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Re: Intercourse /vs/ Offspring
E Douglas Kihn (vivacuba@ix.netcom.com(E)
9 Dec 1996 17:47:04 GMT
In <19961209142700.JAA12391@ladder01.news.aol.com> ehutchison@aol.com
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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