch?

One day a warrior,

the next a head of state;

charmed by the loyal,

you choose the best,

iniquitous, unequalling death.

I would not complain

if you were just.

But you take the worthy

Leaving fools for us

 

And in another she says:

 

Remembrance makes me sleepless at evening

But by dawn I am worn raw by brimming disaster

Because of Sakhr_____ O what young man is like Sakhr

on a day of war when the fighting turns to the cunning spears?

 

And

 

Sakhr, you are making me cry now.

But, for a long time, you have made me laugh.

I faced my problems with you by my side.

Who will, now, help me face the great calamity that has befallen me?

When mourning over the dead will be considered bad,

Even then, I will cry well over you

 

And

 

Time has gnawed at me, bit me and has cut me.

Time has harmed, wounded and injured me,

and has destroyed my men who have died together.

This has made me restless.

They were not a harbour for the cruel

Just like the sun which is no shelter for the people.

We saw horses galloping

and flying dust.

And riders, having lustrous, broad swords and grey spears;

Whose swords turn faces deathly white, whose spears cut bodies.

 

We defeated those who thought

they would never be defeated.

And whoever thinks that they will not be harmed

thinks of the impossible.

We avoid dishonourable deeds and honour our guests.

And we store the praise (of people).

We wear armour in war

And silk, wool and cotton during peace

 

 

Go here to read more about her

 

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Though I think women are silly, sisters are still great.

 

For those of you with no sisters, I suggest you adopt Ibti.

[Buuxo]

^Silly? Khasaaro you is!

 

 

Siblings are great.Sisters even better,where else would i get a free wardrobe ,stylist & shrink for the price of none.

[Nephissa]

There are hair-raising stories about sisters killing their husbands to avenge their brothers and satisfy family honour, and being well regarded for it. You get much the same sentiment in Icelandic sagas such as Gisla, in which sisters unhesitatingly side with their brothers against their husbands.

Yea, sisters are great, but if this is what's expected of them, then my brothers can adopt one fast. It's not like they would do the same thing: kill their wives to avenge me, or side with me against them. I pray such situation never arises, but thinking about it just made my head start hurting way too much...