singular/plural again

I find it completely wrong.

Each man brought his wife along is the clearest way to explain this.

OK, then what about these?

"Where they used to put a leaflet through your door at election time with a picture of themselves with their wife and dog, they now put up a website with a picture of themselves with their wife

To be honest, I don't much like those examples either, especially the first one. But those are examples of non-specific people. Politicians in general, grandfathers in general.

Not a specific set of men that you seem to have referred to already with "the men."

Others will disagree.

So if it was something like:

People would be glad to bring their wife along.

would it sound OK (although you might not like it)?

I wonder if it's really a matter of specificity...

I find that with the "they" in those examples, I default to the generic 3rd person sense, rather than the 3rd person plural sense.

The men however seem to be relentlessly plural; it seems as if they only have one wife between them, in the 2nd sentence.

MrP

MrPedantic... it seems as if they only have one wife between them, in the 2nd sentence.

My reading too. This must be called reverse-polygamy in current terms

polyandry

I find (2) completely wrong, yes.

The pattern below, however, is not quite so objectionable to my ear.

Every month the men gather to play cards. If they are married, they bring their wife along.

I'm not sure if it's a matter of being more generic or a matter of having the they's and their's farther away from their antecedents or, perhaps even m