Thomas Hood wrote:
Saffron, the prehistoric paradigm for sexual reproduction was the agricultural sowing of seed. According to this view, since the male possessed the seed, he was the originator of life. Everything else follows from this paradigmatic assumption.
With respect to the cultures that claim intellectual descendance from ancient Greece, one of the most power evocations of this basic idea was Plato. Here is a link to Timaeus where the following passage is taken. (note: for those of us who come from cultures that do not claim descendence from Plato et al, there are other stories that explain the relationship between mind and matter very differently, and with very different results.)
http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/5/7/157 ... tm#2H_SECT
"Wherefore also in men the organ of generation becoming rebellious and masterful, like an animal disobedient to reason, and maddened with the sting of lust, seeks to gain absolute sway; and the same is the case with the so-called womb or matrix of women; the animal within them is desirous of procreating children, and when remaining unfruitful long beyond its proper time, gets discontented and angry, and wandering in every direction through the body, closes up the passages of the breath, and, by obstructing respiration, drives them to extremity, causing all varieties of disease, until at length the desire and love of the man and the woman, bringing them together and as it were plucking the fruit from the tree, sow in the womb, as in a field, animals unseen by reason of their smallness and without form; these again are separated and matured within; they are then finally brought out into the light, and thus the generation of animals is completed."
This stuff goes along with Plato's idea of matter as empty without what is "really real" - that is Form (reason being the only way to perceive Form). Aristotle expressed this concept of matter as
materia prima. The basic idea for Plato is that women are essentially materia prima, dumb to the higher calling of reason and essentially an animal vessel for the growth and embodiment of form as it descends into the earthly plain. This "seeding," of course, is the role of men, who are, according to Plato, capable of reason. A good article about the concept of prime matter viz Aristotle is "Aristotle and Prime Matter: A reply to Hugh R. King" by Friedrich Solmsen. I originally got it from JSTOR so I can't provide a link to the text.
