4 TABOO AND GENETICS 



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. 



Sexless or asexual reproduction assumes 

 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 sex here. It is fairly safe to assume that 

 life began thus in the world, as neuter or sexless 

 — i.e., with no suggestion of either maleness 

 or femaleness.* 



♦This asexual 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 classification 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 asexual 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 

 assertion 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 sexless, and not 

 as female. 



