The more things change….
I found this in an anthology of humorous stories from 1950:
Quentin Reynolds calls attention to the fact that Montgomery’s campaign in the Near East altered a centuries-old custom of the natives in those parts. “Since time immemorial,” says Reynolds, “Arabian men rode majestically on the family donkey while their wives, laden with all sorts of burdens, trudged patiently behind on foot. After 1942, however, all that was changed. The wife was emancipated. She now walks in front. There are many unexploded lands mines. . . .”
