Christophe Guilmoto

I turned away and, despite myself, the tears came, tears

Of weakness and disappointment; for what woman

wants a girl for her first-born? They took the child from

me. Kali said: “Never mind. There will be many later

On. You have plenty of time”

Kamala Markandaya , Nectar in a Sieve.

To our modern sensibility, the ancient Greeks understanding of procreation is as far reaching as say Nordstrom’s may be to any dollar store. To the Greeks, men’s testicles had a particular function or job to fulfill: the left one produced girls with the right one producing boys. For Aristotle, if you were willing to “man-up” and take the pain, tie off your left testicle during intercourse in order to insure the birth of a son. In this formula, if something were to go wrong, even though you followed the correct game plan and a girl was born instead of the hope for son, something obviously went wrong at conception, thus the term “The Misbegotten Male,”i.e. a daughter, as the misbegotten. Continue reading