nursemyra is lucky enough to have had two mothers. One is alive and well and living on the beautiful Mornington Peninsula. My other mother passed away some years ago. She did, however, hand down some strange maternal advice that I’ve never forgotten. But before I share it with my readers first let me tell you about the “Bruce Effect”
The Bruce effect is a form of pregnancy disruption in mammals in which exposure of a female to an unknown male results in pre or postimplantation failure.
Laboratory experiments show that when a recently inseminated female is exposed directly to an unfamiliar, nonsire male or to its urine or soiled bedding, this causes her to prevent implantation or to abort or reabsorb her embryos.
This response supposedly is adaptive for the male, in that termination of pregnancy results in the female coming into estrus, providing the male with a mating opportunity.
(Jayne Mansfield succumbs to temptation)
The advice my mother passed on was this: “Never marry a travelling salesman, a Chinaman or anyone called Bruce”
The rationale behind this strange piece of maternal ‘wisdom’ being her sister’s cheating husband, Bruce, was a travelling salesman who kept a mistress in every other town. The entire Chinese nation got a bad rap because of the greengrocer down the road who let his cat sleep on the fruit in the front window of his shop.
This could also have been the reason I wasn’t allowed to put a Bruce Lee poster on my wall when I was teenage Enter the Dragon fan………….