by
Melinda Pillsbury-Foster
Aristotle
was a smart guy.
One
day he squinted down into a handful of his own semen and noticed an
army of tiny little wigglers vainly trying to go someplace. I have to
admit, the guy must have had great eyesight.
From
this evidence the man derived the Theory of the Omni-Potent Sperm,
which is still alive and, well, living with us today.
Men,
asserted Aristotle, are the source of all life.
They
ejaculate their wondrous seed into the fertile, but dead soil of the
Woman, and behold, life. All else was irrelevant.
From
this handy theory -- the original example of junk science -- Western
Civilization (wasn't it Gandhi who said, when asked what he thought
of Western Civilization, that he thought it would be a good idea?)
derived the law that gave into the hands of men the full and
unquestioned custody of children, the product of their excessively
valuable loins. It was a question of property riveted to a proper
respect for the miraculous process of impregnation.
Birth?
That was just delegated work of little value. Women did it, for gosh
sakes, how much could it be worth?
Sex?
That was work a man could get into.
This
was, of course, long before the time of such useful cognitive tools
as economic theory and biophysics. But this is the source of the laws
with which we still live today.
When
they were struggling for their rights, women faced a legal reality
that denied they had any right to their children -- thanks to
Aristotle and his handy handful of reproductive juices. So they
punted. They compromised with another legal fiction: men and women
each should have a 50% interest in their biological children. As will
most compromises, this one has not worked either.
Even
though economic theory existed, no one thought to apply it. Even
though the biological realities were better understood, they were
ignored. After all, what does law have to do with reality?
The
social tinkering of generations of We-Know-What's-Good-For-You
theoreticians had so deadened us to the verities of individual rights
that we did not even notice. And lawyers? As we all know, they are
for the most part so toxic they are likely to turn into politicians.
But
it is never too late to change.
The
Cult of the Omni-Potent Sperm is actually pretty funny when you
summon the images of that scene into the mind: a group of jerks
jerking off while their economy (yes, they had one) continued to
function on the wealth produced most exclusively by the
disfranchised. Women and slaves were the working population. Men who
could vote did not work -- unless jerking off and talking are forms
of labor. They did become politicians (and, presumably, lawyers).
Women were slaves, but they didn't get the use of the title. Slaves,
after all, could buy their freedom in that day in age; women could
not.
While
ancient Greeks might not have understood the economic theory whereby
they asserted ownership of the source of wealth, they certainly
understood how to do it.
We
will now consider the economic realities of the biological investment
the two genders of humanity make in offspring. We will now dispose of
the Cult of the Omni-Potent Sperm once and for all. The Cult has had
its long run, but it is time to get real.
