Do you take this goat to be your lawfully wedded wife?

When I was young, I remember my mother using the phrase - “Stop getting on my goat...” Which I was led to believe meant to stop "...getting on her nerves".

However, now I'm not so sure...

Apparently a man in Sudan has been forced to "marry" a goat after the owner caught him in an "intimate" position.

Mr Alifi, the goat's owner, caught Mr Tombe having sex with his goat, and took him to a council of elders.The council ordered Tombe to pay a dowry of 15,000 Sudanese dinars ($50US) to Alifi. Alifi says, "We have given him the goat, and as far as we know they are still together."

Mr Alifi, describes the scene, (which actually happened late in the evening of 13 February 2006) saying, "When I asked him: 'What are you doing there?', he fell off the back of the goat, so I captured and tied him up.They said I should not take him to the police, but rather let him pay a dowry for my goat because he used it as his wife."

This romantic tale (maybe the goat did actually have a romantic tail!) gives rise to a number of questions: -

• What did that northern saying really mean?
• Was this an early Valentines Day present?
• Was Mr Tombe so ugly that all that he could attract was a goat? (Surely goats in Sudan can't be more attractive that even the least aesthetically pleasing Sudanese woman?
• How did they know how much a dowry for a goat was?
• Is there a list of differing amounts for different animals? If so, where does the goat feature in the top 50?
• What will happen to the kids?