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My father and male friends do it for protection from other men. They use the phrase "not for sale." This sounds possessive, but if a woman is walking by herself other men are likely to whistle, flirt inappropriately, etc. So men in my culture do it as a way of telling other men that she's not walking alone.

You'll also hear other reasons, like, in older times, people use to throw their bath water out the window, so men walked on the outside to protect women, or from horses splashing in puddles.

The one reason that is very dumb is that it protects woman from incoming cars. Sounds stupid because it is. If a car actually drove onto the sidewalk it would hit both of them, not just the guy.

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15y ago

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