I do actually use men (sometimes) to mean people-- but its very rare. and i don't expect people to go about re-writing documents and replacing man or men with person or people... but there has been a sea change about the word...

Lots of words have changed meanings..
but i think men and man always meant 'adult male(s)'-- and that is was synonimus with people, only because adult males were the only people with any power in the society.

now, i fully realize that a adult male farm hand, or tenent farmer had very little power in 18th century (or earlier) society.. and that there were a lot more farm hands and tenents than lords. but as little power as a farm hand had, he had more than power and standing in society than his wife.

i do think women carved out places for them selves, but women legal standing were never acknowledged. a poor tenent farmer might be able to buy an old broken down nag of horse. but his wife couldn't, in many cases. she couldn't own property! (less true in England, in later years, but change has been slow)
and through out the world, remants of these types of behaviours remain-- even in modern societies like ours.



my other obsession