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Abstract
Table
of Contents
Part I
Part II
Part III
Part IV
Appendixes
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Part II: The Seed of the Woman
Chapter 15
Male And Female Created He Them
And Adam said,
This is now bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh:
she shall be called Woman because she was taken out of man.
and they shall be one flesh.
(Genesis 2:23,24)
For the man is not of the woman;
but the woman is of the man.
(1 Corinthians 11:8)
This
chapter is really in two sections. The first, which comprises
the text itself, is a general statement of what is currently
known with reasonable certainty about the origin and development,
in the maturing individual, of the differences in both form and
function between the two sexes. It is important to be aware of
these facts because, as will be seen in due course, they have
a direct bearing on the taking of Eve out of Adam. The subject
also has a direct bearing on the Virgin Birth and the Incarnation.
The other section which might have appeared as supporting footnotes
were it not as extensive as the text itself (!), will be found
in the form of expanded notes which are at the end of this chapter.
These scientific excursions are primarily intended for those
who by background and training will wish to have a more detailed
treatment of the evidence. These notes can be safely disregarded
without any harm being done to the thread
 pg.1
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of the argument by those
who do not desire to become involved in technical detail. The
continuity of this study will not be seriously disturbed if they
are simply ignored. The body of the text itself, however, has
a very direct bearing on the creation of Eve out of Adam and
is therefore quite essential to what follows later.
When the female
ovum is fertilized by the male, there is initiated an incredibly
complex chain of events which culminate nine months later in
the birth of a child. During the very early stages of this gestation
period the development of the embryo is predisposed in certain
directions by the possession of the sex chromosomes which are
composed of two elements, one contributed by the mother and the
other by the father. The mother can contribute only what is termed
an X chromosome which predisposes towards the development of
female structural, functional and temperamental characteristics,
but the father can contribute either an X or a Y chromosome predisposing
in the first instance to female, or in the second to male structural
and functional and temperamental characteristics. In short, the
sex of the child to be born is initially governed by the chromosomal
contribution of the father. All chromosomes are paired, and the
Y is dominant over the X chromosome when combined with it. A
child conceived will therefore be subject during development
thereafter to a predisposition towards femaleness if receiving
an X chromosome from the mother and an X chromosome from the
father (XX), or towards maleness if receiving an X chromosome
from the mother but a Y chromosome from the father (XY).
In the earlier stages of
embryological research it was believed that the contribution
to the ovum of the X or the Y chromosome from the male parent
predetermined the sex of the developing child. It is now
recognized however, that the word "predetermine" is
too strong and should be replaced by the word predispose.
The truth of the matter is that in the very early stages
of foetal development certain disturbing factors may neutralize
this predisposition and despite the presence of the supposedly
determinate sex chromosome contributed by the male, the individual
may emerge oppositely sexed. As Professor Dorothy Price put it:
(166)
Although its genetic sex has
already been determined, depending on whether a Y-carrying or
an X-carrying sperm fertilized the egg from which it has grown,
the early fetus is structurally equipped to become either
a male or a female [emphasis mine].
There
are many factors which may disturb or confuse the relationship
between the sex chromosome and the emergent femininity or
166. See Notes at the end of this chapter
(p.10).
pg
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masculinity of the individual,
so that it has become useful now to make a distinction between
sex and gender, between the physical appearance of the individual
and his or her actual temperamental disposition which may belie
the physical appearance. (167) It is apparent today that the chain of events during
prenatal development may be influenced by factors other than
the X or Y chromosome, though these other factors are by no means
altogether independent of them.
If and when such disruption
occurs the sex of the child as assigned by the attending physician
at birth (or later) on the basis of the genitalia or external
organs of sex, may either contradict the chromosomal sex or may
be indeterminate, appearing in the form of a mixture of both
male and female physical characteristics. (168) It then becomes a very serious, and often very difficult,
matter for the physician to assign the correct sex so that the
developing child may psychologically as well as functionally
assume the appropriate role in society to suit the inner drives
which he or she will be subjected to as the reproductive organs
become mature and begin to produce those hormones that so strongly
influence behaviour in adult life. Any conflict between these
stimulators of sexual behaviour and the organs of sex which are
appropriate to their functional expression can be devastating
in terms of the psychological well-being of the afflicted individual.
The truth of the matter is that
a significant number of people are indeterminate to a more or
less degree in this regard. (169) Indeed, comparatively few of us (some would say virtually
none of us) are wholly male or wholly female. We are all
a mixture of both in adult life; and in the earliest stages of
embryonic development we are actually neither. The body
at first seems equally capable of developing into a male or a
female, in spite of the predisposing presence of the XY
or XX chromosomes which were formerly presumed to be the inescapable
triggers of a purely uni-sexual development.
Among the factors which can disturb or
neutralize this triggering device in prenatal life are the presence
of a twin of the opposite sex and, in humans, inadvisable medication
during pregnancy. Postnatally among the factors capable of upsetting
or even reversing sexual characteristics are operational intervention
and so-called parasitic castration in which some parasite destroys
part of the function of the sex organ itself, the testes of certain
animals. (170)
It is now well recognized that under
such influences a genetic or chromosomal male may become a female,
both structurally and functionally. The reverse, however, is
apparently very rare indeed, (171) although there may be a tendency in this direction
with aging due to the failure of the female hormonal system and
emergence of some residual male hormonal activity which has hitherto
been kept in abeyance by the dominant activity of the female
hormone. (172)
Thus an older woman
167. See Notes at the end of this chapter
(page 11).
168. See Notes at the end of this chapter (page
11).
169. See Notes at the end of this chapter (page
12).
170. See Notes at the end of this chapter (page
13).
171. See Notes at the end of this chapter (page
14).
172. See Notes at the end of this chapter (page
15).
pg.3
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may develop some male
characteristics such as a deepening and coarsening of the voice,
some incipient baldness on the head, beard growth, reduction
of the breasts, and, psychologically, the development of a more
aggressive disposition. These changes may be enhanced by certain
pathological conditions.
It has been found that "maleness"
is for some reason not straight-forwardly achieved by the developing
male fetus, which does not therefore merely "drift"
into the appropriate form simply by possession of the Y chromosome.
Maleness is, as it were, actively imposed on the growing organism
against a tendency towards femaleness. The tendency to femaleness
is in part due to the fact that the whole embryonic development
has to take place within the confines of a uterus which is bathed
by maternal hormones. (173) The reverse does not appear to be true; a female
fetus does not tend towards maleness.
This active imposition is, of course,
dependent upon the presence of the Y chromosome which causes
the medulla of the gonad * to develop at the expense of the cortex.
If this drive is weakened for some reason and the cortex begins
to develop at the expense of the medulla, the hitherto neutral
organism develops towards a female regardless of the presence
of the Y chromosome. The gonad itself is, up to this point, "indifferent,"
and can therefore develop into a testis or an ovary, although
for some unknown reason the gonad more easily develops
into an ovary than into a testis. On this account the unborn
male is said to have to "struggle" to maintain its
integrity as a male. There is apparently no difficulty in the
derivation of a female out of a male.
If the gonad
develops into a testis, male hormones are produced which structure
the developing organism as a male: if it develops into an ovary,
the reverse takes place. It is in this sense that the embryo
begins as an entirely neutral organism from the point of view
of its sexuality, the X and the Y chromosomes providing the necessary
predisposition to decide which way the gonads shall develop,
but not providing an infallible predetermination. In the absence
of the Y chromosome the gonad has apparently no power to
follow a course of development towards maleness, but even in
the presence of the Y chromosome the other influences
acting upon the gonad may still override the influence of the
Y chromosome. To repeat, therefore, in the present state of our
knowledge there are no barriers to the principle of deriving
a female out of a male (an Eve out of an Adam),
173. Short, R. V., "Germ Cell Sex"
in The Genetics of the Spermatozoon, edited by R. A. Beatty
and S. Gleuchlsohn-Waelsch, Edinburgh, International Symposium
at Edinburgh University, 1972, p.325.
* The gonad is the very first identifiable structure of the reproductive
system to be formed in the developing fetus. The medulla is the
inner core of the gonad as opposed to its outer layer or cortex.
pg.4
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but there are evidently
barriers to the derivation of male out of female. At the present
moment it appears that the best explanation of such sexual indeterminism
is to assume that the sexes were at one time not differentiated
at all, that the individual was bi-sexual. With respect to Adam
as first created, this could very well mean that he was gynandromorphous
in terms of his physical constitution, and androgynous as to
his temperament, a man/woman creation, subsequently divided into
two: and that the process of separation involved the removing
of a female principle out of the male as "woman." The
man thus retains both the X and the Y chromosomes whereas the
woman carries only the X chromosome.
It must occur to the reader that such
bisexuality as we are here attributing to Adam, converted into
a monosexual being when Eve was subsequently separated from him,
represents a situation that may well have applied equally to
some of the other forms of animal life which also testify to
a measure of residual bisexuality. I think this is quite likely.
The surgical operation which separated Eve from Adam may not
therefore have been the only occasion, or even the first occasion,
upon which God acted in this way. This should not be a matter
of any grave concern in that both man and animals alike also
shared a similar experience of creation in the first place, similar
at least in so far as both alike return to the dust (Ecclesiastes
3:20). It would surely not be so surprising that God should adopt
a single procedure when introducing forms of life which share
many things in common as to their overall physiology.
Admittedly, it may seem to lessen the
uniqueness of man's position a little but it cannot be denied
and, as may be seen from the indexed references (chiefly #175,
176, and 177, at the end of this chapter) animals also share
a certain indecisiveness in the matter of sexual dimorphism which
parallels that found in man though in a far more pervasive form.
We are not really robbing man of his uniqueness; we are only
saying, as we have already said in another connection, * that
God prepared the natural order before Adam was created
in such a way that it would serve (when it came time to create
man) as a natural framework for the working out of his
redemptive plan, a plan which required that Eve be first of all
part of Adam and only later separated from him � for reasons
which will become apparent subsequently.
This is an arrangement which God
did not merely use because it was already in operation, but put
into operation because He intended to extend its use in a very
special way.
* Custance, A. C., in the Doorway Papers Series, Grand
Rapids, Zondervan: see particularly, "If Adam Had Not Died",
Part III, , and
"The Virgin Birth and the Incarnation", Part
IV, in The Virgin Birth and the Incarnation, vol.5; and also
"The Preparation of the Earth for Man", Part
I in Evolution or Creation, vol.4.
pg.5
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The
present tendency among biologists, where evolutionary thinking
reigns almost unchallenged, is to assume in the light of what
we now know, that sexual reproduction is a somewhat latecomer
in the great chain of life. (174) Before it appeared there were no such sexual differences
as we now observe widely among living things. Either sexual reproduction
was non-existent (i.e., multiplication took place by simple division
as in unicellular animals), or both sexes were combined in each
individual which was self-fertilized by its own seed. (175) Such a method of reproduction
is common among plants and animals, including insects, birds
and fish. (176)
In such animals it is not at all unusual for their bodies to
contain a testis (on one side) and an ovary (on the other side),
and not infrequently the individual has the power of self-fertilization
� though in some species there is normally cross fertilization
with either sex. (177)
The problem of the origin of sexual reproduction without which
the concept of male and female has virtually no meaning in biology,
is one which has baffled evolutionists because it is difficult
to see what the intermediate stages could possibly be. It is
not without interest that the very word Adam has come
to be employed within scientific circles as a kind of code term
to identify the whole question of the emergence of sexual dimorphism.
(178)
It is clear today that man still shares
some of the androgynous character of certain species of animals
and one must assume, I think, that the constitution of these
animals below man reflects a design which the Creator adopted
in anticipation of the creation of Adam who was at first similarly
constituted with a bisexual nature in order that a certain further
operation which is revealed in Genesis 2:21-23 might be performed
to set the stage for man's redemption. As we shall see, the creation
of Adam in this form and the subsequent taking of Eve out of
him was planned by God for profoundly important physiological
reasons in the light of man's foreseen history and foreknown
need for redemption. The crucial connection between the Plan
of Redemption and the initial form in which Adam was created,
according to Scripture, will be explored subsequently. What is
important at the present moment is to realize that this initiating
surgical operation has left an indelible mark upon man, the evidence
of which can still be a subject of fascinating research and the
antecedents of which seem to have been witnessed in the prior
existence of many other forms of animal life in which the sexes
have remained combined in the individual. Such an Adam would
have been quite viable. (179)
In man as a consequence of the Fall,
the effects of this separation have been disturbed in various
ways, to our distress. Certain irregularities in the distribution
of the X and Y chromosomes lead to anomalous developments which
nevertheless permit us to see something of the
174. See Notes at the end of this chapter
(page 15).
175. See Notes at the end of this chapter (page
16).
176. See Notes at the end of this chapter (page
16).
177. The common earthworm night crawler (Lumbricus terrestres)
is both a complete male and a complete female. It cannot, however,
fertilize its own eggs: there is reciprocal cross fertilization
in this species. This may be contrasted, therefore, with the
behaviour of the Mesozoon Dicyemida which can fertilize itself
[H. Armstrong, Creation Research Society Quarterly, Sept., 1972,
p.132]. This is known as autogamy.
178. Ulam, Stanislaw M., "How to Formulate Mathematically
Problems of Rate of Evolution" in Mathematical Challenges
to the Neo-Darwinian Interpretation of Evolution, Wistar
Symposium, Philadelphia, Wistar Institute Press, no.5, 1967,
p.23.
179. See Notes at the end of this chapter (page 16).
pg.6
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specific influences of
these specialized chromosomes by their exaggerated effects in
such irregular forms. Thus in Turner's Syndrome the Y sex chromosome
has somehow been lost so that the normal XY appears as XO. Only
one X chromosome is found and this is presumably contributed
by the female parent. As might perhaps be expected the virtual
disappearance of the male sex component is reflected in a corresponding
diminishing of maleness in the female child which results. Such
an individual is considered to be a particularly "pure"
female. (180)
Meanwhile, in human beings there are
vestigial remains in both sexes of the organs of the opposite
sex, the nipples in man being an obvious example. However, there
is some evidence that these particular organs in the male of
the species are not entirely useless. Several reports are now
available of men who have suckled children in cases of extreme
need. David Livingstone notes a statement from the works of Humboldt
who reported an instance of the male breast yielding milk. *
Livingstone remarks upon an occasion in Scotland, where a man
whose wife had been put to death, in desperation put his child
to his breast and found, to the astonishment of himself and his
neighbors, that milk flowed. (181) Farley Mowatt gives a translation of a portion of
one of the old Viking Sagas setting forth a rather similar situation:
(182)
All that night Thorgiol
watched over his infant son and he could see that the boy would
not survive unless something drastic was done. He did not intend
to let him die if he could help it.
Then he shewed his mettle, for he took
a knife and cut his own nipple. It began to bleed, and he let
the baby tug at it until blood mixed with fluid came out. He
did not stop until milk came out; and the boy nursed upon that.
Birds may be so
completely convertible as to sex, in either direction, that there
have been reports since the fifteenth century of roosters becoming
hens and laying eggs, and hens becoming roosters with all their
cocky characteristics. The Basler Chronick of 1624 reported
that in 1474 an egg-laying cockerel was executed! (183) The Edinburgh Evening
Courant in July, 1834, mentions a turkey cock in East Lothian
which had hatched a brood of chickens. (184) Among animals, therefore, such transformations of
sex and such combinations of diverse sexual characters within
a single individual are frequent enough; and bisexualism or hermaphroditism
is common in plants.
The word hermaphrodite is formed
from the names of two pagan
* Livingstone, David, Travels and Researches
in South Africa, New York, Harper, 1858, p.141.
180. See Notes at the end of this chapter (page
17).
181. See Notes at the end of this chapter (page
17).
182. Mowatt, Farley, West Viking, Toronto, Little, Brown,
1965, p.147.
183. Ciba Symposium, June, 1940, p.495.
184. Turner, Sharon, The Sacred History of the World, London,
Longman, 1837, vol. II, p.191, footnote.
pg.7
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deities Hermes and Aphrodite,
who are said to have loved so dearly that they begot a child
combining both their natures in one. It is obvious that the ancients
were well acquainted with sexual aberrations and sought to explain
some of them in supernatural terms. Because hermaphroditism is
by no means limited to man, I think one must assume that, like
physical immortality, it was built into the Natural Order by
the Creator in anticipation of the making of man whose history
was to require a similar potential.
It therefore appears, in the light of
present knowledge, that in living forms below man a clear distinction
between male and female is not always to be observed. In plants,
bisexuality is exceedingly common, in insects frequent, in birds
it is not rare, and in higher animals the distinctions are often
blurred. (185)
Moreover, we know now that in animals conversion can be in either
direction, maleness is easily converted into femaleness, and
vice versa: whereas in man conversion from femaleness
to maleness seldom occurs in spite of attempts by human intervention.
We also know that a surprising number of people are almost equally
male and female in some aspects of their constitution and character.
Let me try to sum up, therefore, for
the non-specialist reader the substance of what we have been
considering thus far. Not many of us, with the possible exception
of those who "suffer" from the Turner Syndrome, are
entirely male or entirely female: we are all a little of both
and some are so much so that their sex and gender are contradictory
and life may become a very confusing experience.
Present evidence shows that by so constituting
Adam, woman could quite conceivably be derived out of man: but
it is difficult to conceive how man could have been taken out
of woman. To my mind, the creation of Eve was pure miracle: but
the Christian who has once settled this fact in his own mind
should surely not be surprised to find that research now provides
him with a little better understanding of the background of what
he has long since believed. There is no longer any excuse for
denying the possibility that our first parents could very
well have been united in one individual named Adam (Genesis 5:2).
Neither can be wholly complete without
the other and yet such have been the disruptive effects of sin
through the centuries that constitutionally it is a rare
thing when two are joined in marriage with entire success, for
the true maleness or femaleness of both has been disordered.
Consequently we are no longer two perfect halves which would
make one complete whole even on a physiological plane: we are
only two fragments and these fragments rarely match perfectly
in more than a few areas of interaction.
185. See Notes at the end of this chapter
(page 18).
pg.8
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Experience
shows, moreover, that those whose sexuality is least clearly
differentiated towards one pole or the other are often the most
highly gifted but also the least fitted for marriage. (186)
I suspect that the original "wholeness"
that was in Adam at first was not merely the sum of two halves,
but a compound with qualities and characteristics of which we
can have little knowledge. * As the compound of two chemicals
is usually quite different in its nature to the elements†
themselves, so the first Adam, as created, was such a creature
as to be as full of mystery and glory as the last Adam was.
So it is not at all necessary for
the child of God any longer to speak apologetically about his
faith in the creation of Eve out of Adam. This is sober history,
and if we do not believe it, it is not because we know too much
but because we know too little. Eve was taken out of Adam by
a surgical operation, divinely performed while Adam was in a
deep coma. And this mode of creation for her was essential, as
we shall see, for the later appearing of the virgin born Saviour
who was truly to represent the original Adam as God created him.
This is miracle � but miracle performed with a rational end
in view and by a means that was essential to the service of that
end. Every year sees further advances in our understanding of
why and how this could be so, and leaves us with increasing wonderment
at the ways of the Lord in creating man, and the extraordinary
insight of the Genesis story.
We conclude, therefore, that the record
of the formation of Eve out of Adam is not only entirely reasonable
but may in fact give us a clue which we would not, except for
revelation, have had regarding the origin of certain aspects
of man's form and function and temperament as he is now
constituted. And by extrapolation, we may judge something of
his original constitution when God created him.
186. See Note at the end of this chapter (page 19).
* According to Berdyaev, "man is really a bisexual being
combining both the masculine and feminine principle in different
proportions. A man in whom the female principle is completely
absent would be an abstract being, and a woman in whom the masculine
principle is completely absent would not be a personality. The
masculine principle is essentially personal and anthropological,
while the feminine principle is essentially communal and cosmic.
It is only in the union of these two principles that we have
complete humanity. This union is realized in every man and woman
within their androgynous natures, but in the fallen world the
two principles not only seek union but also wage war against
each other." Man is a sick, wounded, disharmonious creature,
in the thinking of Berdyaev, primarily because he is sexual,
that is, a bisexual being who has lost his wholeness arid original
integrity. [Nicholas Berdyaev, The Destiny of Man, London,
Geoffrey Bles, 1954, chapter III, Sect. 3, titled, "Sex:
the Masculine and the Feminine."]
† As an example, salt is a compound of two elements
that have very different characteristics. And even more remarkable
is water with its incompressibility and other extraordinary qualities,
composed as it is of two compressible gases.
pg.9
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NOTES
166. (see p.2) Price, Dorothy, quoted by Graham Chedd,
"Struggling into Manhood," New Scientist, 5
June, 1969, p. 524. As Chedd notes, it is now believed that maleness
is dependent not merely upon the presence of the Y chromosome
but, at two critical points, upon two masculinizing substances,
one as yet unidentified and the other testosterone or something
very like it. It is virtually certain that these two substances
appear only in the presence of the Y chromosome but apparently
they may not be manufactured by the developing organism at the
appropriate time and when this happens the fetus becomes feminized
instead.
Ursula Mittwoch, an outstanding authority
in this area in Great Britain, observed: "It is now accepted
that the embryonic testis plays a major role in mammalian sexual
development. If testes are present in the young embryo, a male
phenotype will develop, whereas if the embryonic testes are removed
the phenotype will resemble that of a female whatever the
chromosomal sex of the embryo" [emphasis mine: "Do
Genes Determine Sex?", Nature, 1 Feb., 1969, p.446].
From which we conclude that not only does the human embryo have
the capability of developing into either a male or a female regardless
of the presence of the X or Y sex chromosomes but the genetic
male may rather easily emerge as a female if certain irregularities
in sequential development occur.
The same author in another paper on the
subject underscores the now apparent indeterminacy of the X and
Y chromosome by saying, "Indeed, the assumption of sex-determining
genes is beset with difficulties. Furthermore, the facts of embryology
suggest an inherent bisexuality" ["Sex Differentiation
in Mammals," Nature, 6 May, 1967, p554]. Mittwoch
quotes Korens in Berlin as having stated that there can be no
question of the segregation of genes for sex differences during
gamete formation, but that on the contrary the gametes transmit
the hermaphrodite condition on which the characteristics of one
or the other sex are imprinted during subsequent development.
It is because the potentialities for both sexes are present in
both male and female determining germ cells, that Korens postulated
the existence of some additional sex determinants ["Do Genes
Determine Sex?", Nature, 1 Feb., 1969, p.446].
This is a point which has been emphasized
also by A. D. Jost who says: "The concept has been progressively
developed that in the absence of any sex gland the body is fundamentally
neutral sex, and that maleness or femaleness is imposed by male
and female hormones produced by the sex glands. . . . As
early as 1913, E. Steinach was convinced that the early embryo
was neither unisexual nor bisexual but asexual or indifferent
until sex is imposed by the sex glands." And later he adds,
"I have come to the conclusion that the simplest explanation
of gonadal differentiation would accept that some mechanism �
perhaps the production of a special local hormone, correlated
with the presence of the Y chromosome in the male [which Jost
elsewhere terms an 'inducer' substance] � triggers an early
and rapid development of the testis in the rudimentary sex organ
which otherwise would follow the slow pattern of development
characteristic of the ovary" ["Development of Sexual
Characteristics," Science Journal, June, 1970, p.67,
70].
In a similar vein, R. G. Edwards wrote:
"The essential unanswered question about primary sexual
differentiation is the mechanism which causes switching of the
gland into male or female development. Various theories have
been expounded involving the more rapid synthesis of DNA and
cell division due to the smallness of the Y chromosome, the heterochromatic
regions of the X and Y chromosome, and balance between the medullary
and cortical regions of the gonad. Early in differentiation,
an inducer-like substance evidently determines whether development
will be ovarian or testicular. Once determined, the gonad will
evidently not support the growth of germ cells of the other sex"
["Sex and the Developing Embryo," Science Journal,
Sept., 1969, p.89].
pg.10
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167. (See page 3) Ideally, it
appears that the X or Y chromosome initiates the programmed development
of the appropriate sex glands internally (ovaries or testes)
and the external genitalia as well as the accessory organs of
the whole reproductive mechanism. While the gonads are developing
into paired ovaries or testes, the germ cells are migrating to
these glandular structures in which they will be housed and further
prepared for later presentation as ova or spermatozoa. Migration
of the germ cells is believed to take place at first through
the vasculature by amoeboid movement [R. G. Edwards, "Sex
and the Developing Embryo," Science Journal, Sept.,
1969, p.89].
According to C. R. Austin, primordial
cells "are seen first in tissue that originates from the
fertilized egg but lies outside the true body of the embryo and
are thus said to have an extra-embryonic origin. Shortly, in
the course of embryonic development, the cells migrate from this
site into the body of the embryo and move towards the genital
ridges, regions in which the future gonads, the ovaries or testes,
are to develop" ["The Egg and Fertilization,"
Science Journal ,June, 1970, p.37].
So we have first, genetic or chromosomal
sex determination. This is followed by a gonadal determination
whereby either testes or ovaries are formed. These gonads produce
hormones which stimulate development of the appropriate reproductive
organs of either sex. Finally, by visual inspection of the external
organs, the sex of the neonate is assigned by the attending physicians
or by the parents and the child is thus cast in a special role
by society which hopefully will reinforce, and be in harmony
with, the physiological constitution.
168. (See page 3) Fritz Kahn observed: "In all mammals including
man, the sex gland is very often accompanied by more or less
well defined elements belonging to a gland of the opposite sex.
. . . On the one hand, it is not uncommon to find children
whose external genitalia exhibit such a combination of male and
female structures at birth that it is often difficult, if not
impossible, to decide whether the infant is a boy or a girl.
A child is born with a closed genital cleft like a boy but the
ostensible penis is small like a clitoris, and the sex glands
(testes) cannot be found because they have remained in the abdominal
cavity. Or, on the other hand, two glands have become prominent
like a boy's testicles but the genital cleft has remained open
like a vagina and one faces the question as to whether the child
is a girl with descended ovaries or a boy whose scrotum has remained
open" [Man in Structure and Function, New York, Knopf,
1960, vol.II, p.734]. This helps to point up the difficulties
which may face an attending physician who, for various social
reasons, must make a quick decision.
D. R. Keller of Basel, writing on hermaphroditism,
remarked, "From our discussion, it is clear that while sex
when fully differentiated is easy enough to recognize, it is
rather difficult to define biologically. Indeed, according to
Lillie, there is no such thing as sex but rather several dimorphous
states with contrasting characters. It is evident that this applies
to all living creatures" [Ciba Symposium, vol.2,
no.3, 1940, p.485].
The number of individuals who experience
a conflict between their inner drives and their assigned sex
and role in society seems to be on the increase. Peter Scott,
in an article entitled "Identifying Gender," and speaking
of the newborn whose sex is not easy to determine, observes:
"Most of these babies are normal females (that is, their
sex chromosomes are those of a female) who have been to some
extent masculinized by male hormones which have either arisen
within the baby's body or within the mother's body or have been
administered to her during pregnancy." He lists at least
six criteria that under ideal conditions might be used, but in
real life are not all of them useful either because they are
applied too late in life or because they delay assignment of
sex too long. These are: (1) internal organs (there is not usually
time for this kind of examination); (2) external genital organs
(fully formed breasts would be identified too late to correct
an error in assignment of sex at birth); (3) type of sex chromosome;
(4) characteristic hormones; (5) assigned sex by the physicians
or parents; and (6) gender role in society [New Scientist,
24 July, 1969, p.182].
pg.11
of 20
169. (See page 3) According to Hamilton,
Boyd and Mossman: "True hermaphroditism is very rare, and
among humans there are only twenty proven cases" [W. J.
Hamilton, J. D. Boyd, H. W. Mossman, Human Embryology,
Baltimore, Willams & Wilkins, 1945, p.220]. This was given
on the authority of H. H. Young, Genital Abnormalities: Hermaphroditism
and Related Adrenal Diseases, written in 1937. In 1946 Charles
W. Hooker noted five new cases reported during that single year
and states that this brought the total known to him up to 35
or 36 at the time ["Reproduction" in Annual Review
of Physiology, vol.8, p.470]. In 1957 John L. Morris describes
a number of cases of confused sex in some of which both male
and female gonads were present in the same individual, and some
clearly structurally opposing their chromosomal pattern. He notes
that there were by then at least 50 histological cases reported.
Some of the subjects underwent surgery to correct the malfunction
of both internal and external organs and were able to bear normal
children thereafter ["Intersexuality," Journal of
the American Medical Association, vol.163, no.7, 1957,
p.538-542].
M. Bobrow and M. H. Gough of the Medical
Research Council in England reported in Lancet a number
of cases of otherwise completely normal young men with no testes
whatever, the vas deferens ending "blind" behind the
bladder. It has been estimated that as high as two or three in
every thousand are biologically neither straightforward males
nor females. Rarely are such individuals able to have children.
. . . ["Bilateral Absence of Testes," Lancet, 14
Feb., 1970, p.366]. And now we learn from John Money and Anke
A. Ehrhardt that over the last twenty years more than 900 cases
of hermaphroditism and related reproductive and psychosexual
disorders have been seen in the psychohormonal research unit
at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore [Science, vol.180,
1973, p.586]. And this is only one reporting agency.
As a matter of fact, Morris' opening
statement is: "While the differences between the sexes are
the subject of considerable emphasis, male and female are not
mutually exclusive, and both have certain anatomic and endocrinal
characteristics of the opposite sex. The six-week old embryo
is ambisexual, with gonads which may develop into either ovaries
or testes, and two systems of tubules, the Wolfram and the Mullerian
ducts, which develop into the male or female reproductive organs
respectively. Sexual differentiation commences about the seventh
week, but many rudimentary structures of the opposite sex persist
after birth" ["Intersexuality," Journal of
the American Medical Association, vol.163, no.7, 1957, p.538].
According to Money and Ehrhardt who probably have more experience
in this area than any other researchers, true hermaphroditism
by definition is that condition of incomplete external sexual
differentiation at birth in which both testicular and ovarian
structures are represented internally in the gonads. There may
be one ovary and one testis, or even a pair of each: although
most frequently both gonads are of mixed structure. That is,
they are ovotestes.
An ovotestis is a gonad which has developed
both its cortex and its medulla components, where normally either
the cortex or the medulla would have developed at the expense
of the other. The rule is that when the medulla develops, the
cortex gradually disappears until only a trace remains, and the
structure becomes a testis: when the cortex develops, the medulla
gradually disappears leaving only a trace, and the structure
becomes an ovary. When both medulla and cortex develop equally,
an ovotestis results, in which the medulla produces spermatocytes
(later to become spermatozoa) while the cortex simultaneously
produces oocytes (later to become ova). [John Money and Anke
A. Ehrhardt, Man and Woman, Boy and Girl, Baltmore, Johns
Hopkins University Press, 1972, p.38, 39].
pg.12
of 20
It is thus apparent
either that the incidence of confused sexuality is actually increasing
(possibly due to the widening use of denatured foods and/or inappropriate
medication during pregnancy: see Isabel W. Jennings, Vitamins
in Endocrine Metabolism, London, Heinemann, 1970, 148 pp.),
or existing cases are receiving greater publicity. The news media
in recent years have reported a number of instances of surgical
intervention which has successfully corrected previous sexual
indeterminacy, suggesting a changing attitude on the part of
the public towards this unfortunate condition.
In the New Testament the word eunuch
is used to signify a male castrated according to the practices
of the nations at the time: but it is also used in the spiritual
sense to signify an individual, man or woman, who has deliberately
sacrificed all that is involved in sex life in order to dedicate
himself or herself entirely to the Lord's service. When the Lord
refers to this circumstance in Matthew 19:12, He also notes that
in the physical sense there are some who are actually born eunuchs,
i.e., born without sex organs. Such abnormalities are not solely
a modern phenomenon.
170. (See page 3) Whether there is a positive effect of such
twin prenatal influence in humans or not, is perhaps an open
question. The case is quite otherwise with animals, where such
effects are well-known. D. R. Keller in an article entitled "Hermaphroditism
in the Animal Kingdom," mentions pigs and cows as among
the more familiar examples. He observes: "Especially in
the pig have a relatively large and varied number of cases of
hermaphroditism been observed and studied for a long time."
Of cows he says, "A particular form of abnormal hermaphroditism
designated at present as hormonal intersexuality, occurs when
cows bring forth twins of different sex. The female animal may
then exhibit marked male characteristics. Such 'Freemartins'
have been known to farmers and animal breeders from time immemorial.
The origin is ascribed to hormonal action arising from the male
embryo, stimulating the female fetus to develop in a masculine
direction. Embryologists have demonstrated that the production
of testicular hormone can begin earlier than that of ovarian
hormone, because the testis in mammals begins to differentiate
in an earlier developmental stage than the ovary. Consequently
the testicular hormone can exert an inhibitory effect on the
development of the genital apparatus in the female twin. Such
Freemartins may exhibit varying degrees of intersexuality owing
to the circumstance that the two placentas can fuse at various
times during embryonic life" [Ciba Symposium, June,
1940, p.478].
P. K. Basrur et al have reported
similar abnormalities in a horse which was registered as a male
at birth but exhibited several intersexual aberrations of internal
and external genitalia. This was attributed to an interchange
of blood cell precursors and primordial germ cells between heterosexual
twins through vascular anastomoses in the foetal membranes during
pregnancy ["Further Studies on the Cell Populations of an
Intersex Horse," Canadian Journal of Comparative Medicine,
Oct., 1970, p.294-296].
Such disturbing hormonal influences
may reach the fetus from the mother where hormones are administered
in treatment of threatened abortion. Money and Ehrhardt refer
to data on genetic females whose mothers were given large pregnancy-saving
doses of progestin. All these infant girls suffered from progestin-induced
hermaphroditism (androgenization) of the external genitalia which
was surgically corrected. The authorities state that these girls
nevertheless retained in some aspects the masculinization which
the operation was intended to correct against [Man and Woman,
Boy and Girl, Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press,
1972, p.95ff., especially p.99 on Tomboyism in girls].
pg.13
of 20
Operational
intervention is not usually thought of as upsetting the normal
sexual development, but rather correcting for it. However, there
are cases where normal development has been upset by accident.
One such example is that of a child, raised as a girl, though
actually a boy "whose penis was completely lost due to clumsy
circumcision at seven months" [Money and Ehrhardt, ibid.,
p.118].
To my knowledge, the term "parasitic castration" has
not yet been applied to man, but it has been found in animals.
G. E. and N. MacGinitie state: "Barnacles of the genus Sacculina
are among the most unusual parasites in the animal kingdom.
At one stage of its development the barnacle larva attaches itself
to a 'hair' on a crab's body and penetrates the covering of the
hair and travels down its hollow tube to the interior of the
crab. It develops inside the crab, but the only external manifestation
of the parasite is a formless reproductive sac that grows in
the region of the crab's abdomen. The creeping spreading growth
destroys the testes of the host, whereupon organs of the other
sex begin to develop and to produce female reproductive hormones.
These hormones will initiate the growth of secondary sexual characteristics,
such as a wider abdomen and female genital pores. Thus, as a
result of parasitism, an almost complete sex reversal occurs.
Biologists sometimes call this 'parasitic castration.'"
[A Natural History of Marine Animals, New York, McGraw,
1968, p.261�263].
V. H. Mottram. in his Physical
Basis of Personality and speaking of a hen which after a
year of normal "henny" characteristics had become dominating
and cocky in her relations with the rest of her sisters, notes
that she grew feathers, comb and spurs appropriate to a rooster
and begat a number of chickens "before her sacrifice on
the altar of genetics." Then it was discovered that avian
tuberculosis had destroyed her ovaries and that from undifferentiated
germinal tissue she had grown testes. Since birds (unlike other
animals) are heterosexual, the possession of a Y chromosome leads
to a female sex and it may therefore be that the female can more
easily convert to a male in the way that among other animals
species it is the male which can convert to female [London, Penguin
Books, 1949, p.11].
171. (See page 3) Transexualists are people who wish to become
members of the opposite sex not merely in behaviour and dress
but by operational intervention if possible. Transvestites wish
only to dress in the clothing of the opposite sex. According
to an editorial in the British Medical Journal [vol.1,
1966, p.872] under the title "Transexuality," "Transexuality
is more frequently reported in man than in woman, the excess
varying anywhere from 50:1 to 3:1, according to different estimates."
There is a very large difference between these estimates, but
the editorial quotes J. H. Schultz as asserting categorically
that true transexuality occurs only in man, never in woman [in
Intersexuality, edited by Claus Overzeir, London, 1963].
According to R. G. Edwards, development is always female unless
a testis is present, when male patterns of differentiation are
then imposed on the fetus almost irrespective of the genotype
of the fetus, and he refers to the condition known as testicular
feminization. In such cases of hermaphroditism the subjects are
generally XY and are often found to possess testes (as would
be expected) "but the internal and external genitalia are
predominately female and the patient behaves as a woman"
["Sex and the Developing Embryo," Science Journal,
Sept., 1969, p.89].
pg.14
of 20
Isabel Jennings
observed: "In the presence of functioning pituitary the
gonad in the genetic male begins to secrete androgen. . . . Loss
of this activity by castration or by chemical means or by parasitism
inhibits this process and feminization occurs" [Vitamins
and Endocrine Metabolism, London, Heineman, 1970, p.140].
By contrast, at least in mammals, the gonadectomized female has
no such tendency towards the development of male sexual characteristics.
I do not recall any report via the news media of an assigned
female being operationally transformed into a male, but there
are numerous reports of the reverse, and such reports demonstrate
clearly that if the social and environmental conditions are favourable,
the transformation can be carried through with success. Moreover,
such transformations have occurred in men who had already fully
matured and had even fathered children successfully. The Toronto
Telegram of 6 March, 1954, carried the story in some detail
of an ex-Royal Air Force hero who was the father of two children,
aged 10 and 12, who is now to all intents and purposes an entirely
different individual � different in name (Robert became Roberta),
different in sex, different in habits of life, and different
in temperament. The medical report states categorically that
in spite of having fathered two children and raised them to adolescence,
"she is undoubtedly a woman." They also say that
they had known of no previous case where the change had occurred
so late in life (at 35 years of age). As we have already noted
(see ref. # 169), J. L. Morris reported some instances of hermaphroditic
subjects with testicular feminization who underwent surgery and
later delivered a normal child, provided only that the ovaries
were still present and the vagina not blind ["Intersexuality,"
Journal of the American. Medical Association, vol.163,
no.7, 1957, p.540]. Here, then, we have what amounts to a full
cycle conversion, male into female and father into mother. Eve
who was formed out of Adam became the mother of all living (Genesis
3:29).
172. (See page 3) On this subject, Fritz Kahn has observed:
"The male and female sex glands, as well as the male and
female hormone, are antagonistic in their actions. If a female
sex gland is implanted in a man, it is rapidly destroyed, and
the same thing happens to a testicle implanted in the body of
a sexually immature woman. Nevertheless, throughout its entire
life, every organism retains some genital tissue belonging to
the opposite sex...When the sex gland becomes weak in the course
of the aging process, it sometimes happens that the tissue of
the other sex begins to predominate. This explains the well-known
fact that after the menopause women become masculinized to some
degree by developing facial hirsutism and acquiring coarser masculine
features, a deeper voice, and a gruff manner" [Man in
Structure and in Function, New York, Knopf, 1960, vol.II,
p.737, 738] . Kahn has a photograph of a woman who had experienced
what he terms "a crass case of masculinization." He
says of this woman that until a few years previously she had
been completely feminine. One day, however, a tumor had developed
due to a proliferation of cells which belonged to the opposite
sex and which then flooded her body with male hormone.
174. (See page 6) In this connection, Ursula Mittwoch observes:
"It is evident that both the evolutionary and the embryological
evidence demonstrate that the origin of separate sexes is in
hermaphroditism. . . . We may thus picture the evolution
of sex chromosomes as having occurred in three stages. During
the first stage individuals were hermaphroditic. This was followed
by the second stage in which separation of the sexes was achieved
by environmental factors such as temperature. . . . Lastly,
a pair of unequal chromosomes was set aside under whose influence
males and females would develop in equal numbers ["Sex Growth
and Chromosomes," New Scientist, 15 July, 1971, p.127].
This could be viewed as a reflection of what happened at an accelerated
rate in the case of Adam and Eve. At first the two sexes were
combined in one individual: their separation was effected: and
each separated half was then reconstituted as a whole organism
in its own right � all this taking place perhaps in a matter
of minutes?
pg.15
of 20
175. (See page 6) E. A. Lapham and H.
Morowita, speaking of the Dicyemida, point out that these
simple creatures develop a structure that may be thought of as
a kind of hermaphroditic gonad. This is in a sense the only organ
that the Mesozoa possess, and it produces both eggs and sperm.
The eggs produced are fertilized by sperm frequently from the
same organ ["The Mesozoa," Scientific American,
Dec., 1972, p.95]. It is evident that however sexual dimorphism
has come about in man, among lower animals the division was sometimes
highly uneven. According to V. Geodakyan, in the mountains of
Armenia on the shores of Lake Sevan, colonies of lizards exist
which are entirely female, laying only unfertilized eggs and
hatching them, thus breeding strictly by parthenogenesis ["Why
Two Sexes?", Meditsinskyia Gazeta (Medical Gazetteer),
Moscow, 23 Mar., 1966 � translated buy the Joint Publication
Research Service, US Dept. Commerce, Washington, and issued as
JPRS No.35321]. There is a small fish known under the name Labroides
dimidiatus which is specifically sexed as either male or
female but the females have the power of becoming males if the
male happens to desert the harem. The most dominant of the ten
or so females in the harem begins to change its sex within a
few hours of the departure of the male [Ross Robertson, "Sex
Changes Under the Waves," New Scientist, 31 May,
1973, p.538].
176. (See page 6) John Burton observes that parthenogenesis
takes place in insects, fishes, reptiles and even birds. He notes
that it has been clearly established that the eggs are not being
fertilized by any males. . . . though the eggs can be!
["Virgin Birth in Vertebrates," New Scientist, 9
Aug., 1973, p.334].
Under the heading Hermaphrodite,
the Encyclopedia Britannica [vol.11, 1953, p. 503] makes
reference to what is called "functional hermaphroditism
in animals, a condition in which both male and female gametes
are produced by one and the same individual . . . occasionally
fish and birds have both sex organs, one on each side. Gynandromorphism
leads to two half-animals (male and female) united in one . .
. (chiefly in insects)."
More recently the National Institute
for Agronomical Research in France reported the breeding of bisexual
trout which produce both eggs and sperm. "The breeding process
is fairly simple and requires feeding young normal trout with
small doses of substances which act on the biological sex differentiation.
About 30% of those treated become bisexual within two to three
years. Each bisexual trout can produce about 1000 normal trout
and experiments are just starting to find out exactly how the
process can benefit fish farms by giving rise to trout of superior
quality" [New Scientist, 12 Jan., 1978, p.93].
179. (See page 6) A work was published in 1974 dealing
with the clinical, morphologic and cytogenetic aspects of hermaphroditism.
The author is Professor W. van Niekerk, Dept. of Obstetrics and
Gynaecology in the Tygerberg Hospital, Parow, Cape Province,
South Africa. This is perhaps the most complete study of the
subject to be published in recent years. Among the case histories
in this volume is that of an individual who developed to maturity
with a truly hermaphroditic constitution including an active
testis and an active ovary. Normal sperm were found in the testis
on the left side, and an ovary with numerous follicles and some
ova were observed on the right side [True Hermaphroditism,
Willem A. van Niekerk, New York, Harper and Row, 1974, 200 pp.
, especially p.112].
pg.16
of 20
180. (See page 7) Money and Erhardt
point out that girls with Turner's Syndrome are "more extremely
feminine" than normal XX females. They conclude from this
that masculinity and femininity are not really discrete entities
but lie along a unidimensional continuum which would see pure
masculinity at one extreme and pure femininity at the other extreme
and a continuous graduated series of mixtures in between. Turner's
Syndrome, as they interpret the evidence, places the individual
further to the feminine pole than the normal female, thus leading
to a "purer" sexual type [Review in Science,
vol.180, 1973, p.587; and Man and Woman, Boy and Girl, Baltimore,
Johns Hopkins University Press, 1972, p.107ff.]
181. (See page 7) Cynecomastia or gynecomazia, a condition
where the male mammary glands are well developed and may secrete
milk, is a recognized phenomenon, being reported by early writers
including Aristotle and referred to by the French as la couvade.
More recently, the famous physiologist, John Hunter, records
the instance of a sailor who, having lost his wife, took his
son to his own breast to quiet him and after three or four days
was able to nourish him. He also mentions the case of a man of
50 who shared equally with his wife the suckling of their children.
In Franklin's Voyage to the Polar Seas, he quotes the case of
an old Chippewa who, on losing his wife in childbirth, had put
the infant to his breast and earnestly prayed that milk might
flow; he was fortunate enough to eventually produce sufficient
milk to rear the child [See further on this G. M. Gould and W.
L. Pyle, Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine, New York,
Julian Press, 6th printing, 1966, p.395�397].
Under the heading "Milk Hormone
Produced at the Slightest Touch," the following observation
is made: "Prolactin is one of the galaxy of peptide hormones
secreted by the anterior pituitary gland and its main function
has to do with the production of milk in lactating females. Biologists
in Washington University School of Medicine have been looking
at the way prolactin secretion is initiated in non-lactating
individuals � both males and females [my emphasis].
Occasionally milk is produced in individuals following mechanical
stimulation of the breasts. . . . Simple stroking of the
breast and nipple in the female subjects for five minutes induced
a dramatic increase (at least ten times) in the prolactin output
of the pituitary. Curiously, when wives manipulated their husband's
nipples prolactin output rose." Reference is made in a Note,
in Nature, vol.238, 1972, p.284; quoted in New Scientist,
10 Aug., 1972, p.277].
In a Bulletin of the New York Academy
of Medicine, there occurred the following observation: "It
is not a very uncommon circumstance to find both among human
kind and animals, males whose breasts contain milk. Among the
lower orders of people in Russia milk in the breasts of men is
much more frequent than among the more southern nations. . .
." It may be of interest to note with respect to the last
observation that the Scyths who migrated into Russia, according
to Hippocrates showed a high incidence of hermaphroditism as
though it were almost a racial character, and some skeptics of
reports of male breast feeding have suggested that only a hermaphrodite
could possibly perform this function. Perhaps Hippocrates' observation
sheds some light on this matter. This information was published
by the Medical Librarian, Evansville, Indiana, in a local
paper dated 2 Aug., 1972.
The San Francisco Chronicle [6
Nov., 1976] reported a billy goat which was observed by two scientists
at Garhwal University in the State of Delhi, India, to be producing
milk from normal mammary glands, yet all its other sex organs
were clearly male.
pg.17
of 20
As Dr. A. E.
Wilder Smith points out, both sexes synthesize both male and
female hormones. Males synthesize female hormones and females
synthesize male hormones. In fact after certain operations it
is often necessary to treat the female to prevent the undue expression
of the male hormones as a result of the depletion of the female
hormone, and in old age with the decline of the female glands
which produce these hormones, the female body may occasionally
assume a number of quite marked male characteristics. Wilder
Smith observes wisely that if human ancestry from an evolutionary
standpoint is ultimately to be traced through reptiles which
do not nurse their young and therefore have no nipples, it is
difficult to account for the possession of nipples by the male
unless we assume that they served a purpose at some time in the
past [Man's Origin, Man's Destiny, Wheaton, Shaw, 1960,
p.105]. For this is how the evolutionists must account for nipples
in the female of the species. He therefore concludes that we
have to assume that they were at one time functional, or at least
potentially so. If Adam were originally bisexual, his nipples
would undoubtedly have been routinely functional and only ceased
to be so because Eve was taken out of him.
It has more recently been discovered
that males also produce relaxin, a substance which softens the
pubic bone in the female, allowing the fetus a little more freedom
of passage. In the male it is produced by Leydig cells which
also produce the male sex hormone, testosterone. This was reported
by M. P. Dubois, of the National Institute of Agricultural Research,
and Jean-Louis Dacheux of the Laboratory of Comparative Physiology
in Tours, France [Cell and Tissue Research, vol.187, 1978,
p.201].
It should be said that when, for pathological
reasons, the genetic male does not respond to the androgen produced
by the testes (a condition known as androgen insensitivity) the
body develops with essentially female external genitalia and
with female sensitivities, and will almost certainly be assigned
a feminine sex role. This condition is also termed testicular
feminization, for obvious reasons. The male testes therefore
produce sufficient estrogen to impress female characters on what
should have been a male body.
Thus, a male can give rise to a male
or to a female, but a female cannot give rise to a male �
or only so rarely that many authorities deny the possibility,
and reports of such are probably misrepresentations of the actual
facts. Eve can easily be conceived as having been derived out
of Adam, but not Adam out of Eve. In 1866, Franz Delitzsch, in
his System of Biblical Psychology, made a remarkable observation
regarding the forming of Eve. He said: "Eve is certainly
not Adam's child, but Adam himself in a different sex" [See
p.133, Baker reprint, 1966].
Even in the matter of the external genitalia,
it has so far proved impossible to convert a female to a male
by surgical intervention or by the administration of hormones,
but the reverse operation is now quite successful when it is
considered proper. An actual case of the conversion of a true
male into a female, an event necessitated only as a result of
an unfortunate accident, is given by Money and Ehrhardt [Man
and Woman, Boy and Girl, Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University
Press, 1972, p.95�116 and 118f., esp. p.113].
185. (See page 8) R. V. Short has a very good summary statement
at this point: "In this review I would like to consider
the essential differences between sexual and somatic tissues
in mammals, and the way in which these two cell lines may be
subject to separate genetical control mechanisms.
pg.18
of 20
"Natural
sex reversal occurs commonly in a number of lower vertebrates
[Chan, S. T. H., "Natural Sex Reversals in Vertebrates,"
Philosopical Transactions of the Royal Society, London,
vol.259, 1970, p.59�71.1970], and complete, functional sex
reversal can be achieved in fish and amphibia by adding steroidal
sex hormones to the water in which they are swimming [Ohno, S.,
Sex Chromosomes and Sex-linked Genes, Berlin, Springer-Verlag,,
1967]. There are occasional reports of spontaneous functional
sex reversal in birds [Crew, F. A. E., Studies in Intersexuality
II: "Sex-reversal in the Fowl," Proceedngs of the
Royal Society, London, vol.95, 1923, p.256�278], and
if the single ovary of a hen is removed surgically, the contralateral
gonadal remnant will develop into a testis and may produce spermatozoa
(Miller, R. A., "Spermatogenesis in a Sex-reversed Female
and in Normal Males of the Domestic Fowl, Gallus domesticus,"
Anatomy Review, vol.70, 1938, p.155�189.1938). Partial
gonadal reversal occurs when male chick embryos are treated with
estrogen [Erickson, A. E. and G. Pincus, "Modification of
embryonic development of reproductive and lymphoid organs in
the chick," Journal of Embryology exp. Morphology,
vol.16, 1966, p.211�229], or when embryos of opposite sex
develop within the same egg and acquire extensive vascular interconnections
[Lutz, H. and Y. Lutz-Ostertag, "Free-martinisme spontane
chez les Oiseau," Developmental Biology, vol.1, 1959,
p.364�376. ]. In the Virginia opossum, a marsupial, partial
gonadal sex reversal can be produced by treating the pouch young
with steroids [Burns, R. K., "Role of hormones in the differentiation
of sex" in Sex and Internal Secretions, 3rd edition,
vol.1, Baltimore, Wilkins, Williams, 1961, p.76�158]. But
in mammals, complete functional sex reversal never occurs naturally,
and even partial gonadal sex reversal cannot be induced experimentally
with steroids (Burns, ibid.). It is therefore tempting
to conclude that the plasticity of gonadal development in fish,
amphibians and birds had to be forsaken in mammals, where the
whole embryonic development has to take place within the confines
of a uterus which is bathed by maternal hormones. Such a situation
demands a much more immutable genetic control if the fetus is
to develop its sexuality independently of its mother" ["Germ
Cell Sex" in The Genetics of the Spermatozoon, Proceedings
of International Symposium at Edinburgh, August, 1971, edited
by R. A. Beatty and S. Gluecksohn-Waelsch, Edinburgh, 1972, p.325f.].
186. (See page 9) The world famous Vienna psychiatrist,
Carl Gustav Jung, was convinced that if personalities could be
arranged in some kind of order from superior to inferior, at
the very top of the list one would have to place those who somehow
seem to combine within themselves in almost equal measure male
and female personality traits and characteristics. Jung believed
that such people under favourable conditions are likely to achieve
"the highest human perspective and creative expression.
But this gynandromorphic admixture appears to introduce a peculiar
delicacy and a hair-trigger emotional intensity into the human
machinery" [quoted by W. H. Sheldon, The Varieties of
Human Physique, New York, Harper Bros., 1946, p.257]. More
recently Getzels and Csikszentmihalyi reported the results of
some interesting psychological experiments involving particularly
creative people, and came to the following conclusions: "The
creative person is not stereotypic in temperament. The male exhibits
some of the feminine sensibilities: the female some of the masculine
sensibilities. In our own work with artists, the males were more
feminine on a sensitivity scale than other males, and the females
more masculine on a tough-minded scale than other females"
[L. J. W. Getzels and M. Csikszentmihalyi, "Scientific Creativity,"
Science Journal, vol.3, no.9, 1967, p.80, 84].
pg.19
of 20
I think this
reflects the same situation. There are differences in temperament
and in other significant psychological ways between the sexes
which are mutually contributory to the total well-being of both.
Where they can be combined in one individual, or where two individuals
(man and wife hopefully) can pool their best resources, there
we ought to find human potential at its highest levels of creative
expression. Presumably, in Adam as first created all these potentials
were maximized in a single individual. What is at issue here
is not physiological function but temperament.
The best explanation of the facts as
presently understood seems to me, in the light of Scripture,
to be that the earliest forms of life which multiply by propagation
rather than by simple division were almost certainly bisexual,
each individual combining the organs of both sexes within his
own body: in the higher forms each containing both a functional
testis and ovary. Perhaps when God planned the organic world,
of which man was to be a working member, He introduced this mode
of multiplication in anticipation of the time when man should
be likewise created bisexual for reasons already intimated.
pg.20
of 20
Copyright © 1988 Evelyn White. All rights
reserved
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