A congressman lost in time
The Medieval Roots of Todd Akin’s Theories
By JENNIFER TUCKER, NYT
Jennifer Tucker is an associate professor of history and science in society at Wesleyan University.
Middletown, Conn.
THE now infamous beliefs about pregnancy that are held by Representative Todd Akin — the Republican nominee in a hotly contested Senate race in Missouri, who remarked earlier this week that the female body will try to “shut that whole thing down” in the case of “legitimate rape” — are obviously at odds with modern science. They are, however, in step with medieval science, even if Mr. Akin doesn’t seem quite aware of the similarities.
In the Middle Ages, as the historian Thomas Laqueur has written, there were two different views of reproduction. According to the Hippocratic model, both parents made seeds from materials throughout their bodies, a process called pangenesis. Both male and female seeds were needed to make a new person.
A second theory of reproduction was offered by Aristotle. For Aristotle, everything in nature is composed of both form and matter. Form is what makes a particular thing that something: it is the kiwi-ness of a kiwi. But that form is expressed in matter appropriate to the form: you can’t make a person out of kiwi matter.
According to this model, man provided the form and women provided the matter; men provided the semen and women provided the menstrual blood. Inherent to this discussion was a system of values: in the Aristotelian world, hot was better than cold. Men, who had the heat to make seed, were superior to women, who lacked such heat. Girls purportedly came from weak seed, boys from strong seed.
(More here.)
By JENNIFER TUCKER, NYT
Jennifer Tucker is an associate professor of history and science in society at Wesleyan University.
Middletown, Conn.
THE now infamous beliefs about pregnancy that are held by Representative Todd Akin — the Republican nominee in a hotly contested Senate race in Missouri, who remarked earlier this week that the female body will try to “shut that whole thing down” in the case of “legitimate rape” — are obviously at odds with modern science. They are, however, in step with medieval science, even if Mr. Akin doesn’t seem quite aware of the similarities.
In the Middle Ages, as the historian Thomas Laqueur has written, there were two different views of reproduction. According to the Hippocratic model, both parents made seeds from materials throughout their bodies, a process called pangenesis. Both male and female seeds were needed to make a new person.
A second theory of reproduction was offered by Aristotle. For Aristotle, everything in nature is composed of both form and matter. Form is what makes a particular thing that something: it is the kiwi-ness of a kiwi. But that form is expressed in matter appropriate to the form: you can’t make a person out of kiwi matter.
According to this model, man provided the form and women provided the matter; men provided the semen and women provided the menstrual blood. Inherent to this discussion was a system of values: in the Aristotelian world, hot was better than cold. Men, who had the heat to make seed, were superior to women, who lacked such heat. Girls purportedly came from weak seed, boys from strong seed.
(More here.)
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