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Wed 17 Nov, 2004 06:45 am
There is a king who wants to rid his kingdom of adulterous women. Instead of going after the women himself, he posts a proclamation that any man who is married to an adulterous wife must kill her the day that he finds out.
In this town there are 40 adulterous women. Everyone in the town knows everyone else and everyone talks about the affairs. Therefore everyone in the town, men and women, knows who the adulterous women are, except of course, the husbands don't know if their own wives are adulterous.
Once the proclamation is posted, the women become scared, and no further adultery is committed. The men who have cheating wives are never told by anyone that their wives were cheating. Everyone in the town is assumed to be intelligent and obediant to the king. Everyone goes home after they've read the proclamation. The next morning, nothing has happened, nor the next.
In fact, no woman is killed until 40 days after the proclamation. On that day, all 40 women are killed by their husbands as originally directed by the king 40 days ago. No faithful women were harmed.
The king knew that all the women would by killed on the 40th day. How did he know?
Do the people of this kingdom all know that there are 40 adulterous women?
O.K.
Lets say that the village has 100 couples.
at day one none of the cuckolds have any way of working out that their wife is a slut.
this applies to day two
and day three
all the way to day 40
cuckold no. 40 knows who the other 39 sluts in the village are so at day 40 when he doesn't hear a gunshot he knows the 40th must be his wife and shoots her.
cuckold 39 waits to see if there is another gunshot, when there isnt he knows he is 39
THE ORDER THEY COME IN DOESNT MATTER I'm just putting them in numerical descending order for ease.
No.38 uses the same logic, as does 37, 36.........................................
all the way down to zero
I must admit that out of the 15 or so riddles I have posted this is the first one I have posted to get the answer. Makes me feel a little better that no one has solved it. It may be worded incorrectly, though this is exactly how I received it. As for the question about everyone knowing, I think they do.
"Therefore everyone in the town, men and women, knows who the adulterous women are, except of course, the husbands don't know if their own wives are adulterous."
I also think that the line "The men who have cheating wives are never told by anyone that their wives are cheating," might only mean they aren't told the first day? Not sure if "never" makes sense.
Only explanation I can think of, is that the riddle is flawed, or that all 40 of the adulterous women were humping the King himself, and no other men (other than husbands). Therefore no one wanted to say anything. Then King decides on 40th day to tell the 40 husbands (which violates the "never told" line). I doubt this is the answer intended, if it is, it is a stupid riddle; if it isn't then I'm clueless, and the riddle's wording could be flawed.
Anywho, sorry to needlessly waste everyone's time, if the riddle is wrong.
If anyone has any thoughts please post them.
Tiger scroll up a bit and have a look at my effort.
The audulterous women, 40, went to the king to offer sex for clemency. The king neglected policy for pleasure, and then, in a political coup d'etat, revealed to the public that in 40 days, he had slept with all 40 adulterous women, one a day. The decree still stood, by law, and was revealed. Therefore, the women were executed.
I was typing my long explanation/apology while you were typing your thoughts. It seems to me by wording that everyone in town would know there are 40 adulterous women, except the cuckholds who would think, by gossip, that there are 39 adulterous women. Even assuming everyone knows there are 40 total, what would make the 40th day special, or any different from day 15 or 39 or 42? Seems like if it was a stated or "proclaimed" fact that there were 40 adulterous women in town, on day 1, there would be 40 cuckholds, who could only name 39 adulterous women (gossip they have heard) and would instantly know there wives were guilty. Anyway, I have no idea. Might be time to write this one off as a terrible/flawed/misworded riddle.
Don1 wrote:Works for me Cav
I shoulda been a lawyer....
Don, I think you were right about the answer, though, i am still trying to work it out. Assuming there is at least one adulterous wife...If there is only one adulterous wife, then day 1 only cuchold would know his wife is cheating because he is only one who knows of no infidelity. If there are 2 adulterous wives, then there would be 2 cuckholds who would think there is only one adulterer, they would wait for that woman to be shot (presumably by a husband who knows of no infidelity). When that day passes they would know that there is more than one adulterous wife, since they only know 1 they would shoot their wives (2) on day 2. If there are 3 adulterous women, there would be 3 cuckholds thinking that there were only 2, when day 2 passed, they would all 3 conclude their wives were adulterers.... this would proceed until day 40. You were right on the money, although on day 40 none of them would be waiting that day, they all would realize/shoot at same time on that day. Pretty sure that this is answer, though wording of riddle was terrible
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