Positive discrimination in the airport

I am in MUC airport now, waiting for my flight to Duesseldorf. Just had a funny moment recently.

When I was standing in a line for security control, two lines were merging before the X-ray machine. It was zip merge, as usual, and ppl in the end of the line were standing behind each other, located slightly closer towards a line they were coming from. When I was first in the line, I was invited to the X-ray machine, and then immediately a member of security stuff asked me to step back and give way to a passenger who was standing behind me in the line. I complied, and eventually asked why break a zip merge?

The answer was, I quote: "yes it is zip merge, but men should yield for wifes, so wifes have priority." Needless to say, my wife was not with me at the moment ;)



p.s. confusing "woman" and "wife" word is very common for German native speakers, even when their English is good.