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Re: Intercourse /vs/ OffspringE Douglas Kihn (vivacuba@ix.netcom.com(E)9 Dec 1996 17:47:04 GMT
writes: > >Hugh Hoskin wonders "When did man first recognize the correlation between >intercourse and the birth of babies three seasons later?" > >Malinowski worked among the Trobrian Islanders in the 1930's and found >that they still had puzzled out the connection. They believed that >ancestor spirits resided in the fog and vapors surrounding their islands >and that these spirits would come ashore, invade women through their >heads, lodge in their bellies, and eventually be reborn as children. > >Malinowski, no doubt feeling the white man's burden to educate the savages >(as he called them), tried to point out the relationship between sex and >childbirth. He asked if they had noticed that no virgins became >pregnant. The natives, not being imbued with the Judao-Christian ethic, >of course, responded that they didn't know any virgins. Finally, one of >the Chiefs settled the argument by declaring that he had recently returned >home from a two year stay on a neighboring island only to find his wife >was pregnant, thus proving that sex and childbirth are not correlated. > > Beautiful! (The same thing happened to me once.) In pre-technological societies, sex is completely open, and children are not denied their sexual freedom, but are "doing it" to the best of their abilities from the gitgo. When life is precarious, pregnancy must take place as soon as possible. And the entire tribe raises the children. This is why Mother, for 100,000 years, was the only parent, the Fertility Godess was worshiped universally, and women and men shared power equally. This all changed with animal husbandry, agriculture, food surplus, and the first division of haves/have nots.
Dr. Doug
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