This might hurt your head (both of them). It took me a while to figure out. I'll post the answer in a couple of days:

Womensa was a planet whose original settlers were women of extreme high intelligence who belonged to an organisation from which their planet was named. For breeding purposes they took with them a supply of males who had been genetically engineered to combine handsome faces with muscular bodies and low-grade intelligence. Low, that is, by Womensa standards.

The colony was a monogamous and matriarchal dictatorship ruled by a supreme dictator named Fidelia. No rules governed the love lives of unmarried men or of women, married or single; but all husbands were expected to remain faithful.

One day Fidelia was approached by her Minister of Morality, who like Fidelia, had no husband. “O Great One,” said the minister, it has come to my attention that there has been an alarming rash of infidelities in our capital city. We've heard through the rumor mill that ten husbands are suspected of having been unfaithful.”

Fidelia was shocked. “Issue a decree at once,” she said, between angry chomps on her cigar, “stating that the government is aware of at least one infidelity, perhaps more among husbands in our city. Announce also that when a wife is certain that her husband has been unfaithful, she must report it to your office at once. The cad will be castrated that same day and the wife will be free to remarry.”

“It will cause a furor,” said the minister bowing low and giving the Womensa salute with her middle finger, “but it shall be done.”

To understand the bizarre consequences of this decree, you must accept the following posits about Womensa folkways:

1) As soon as a husband is unfaithful, gossip spreads so rapidly that within an hour every married woman in the city hears of it except the wronged wife. (The wronged wife is never told directly.)

2) Knowledge of emasculation spreads with the same speed.

3) Any statement made by Fidelia is accepted to be true.

4) All females of Womensa are perfect logicians. They can reason with unerring accuracy.

After the decree was issued, nine days went by with no reports of infidelities. Then on the tenth day, ten wives reported the names of their guilty husbands.

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Q: Can you explain the ten day delay?

More to the story:

After the ten had been punished, the other husbands of Womensa maintained strict control over their passions for several months. This gave them time to think carefully about the logic involved in the way their wives had reasoned. One day it occurred to them that there was a simple way to escape the consequences of such a decree.

Details of their plan spread quickly among them. Infidelity began to occur again, and Fidelia was forced to issue a second decree exactly like the first one. This time, however, nothing happened.

Q: Exactly, what was this clever plan?

OK, my head hurts.

always looking for answers.

River

Three theories:

1. The men either castrated themselves, or

2. They had sexual affairs with each other, or

3. After the previous men were emasculated, the remaining men realized that they were the last males on the planet, and they knew, as well as Fidelia, that if they were to be castrated, the Womensa race would end. Therefore, they were spared from her wrath.

Splitdick-

Q#1

Perhaps only ten intact males remained on the planet when the original decree was ordered. After they were cut than they easily controlled their passions.

Q#2

The women were left without any intact sexual partners, resulting in no pregnancies and the culture eventually died.

plezherus.

1.

SplitDick (imported) wrote: Thu Mar 28, 2002 3:48 pm 1) As soon as a husband is unfaithful, gossip spreads so rapidly that within an hour every married woman in the city hears of it except the wronged wife. (The wronged wife is never told directly.)

2.No rules governed the love lives of unmarried men or of women, married or single; but all husbands were expected to remain faithful.

3.We've heard through the rumor mill that ten husbands are suspected of having been unfaithful.”

O.K.

The first day 10 husbands were unfaithful with 10 women to whom they were not married. The rumor is taken to Fidelia that day and the decree is issued.

The second day the same thing happens, only the husbands move on to different wives, or perhaps unmarried women. The same happens on the 3rd through the 10th day, but on the 10th day a cycle is completed and all the wives know which women had sex with a man who is not their husband and know that there was 10 men who had been unfaithful.

Furthermore, they know all women who were having sex with a man who was not their husband, each knowing each woman and each man one by one by one and that each day each woman who had sex with a different husband, but that there were only 10 men involved!. They all knew the 9 men. On the 10th day they could logically reason that their own husband had to be the 10th, BECAUSE NOBODY WOULD TELL THEM! ...talk about your silence that is deafening...

By a process of elimination they know that their husband was involved because they would know the other 9 men but not until the 10th day would they be able to place the 10th unfaithful husband as theirs.

The moronic men had to figure out not to have sex with a woman when you are married to another woman (Most moronic men have yet to figure this out!) ...or at least not to all have sex the same days when your numbers are known. Only a moron would have sex on 10 consecutive days under these conditions since the number of unfaithful husbands was bound to be known each day.

If they were careful that they didn't do this they would be O.K., since there wives could never find out since no one could tell them directly and they would never know the total number if cheating husbands.

It sounds like a place where I used to work...morons deserve to be castrated against their will since they all are swimming around in the shallow end of the gene pool...

A-1

Okay, none of you quite got it ... I'll give you the answer to Q#1, then see if you can work out Q#2:

Q1

SplitDick (imported) wrote: Thu Mar 28, 2002 3:48 pm : Can you explain the ten day delay?

Yes.

The wives know from Fidelia that there is at least one infidelity. And they have heard about some infidelities. Wives who have been cheated on have heard about 9 infidelities, while others have heard about 10.

Every wife is in the same guessing game, and they know that (like them) other wives cannot be sure whether they know of all the infidelities, or all the infidelities except one commited by their husband.

To understand their guessing strategy, it is easiest to start by thinking about the case where there was only one infidelity:

The women know that there was at least one (by Fidelia's statement), so if they have not heard of any then they know there was exactly one infidelity and it was their husband and they would report it. News about emasculations would not need to be figured into their logic.

Next we need to consider the case of two infidelities:

Some women will have heard about both infidelities, and two women (the ones cheated upon) would have heard about one. Since the latter women are not sure whether there were one or two infidelities, they must wait to hear about whether any other husband was castrated. They wait a day and do not hear about any castration so they realizes that they must be missing some news about infidelity which means her husband must have been guilty.

And the same logic applies to more infidelities. The women have to wait for news of emasculations to see if they know about all the infidelities. So it takes 10 days for the women who have heard about 9 infidelities but no emasculations to realize their husband was a 10th culprit.

~~ had to try the david thing....and I still believe that Michelangelo was gay!

Just wanted to say that after reading all of this, my head hurts....funny, it never hurt from the brain teaser!

Okay, here's the solution to the rest of the puzzle:

Q: What was the mens' clever plan to avoid anyone getting castrated?

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The husbands simply have to ensure that there is at least one infidelity per day. This does not allow the women the extra day required to figure out whether the number of emasculations they hear about matches the number of infidelities they know about. No emasculations will take place because no woman can know for sure that their husband committed an infidelity.