Its what my prof in Society and Genetics said. Semen was known as the essance of life, known as boiled blood (cuz when blood boils, it turns white!) Semen provided the life energy, or soul if you will, while the female prodived the materials for making the body of the infant.l Now if this was your belief system, wouldn't make some sence to try and pass on all this soul stuff to your student? I'll see if i can find a citation when i get home.
And where is a god damn spell checker when i need one?
I would think that every society should realize that sexual relations between people of vastly different age/experience invite abuse.
Then again, I would expect more than that.
I would likewise expect Mongols to have realized that Temujin was a bloodthirsty barbarian unfit to become Khan, for the Greek/Macedonians to have deposed or assassinated Alexander before he pulled off a record-breaking conquering spree, for the French to have done something about Napoleon, for the Germans to have done something about Hitler, for the Russians to have done something about Stalin, for the Chinese to have done something about Mao...
...the list is endless. For every individual and group to have strived for balanced and just society, and prevented extremists from needlessly, pointlessly ramming their society into another society.
But as history indicates... one should not expect that. Sense of justice can be broken by injustice, interest for future broken by misery, responsibility clouded by seeming profit (even if the competition should deserve an ironic label "who dies with more stuff is the winner"), chances of learning effectively denied, pathways to healing animosities and rebuilding understanding between societies... too easily blocked.
Humanity is a mess.
Wacky views are annoyingly common.
So perhaps I should not be surprised, if ancient Greek society (or at least some percentage of them) held this kind of wacky views -- and tolerated practises which surely produced many instances of abusive behaviour. Some of them accomplished notable things... but their societies were by no means close to balance, and surely had even worse flaws.
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And where is a god damn spell checker when i need one?
Then again, I would expect more than that.
I would likewise expect Mongols to have realized that Temujin was a bloodthirsty barbarian unfit to become Khan, for the Greek/Macedonians to have deposed or assassinated Alexander before he pulled off a record-breaking conquering spree, for the French to have done something about Napoleon, for the Germans to have done something about Hitler, for the Russians to have done something about Stalin, for the Chinese to have done something about Mao...
...the list is endless. For every individual and group to have strived for balanced and just society, and prevented extremists from needlessly, pointlessly ramming their society into another society.
But as history indicates... one should not expect that. Sense of justice can be broken by injustice, interest for future broken by misery, responsibility clouded by seeming profit (even if the competition should deserve an ironic label "who dies with more stuff is the winner"), chances of learning effectively denied, pathways to healing animosities and rebuilding understanding between societies... too easily blocked.
Humanity is a mess.
Wacky views are annoyingly common.
So perhaps I should not be surprised, if ancient Greek society (or at least some percentage of them) held this kind of wacky views -- and tolerated practises which surely produced many instances of abusive behaviour. Some of them accomplished notable things... but their societies were by no means close to balance, and surely had even worse flaws.