IT’S like the opening gambit of a bad Hollywood romance. A Brazilian town populated only by women has made an appeal for eligible bachelors.

    More than 600 women live in the town of Noiva do Cordeiro in southeast Brazil. And most of them are aged between 20 and 35 years old.

    Now they have extended an invitation to potential suitors. But don’t start packing your bags just yet — any men who go have to understand that this corner of the Brazilian countryside is very much a woman’s world.

    Some of Noiva de Cordeiro’s women are already married and have families, but their husbands — and any sons over 18 — are made to work away from home and only allowed to return at the weekends.

    It means girl power rules in the rural community, with women in charge of every aspect of life — from farming to town planning and even religion.

    And residents say their town is that much the better for it.

    “There are lots of things that women do better than men. Our town is prettier, more organized, and far more harmonious than if men were in charge,” said Rosalee Fernandes, 49.

    But while none of the residents of Noiva do Cordeiro would have it any other way, it has left them with just one problem.

    Nelma Fernandes, 23, admits it’s impossible for her neighbors — renowned in the region as strikingly beautiful — to find a would-be spouse.

    “Here, the only men we single girls meet are either married or related to us, everyone is a cousin. I haven’t kissed a man for a long time,” she said.

    The lack of eligible bachelors has now led the community’s many single young ladies make an appeal for interested men — but only those willing to adapt to living in a women’s world.

    Noiva do Cordeiro was born in the hills near Belo Vale, in Minas Gerais state, after founder Maria Senhorinha de Lima was branded an adulterer after leaving a man she had been forced to marry.

    She was chased out of town in 1891 after the Catholic church excommunicated her and the next five generations of her family when she shacked up with another suitor.

    Shunned by the local population, she and other women who subsequently went to live with them were vilified as loose women and prostitutes, causing them to isolate themselves from the outside world.

    In 1940, an evangelical pastor, Anisio Pereira, took one of the women, aged 16, to be his wife and founded a church in the growing community.

    However, he proceeded to impose strict puritanical rules, banning them from drinking alcohol, listening to music, cutting their hair or using any type of contraceptive.

    When Pereira died in 1995, the women decided never again to let a man dictate how they should live. And one of the first things they did was to dismantle the male-biased organized religion he had set up.

    Rosalee Fernandes said: “We have God in our hearts. But we don’t think we need to go to church, get married in front of a priest or baptize our children. These are rules made up by men.” (SD-Agencies)