Taboo and Genetics Part 1

Taboo and Genetics.

by Melvin Moses Knight, Iva Lowther Peters, and Phyllis Mary Blanchard.

PREFACE

Scientific discovery, especially in biology, during the past two decades has made necessary an entire restatement of the sociological problem of s.e.x. Ward's so-called "gynaecocentric" theory, as sketched in Chapter 14 of his _Pure Sociology_, has been almost a bible on the s.e.x problem to sociologists, in spite of the fact that modern laboratory experimentation has disproved it in almost every detail. While a comparatively small number of people read this theory from the original source, it is still being scattered far and wide in the form of quotations, paraphrases, and interpretations by more popular writers. It is therefore necessary to gather together the biological data which are available from technical experimentation and medical research, in order that its social implications may be utilized to show the obsoleteness of this older and unscientific statement of the s.e.x problem in society.

In order to have a thoroughly comprehensive survey of the inst.i.tutions connected with s.e.xual relations.h.i.+ps and the family and their entire significance for human life, it is also necessary to approach them from the ethnological and psychological points of view. The influence of the primitive s.e.x taboos on the evolution of the social mores and family life has received too little attention in the whole literature of s.e.xual ethics and the sociology of s.e.x. That these old customs have had an inestimable influence upon the members of the group, modern psychology has recently come to recognize. It therefore seems advantageous to include these psychological findings in the same book with the discussion of the s.e.x taboos and other material with which it must so largely deal.

These fields--biology, ethnology, and psychology--are so complicated and so far apart technically, although their social implications are so closely interwoven, that it has seemed best to divide the treatment between three different writers, each of whom has devoted much study to his special phase of the subject. This leads to a very simple arrangement of the material. The first part deals with the physical or biological basis of the s.e.x problem, which all societies from the most primitive to the most advanced have had and still have to build upon.

The second part deals with the various ideas man has developed in his quest for a satisfactory adaptation of this physical basis to his own requirements. Part three attempts to a.n.a.lyze the effect of this long history of social experimentation upon the human psyche in its modern social milieu.

In the social evolution of the human mind, the deepest desires of the individual have been often necessarily sacrificed to the needs of the group. Sometimes they have been unnecessarily sacrificed, since human intelligence is, unfortunately, not omniscient. Nevertheless, the sum total of human knowledge has now become great enough so that it is at least well to pause and take account of its bearing on the age-old problem of family life, in order that our evolution henceforth may be guarded by rational control rather than trial and error in so far as is possible. Such a summarization of our actual knowledge of the biology, sociology and psychology of the foundations of the family inst.i.tution this book aims to present, and if it can at the same time suggest a starting point for a more rationalized system of social control in this field, its purpose will have been accomplished.

THE AUTHORS.

PART I

THE NEW BIOLOGY AND THE s.e.x PROBLEM IN SOCIETY

BY

M. M. KNIGHT, PH.D.

CHAPTER I

THE PROBLEM DEFINED

What is s.e.x? As.e.xual and mixed reproduction; Origin of s.e.xual reproduction; Advantage of s.e.x in chance of survival; Germ and body cells; Limitations of biology in social problems; s.e.x always present in higher animals; s.e.x in mammals; The s.e.x problem in the human species; Application of laboratory method.

s.e.x, like all complicated phenomena, defies being crowded into a simple definition. In an animal or plant individual it is expressed by and linked with the ability to produce egg- or sperm-cells (ova or spermatozoa). s.e.xual reproduction is simply the chain of events following the union of the egg and sperm to produce a new individual.

Looked at from another angle, it is that sort of reproduction which requires two differentiated individuals: the male, which produces spermatoza, and the female, which produces ova. In the case of very simple forms, it would be simply the union or conjugation of a male and a female individual and the reproductive process involved. Where there is no differentiation into male and female there is no s.e.x.

An individual which produces both sperm-and egg-cells within its body is termed an hermaphrodite. Very few hermaphrodites exist among the vertebrates, although they may be found in one or two species (e.g., the hagfish). There are no truly hermaphroditic mammals, i.e., individuals in which both the male and the female germ cells function, except perhaps in rare instances.

s.e.xless or as.e.xual reproduction a.s.sumes various forms. What is usually considered the most primitive of these is fission or simple division, in which the cell divides into two equal, identical parts. There is of course no suggestion of s.e.x here. It is fairly safe to a.s.sume that life began thus in the world, as neuter or s.e.xless--i.e., with no suggestion of either maleness or femaleness.[A]

[Footnote A: This as.e.xual type of reproduction has been misinterpreted by a whole school of non-biological writers, who have followed the lead of Lester F. Ward, in his cla.s.sification of these neuter-organisms as females. Ward says ("Pure Sociology," Ch. 14): "It does no violence to language or science to say that life begins with the female organism and is carried on a long distance by means of females alone. In all the different forms of as.e.xual reproduction from fission to parthenogenesis, the female may in this sense be said to exist alone and perform all the functions of life including reproduction. In a word, life begins as female" (p. 313). Adding to this statement the a.s.sertion that the male developed at first as a mere parasite, in the actual, physical sense, Ward proceeds to build up his famous Gynaecocentric Theory, which is familiar to all students of social science, and need not be elaborated here. It is obvious that a thorough biological knowledge destroys the fundamental concept on which this theory is founded, for there is no doubt that life begins as neuter or s.e.xless, and not as female.]

There are a number of other forms of as.e.xual reproduction, or the "vegetative type" (Abbott's term, which includes fission, budding, polysporogonia and simple spore formation). Budding (as in yeast) and spore formation are familiar to us in plants. Such forms are too distant from man, in structure and function, for profitable direct comparison.

Especially is this true with respect to s.e.x, which they do not possess.

Parthenogenesis includes very diverse and anomalous cases. The term signifies the ability of females to reproduce in such species for one or a number of generations without males. Many forms of this cla.s.s (or more strictly, these cla.s.ses) have apparently become specialized or degenerated, having once been more truly s.e.xual. Parthenogenesis (division and development of an egg without the agency of male sperm) has been brought about artificially by Jacques Loeb in species as complicated as frogs.[1,2] All the frogs produced were males, so that the race (of frogs) could not even be theoretically carried on by that method.

The origin of s.e.xual reproduction in animals must have been something as follows: The first method of reproduction was by a simple division of the unicellular organism to form two new individuals. At times, a fusion of two independent individuals occurred. This was known as conjugation, and is seen among Paramecia and some other species to-day. Its value is probably a reinvigoration of the vitality of the individual. Next there was probably a tendency for the organism to break up into many parts which subsequently united with each other. Gradually some of these uniting cells came to contain more food material than the others. As a result of their increased size, they possessed less power of motion than the others, and in time lost their cilia (or flagella) entirely and were brought into contact with the smaller cells only by the motion of the latter. Finally, in colonial forms, most of the cells in the colony ceased to have any share in reproduction, that function being relegated to the activities of a few cells which broke away and united with others similarly adrift. These cells functioning for reproduction continued to differentiate more and more, until large ova and small, motile spermtozoa were definitely developed.

The clearest evidences as to the stages in the evolution of s.e.xual reproduction is found in the plant world among the green algae.[3] In the lower orders of one-celled algae, reproduction takes place by simple cell division. In some families, this simple division results in the production of several new individuals instead of only two from each parent cell. A slightly different condition is found in those orders where the numerous cells thus produced by simple division of the parent organism unite in pairs to produce new individuals after a brief independent existence of their own. These free-swimming cells, which apparently are formed only to reunite with each other, are called zoospores, while the organism which results from their fusion is known as a zygospore. The zygospore thus formed slowly increases in size, until it in its turn develops a new generation of zoospores. In still other forms, in place of the zoospores, more highly differentiated cells, known as eggs and sperms, are developed, and these unite to produce the new individuals. Both eggs and sperms are believed to have been derived from simpler ancestral types of ciliated cells which were similar in structure and closely resembled zoospores.[A]

[Footnote A: This evidence, which points to the conclusion that in the early origin of s.e.xual reproduction the males and females were differentiated and developed from a uniform type of ancestral cell, quite controverts Ward's point that the male originated as a kind of parasite.]

Having once originated, the s.e.xual type of reproduction possessed a definite survival value which a.s.sured its continuation. s.e.x makes possible a crossing of strains, which evidently possesses some great advantage, since the few simple forms which have no such division of reproductive functions have undergone no great development and all the higher, more complicated animals are s.e.xual. This crossing of strains may make possible greater variety, it may help in crossing out or weakening variations which are too far from the average, or both.

Schafer[4] thinks that an exchange of nuclear substance probably gives a sort of chemical rejuvenation and very likely stimulates division. At any rate, the groups in which the reproductive process became thus part.i.tioned between two kinds of individuals, male and female, not only survived, but they underwent an amazing development compared with those which remained s.e.xless.

There came a time in the evolution of the groups possessing s.e.xual reproduction, when increasing specialization necessitated the division into reproductive and non-reproductive cells. When a simple cell reproduces by dividing into two similar parts, each developing into a new individual like the parent, this parent no longer exists as a cell, but the material which composed it still exists in the new ones. The old cell did not "die"--no body was left behind. Since this nuclear substance exists in the new cells, and since these generations go on indefinitely, the cells are in a sense "immortal" or deathless. In a one-celled individual, there is no distinction between germinal and bodily functions. In the more complicated organisms, however, there are innumerable kinds of cells, a few (the germ cells) specialized for reproduction, the others forming the body which eats, moves, sees, feels, and in the case of man, _thinks_. But the germ-cells or germplasm continue to be immortal or deathless in the same sense as in the simplest organisms. The body, in a historical sense, grew up around the germ-cells, taking over functions a little at a time, until in the higher animals nutrition and other activities and a large part even of the reproductive process itself is carried on by body-cells.

When we think of a man or woman, we think of an individual only one of whose innumerable activities--reproduction--is carried on by germ-cells, and this one only at the very beginning of the life of a new individual.

Human societies, needless to remark, are not organized by germplasms, but by brains and hands--composed of body cells. If these brains and hands--if human bodies--did not wear out or become destroyed, we should not need to trouble ourselves so much about the germplasm, whose sole function in human society is to replace them.

Since the individual human bodies and minds which seek after the things to which we mortals attach value--moral worth, esthetic and other pleasure, achievement and the like--do have to be replaced every few years, the germplasms from which new individuals must come have always been and always will be of fundamental importance. It is always the _product_ of the germplasm which concerns us, and we are interested in the germ-cells themselves only in relation to their capacity to produce individuals of value to society.

So let us not go erring about in the philosophical ether, imagining that because the _amoeba_ may not be specialized for anything over and above nutrition and reproduction that these are necessarily the "main business" or "chief ends" of human societies. Better say that although we have become developed and specialized for a million other activities we are still bound by those fundamental necessities. As to "Nature's purposes" about which the older s.e.x literature has had so much to say, the idea is essentially religious rather than scientific. If such "purposes" indeed exist in the universe, man evidently does not feel particularly bound by them. We do not hesitate to put a cornfield where "Nature" had a forest, or to replace a barren hillside by the sea with a city.

Necessities and possibilities, not "purposes" in nature, claim our attention--reproduction being one of those embarra.s.sing necessities, viewed through the eyes of man, the one evaluating animal in the world.

Thus in reasoning from biology to social problems, it is fundamental to remember that man as an animal is tremendously differentiated in functions, and that most of the activities we look upon as distinctively human depend upon the body rather than the germ-cells.

It follows that biology is the foundation rather than the house, if we may use so crude a figure. The solidity of the foundation is very important, but it does not dictate the details as to how the superstructure shall be arranged.

Civilization would not be civilization if we had to spend most of our time thinking about the biological basis. If we wish to think of "Nature's" proscriptions or plans as controlling animal life, the anthropomorphism is substantially harmless. But man keeps out of the way of most of such proscriptions, has plans of his own, and has acquired considerable skill in varying his projects without running foul of such biological prohibitions.

It is time to abandon the notion that biology prescribes in detail how we shall run society. True, this foundation has never received a surplus of intelligent consideration. Sometimes human societies have built so foolishly upon it that the result has been collapse. Somebody is always digging around it in quest of evidence of some vanished idyllic state of things which, having had and discarded, we should return to. This little excursion into biology is made in the full consciousness that social mandates are not to be found there. Human projects are the primary material of social science. It is indispensable to check these against biological fact, in order to ascertain which are feasible and which are not. The biological basis may _help_ in explaining old social structures or in planning new ones; but much wild social theory has been born of a failure to appreciate the limitations of such material.

All the so-called higher animals, mammals and others, are divided into two s.e.xes, male and female. Besides the differentiation of germ-cells there are rather obvious differences in the bodies of the two s.e.xes. In common with many other mammals, the human male has a larger and stronger body, on an average, than has the human female. This is true also of the anthropoid apes, the species which most resemble man physically and are commonly supposed to be his nearest blood relatives in the animal kingdom. It has been true of man himself as far back as we have any records.

Such differences are only superficial--the real ones go deeper. We are not so much interested in how they originated in the world as in how they _do_ come about in the individual. At least, we can come a good deal nearer ascertaining the latter than the former. In either case, our real purpose is to determine as nearly as possible what the unlikeness really consists of and so help people to sensibly make up their minds what can be done about it.

To define s.e.x with rigid accuracy as the term applies to human beings, it is necessary to tell what it is in mammals, since man is a mammal.

The presence of distinct body-cells is not peculiar to mammals, but there is one respect in which these latter are quite different from non-mammals: A mammalian individual, beginning like a non-mammal with a fertilized egg, has a period of intra-maternal development which a non-mammal has not. That is, a non-mammalian is a fertilized egg _plus_ its parental (or extra-parental) environment; but a mammalian individual is a fertilized egg, _plus its intra-maternal environment_, plus its non-parental environment.

Here in a nutsh.e.l.l is the biological basis of s.e.x problem in human society. Human individuals do wear out and have to be replaced by reproduction. In the reproductive process, the female, as in mammals generally, is specialized to provide an intra-maternal environment (approximately nine months in the human species) for each new individual, and lactation or suckling afterward. The biological phase of the s.e.x problem in society consists in studying the nature of that specialization. From the purely sociological standpoint, the s.e.x problem concerns the customs and inst.i.tutions which have grown up or may grow up to meet the need of society for reproduction.

The point which most concerns us is in how far biological data can be applied to the s.e.x problem in society. Systematic dissections or breeding experiments upon human beings, thought out in advance and under control in a laboratory, are subject to obvious limitations. Surgical operations, where careful data are kept, often answer the same purpose as concerns some details; but these alone would give us a fragmentary record of how a fertilized egg becomes a conscious human being of one s.e.x or the other. The practice of medicine often throws light on important points. Observation of abnormal cases plays its part in adding to our knowledge. Carefully compiled records of what does occur in inheritance, while lacking many of the checks of planned and controlled experiments, to some extent take the place of the systematic breeding possible with animals. At best, however, the limitations in experimentation with human subjects would give us a rather disconnected record were it not for the data of experimental biology.

How may such biological material be safely used? Indiscriminately employed, it is worse than useless--it can be confusing or actually misleading. It is probably never safe to say, or even to infer directly, that because of this or that animal structure or behaviour we should do thus and so in human society. On this point sociology--especially the sociology of s.e.x--must frankly admit its mistakes and break with much of its cherished past.

The social problem of s.e.x consists of fitting the best possible inst.i.tutions on to the biological foundation _as we find it in the human species_. Hence all our reasoning about which inst.i.tution or custom is preferable must refer directly to the human bodies which compose society. We can use laboratory evidence about the bodies of other animals to help us in understanding the physical structure and functions of the human body; but we must stop trying to apply the s.e.x-ways of birds, spiders or even cows (which are at least mammals) to human society, which is not made up of any of these.

It is possible to be quite sure that some facts carefully observed about mammals in a biological laboratory apply to similar structures in man, also a mammal. Because of this relations.h.i.+p, the data from medicine and surgery are priceless. Thus we are enabled to check up our systematic experimental knowledge of animals by an ascertained fact here and there in the human material, and to get a fairly exact idea of how great the correspondence actually is. Gaps thus filled in are narrow enough, and our certainty of the ground on either side sufficiently great, to give a good deal of justifiable a.s.surance.

If we use our general biological evidence in this way, merely to help in clearing up points about _human_ biology, we need not be entirely limited to mammals. Some s.e.x phenomena are quite general, and may be drawn from the s.e.xual species most convenient to study and control in experiments. When we get away from mammalian forms, however, we must be very sure that the cases used for ill.u.s.trations are of general application, are similar in respect to the points compared, or that any vital differences are understood and conscientiously pointed out.

Too much stress cannot be laid upon the point that such animal data, carefully checked up with the human material, cannot safely be used for any other purpose than to discover what the facts are about the human body. When the discussion of human social inst.i.tutions is taken up in Part II, the obvious a.s.sumption will always be that these rest upon human biology, and that we must not let our minds wander into vague a.n.a.logies concerning birds, spiders or crustacea.