These two **data** sources-the proverbs and the surveyprovide us with complementary views about the lives of Ghanaian women. On the one hand, the proverbs illuminate what traditional Ghanaian society considered normal (If a woman buys a sheep, it is a man who rears it; # 95), aspirational (A woman who can produce 10 children eats the tenth child's sheep; # 6675), and taboo (A woman sells garden eggs, but she doesn't sell gunpowder; # 96) manifestations of womanhood and femininity. Such values have survived transmission across generations. In contrast, the Everyday Lives Survey provides a cross-sectional glimpse into the lives of women in contemporary Ghana. Taken together therefore, these two **data** sources provide information about both long term and short term social change. Admittedly, a short coming of the proverb-inferred information is the unavailability of information on the extent to which these values were attained. Hence, while we can be certain that those values were at least aspirational in nature, there is no evidence permitting us to estimate the extent to which such values were in fact attained within traditional settings in Ghana's past. Additionally, proverbs are historically imprecise cultural artifacts since it is impossible to situate them in an exact period in history. Nevertheless, the proverbs provide us with a rough baseline from which to begin to estimate and understand the potential reach of social change. Due to the inherent limitations of cross-sectional research designs, we relate the survey findings where possible to other relevant research on Ghanaian women.