Ancient Genetics: Observations and Paternal Claims
In antiquity genetics was based on observation and theoretical assumptions, and there were several competing theories. The preformationism or homunculus theory claimed that the male sperm contained a ready-made miniature that was implanted in the womb where it grew until it was born.
The theory of pangenesis regarded the role of the male and the female parent in the reproduction of a child as similar in that both parents produced seed. The Hippocratics, who lent towards this theory, still maintained male supremacy as they distinguished between stronger (male) and weaker (female) sperm. Both man and woman alike provided male and female seed but predominance of the stronger sperm produced male offspring while a greater quantity of the weaker sperm resulted in a weak form, namely the female.[287] On the whole, the Hippocratic writings are permeated with the common view that the primary value of a married woman was her ability to bear children. A man acquired a wife in order to have a family, that is legitimate offspring, and the Hippocratics recommended tests which might decide whether or not a potential wife was capable of conceiving. Sex and pregnancy represented a cure from female bodily precondition, and the man had “a curative as well as therapeutic role as a bringer of both health and sanity to the imperfect and pathological female organism.”[288] At the same time the preoccupation with the reproductive function of women’s bodies meant that many of the illnesses a woman might suffer were traced to a malfunction in her reproductive system.[289]Aristotle, who wrote at the same time or perhaps a little later than the Hippocratic medical writers, developed yet another theory of long-lasting influence, called epigenesis because it confronted the preformational position by holding that the embryonic development was not just a matter of growth but of gradual formation.
He contended, however, also against the Hippocratic theory of pangenesis that only males are able to generate seed. This paternal seed provides the active principle of movement and life, whereas the mother’s role is to provide passive matter.[290] A woman is by nature impotent. Generation occurs when the active male semen comes in contact with and imparts form and function to the female raw material, the menstrual blood which represents the fabric of which the embryo is made and continues to be nurtured.[291] Also the man’s semen is perceived as a residue of blood concocted to semen by the fiery heat in the male.[292] The heat of the pneuma makes the warm blood concoct and produce the foam which is the semen. This theory that semen is blood concocted to emerge under pressure as foam was wide-spread in antiquity over several centuries. Clement of Alexandria (Paed. I.6.48 [I.119.2ST]) writes, quoting Diogenes of Apollonia: “The man’s blood, already warm, is whipped up in the embrace and expelled; it foams and is passed on to the seed arteries.” The idea is also found in Philo (Opif. 67) and in Talmudic texts almost as a proverbial truth: “Do not boil in the pot which your neighbour used for boiling.” (Pesah. 112a), or as marking the difference between a man and a boy: a man can boil and impregnate, a boy cannot (Sanh. 69a). Neither can women. Even independently of the position the ancient physiologists might hold as to whether also women produced some kind of sperm, it was generally agreed that the inherent coldness of a woman’s body meant that she could not cook blood. However, after she has given birth her menstrual blood is processed to milk.The relationship between male and female is therefore, according to Aristotle, an example of the relationship between form and matter. Integral to the form supplied by the male seed is the sentient soul. This is not a spiritual entity but represents all the functions that a body should be able to perform.[293] It requires heat to unfold and resides in the pneuma, the life breath or spirit of the male.
The pneuma, which serves as the vehicle of all faculties of the soul, thus carries the potential form of the offspring and is also charged with the movement that creates the sentient soul. Again it is the fiery heat in the man that enables him to concoct the residue to the degree where it can carry the soul.[294] Given the right conditions and the proper material to work upon, the movement of the pneuma contained within the male semen will produce a being of the same kind as that from which the male semen came.[295]The mother is the receptacle and the nurturer. The underlying notion is the ancient Greek image of woman as a vessel, whose internal space is unobstructed and available for occupation by the man’s seed - being kept and nurtured as it develops and eventually emerges into the world. In order to conceive, the woman’s body must be empty, unoccupied,[296] and the early sign of pregnancy was that nothing leaked out; the jar had been sealed. Aristotle did refrain from defining woman as a separate eidos since this would make it impossible for her to participate in the reproduction of the human form, eidos anthropos. Her eidos is, however, deemed to be imperfect, and she cannot pass it on to her offspring. Aristotle’s woman is a deformed, substandard male and “a completely different creature,” yet she is a regular and necessary deformity.[297]
It was, however, obvious that a child might resemble its mother equally well as its father. How was this explained? Resemblance of both parents was most easily accommodated by the pangenetic theory on the principle that the child would resemble in the majority of its characteristics that parent who had contributed a greater quantity of sperm or sperm from a greater number of bodily parts.[298] [299] The Aristotelian position had no problem explaining a child’s likeness to its father; in fact, a boy should, in normal circumstances, be his father’s image. It was more difficult to explain why a child, even a boy, might resemble the mother or maternal relatives. However, according to the Aristotelian view there is in the early stages of the development of the embryo a competition between the male ability to form and arrange and the female provision of matter. The male logos may fail in gaining its force, and the offspring will in some way or other be deformed in that it differs from the form of its father. A daughter was most likely a result of the imperfect generative force, and if she was like her mother, that was as it should be. Female offspring is a deficient male. However, if it so happened that a son resembled his mother’s side, or a daughter the father, one had somehow to assume that the female generative force had overcome the male.[300] Soranus was active in Rome at the end of the first and beginning of the second century.[301] He belonged to a medical school known as “Methodism” that entailed a belief that all disorders are the result of one of three bodily states: constriction, relaxation, or a mixed condition. He seems to accept that various states of the soul of the mother, caused by what she sees during intercourse, may produce changes in the mould of the fetus. Soranus played down the necessity of menstruation and indeed of sexual intercourse in maintaining female health. However, he primarily belonged to the Aristotelian tradition concerning the role of the female in the conception of offspring.[302] Galen, whose works have been preserved in more copies than any of the other medical writers in antiquity, tried to reconcile Hippocratic and Aris- totelean views.[303] He maintained the Hippocratic position that the woman, too, produces seed. In referring to Herophilus, who had identified the ovaries and described their general function drawing a positive analogy between them and the testes,[304] Galen claimed that the female production of seed happened in the ovaries and was ejaculated into the womb preparing it for receiving the male sperm. The woman’s seed contributed to the formation of the embryo but being imperfect and less refined, it was not the exact equivalent of male sperm but weaker, scantier, and sickly so that it could not by itself generate another being.[305] He thus endorsed the Aristotelian notion that the woman is less perfect than the man; she is colder and wetter and a deformed creature. Since nature does nothing in vain, Galen finally had to ask why nature made half the human race imperfect. His answer was that the existence of women served the purposes of reproduction; men simply cannot conceive on their own. B.