Proclamation to End Unfaithful Wives: What Was It?

[gnpatterson]

In a certain country all the men were perfectly logical. However they were also quiet niave and great gossips and if a wife was unfaithful to her husband then everyone in the land would know about it EXCEPT the husband. The penalty for being unfaithful was to be executed by him. The king of the country grew concerned that the number of unfaithful wives was growing, so he issued an proclaimation. Ten days after the order was given all ten husbands shot all the unfaithful wives.

What was the nature of the proclaimation?

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

The proclaimation was (in white):
In ten days, all husbands must shoot everyone else's unfaithful wives.

Fortunately, the king's concern was unfounded. There were no unfaithful wives.

 

[JamesU]

answer in white:

The other people's husband would shoot the others' unfaithful wives in 10 days

 

[gnpatterson]

Sorry I didnt make it clear, the husbands shoot their own wives, who had been unfaithful, and up until that point the husbands had not realized it. The proclaimation did not list the wives or make any statements of fact or even give the number of wives.

As a further hint - This works on a similar principal as the "****-on-head" question. It is a problem with the constraint that you know everyone elses business but not your own.

 

[cefarix]

Answer in white:
The proclamation was that anyone who found out about a cheating wife reported it to the husband, and if a husband was told his wife was cheating, he would shoot her.

 

[LarrrSDonald]

My answer in white:

I'm assuming repealing any of the previous rules is disallowed (and if not, well, anything will do - repeal all the rules and tell everyone to spill their guts and then shoot the guilty parties and move on).

Tell all citizens to open the phone book, look up the name below theirs (last one looks at the first) and call them up and tell them if their wife *isn't* cheating on him.. Provided you get no call, assume your wife is cheating on you and shoot her. Alternativly, build in a little redundance and everyone tell everyone if their wife isn't cheating. If you walk around for a while and get no takers (everyone knows, after all) then you can assume it's time to break out the firearms. If you want to optimize a bit, have everyone who now knows their wife *isn't* cheating do something visible, say, wear a hat or paint your forehead purple. That way, there's no need for everyone to keep telling you after the first one. Since everyone knows except the husband, the trend would perpetuate quickly and the odd unhatted/unpainted men out could go for it.

[edit] Wrote an is instead of an isn't. Sorry.

 

[nnnnnnnn]

ans in white:

by the n'th day, all n unfaithfull wives must be killed

Not sure if its what you were looking for, but it works.

 

[gnpatterson]

nnnnnnnnn you are correct,

 

[gnpatterson]

nnnnnnnnn you are correct,