>>> cbcox at ilstu.edu 04/11/01 04:26PM >>>
Kelley Walker wrote:
>
> that is,
> prior to learning about copulation between male and female of the species,
> they didn't know that males were required for reproduction. if i'm not
> mistaken, and i probably am so maybe maureen can help, isn't their
> contemporary evidence from 20th of such peoples who don't know the
> connection between sex and childbirth?
This part is o.k. You should read the _Oresteia_ by Aeschylus. The whole stupendous trilogy turns on an argument over which parent is the parent. Apollo claims there is no blood relationship between mother & child, the mother being only an incubator for the father's seed. The Furies claim that therd is no blood relationship between father & child. In the former case, Orestes was not polluted by killing his mother but rather had a duty to avenge his father's murder. In the latter case, Agamemnon was no bloodkin to Orestes, who therefore was not bound to avenge him, but he was guilty of shedding kinsblood in killing his mother. Athena, judging the case, doesn't go into the rights & wrongs of it, but merely says that since she has only a father, no mother, she takes the man's side, freeing Orestes & ticking off the Furies until she more or less bribes them to accept the verdict. A very wonderful work.
I just don't know about the rest. Before it could make any difference what men thought they had to become dominant. So you can't make their druthers the explanation for their druthers making a difference.
((((((((((
CB: Ethnographer Bronislaw Malinowski thought that the Trobriand Islanders were ignorant of biological paternity in the early 20th Century, but other evidence indicated he was mistaken.
However, for the theory Kelly mentions, ignorance of the male biological role is not necessary, only customary promiscuity (i.e. non-monogamy) so that which of the male partners is the father is uncertain.
CB as a broken record: the theory Kelly sketches is in _The Origin of you know what_, wherein ( to Carrol discussion in a previous post on this thread) the origins of male supremacy, private property and the state are treated as a sort of complex that all arises together, so that a ruling class ( private property) and male supremacy ( "the" family) are reciprocal originating causes of each other ( see Ollman's discussion of reciprocal causation in your book _Alienation_).