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From: pamela@bu-bio.bu.edu (Pamela Hall)
Newsgroups: sci.bio
Subject: Re: Language (was Re: Are Humans Naturally Monogamous?)
Message-ID: <68321@bu.edu.bu.edu>
Date: 9 Nov 90 23:03:16 GMT
References: <1990Oct24.175532.9407@pmafire.UUCP> <1990Oct25.140829.19268@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> <58695@microsoft.UUCP> <1990Nov1.233150.31363@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu> <1990Nov2.203149.16763@ariel.unm.edu> <67971@bu.edu.bu.edu> <1363@manta.NOSC.MIL>
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Reply-To: pamela@bu-bio.UUCP (Pamela Hall)
Organization: Biology Dept., Bost
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>In article <1363@manta.NOSC.MIL> north@manta.nosc.mil.UUCP (Mark H. North) writes:
>>In article <67971@bu.edu.bu.edu> pamela@bu-bio.UUCP (Pamela Hall) writes:
>>
>>
>>If one wishes to refer to human male behavior, use men or man.
>>If one wishes to refer to human female behavior, use women or woman
>>If one wishes to refer to human behavior, regardless of gender
>>differences that may arise, use human.
>             
>
>Look, there are some men who are otherwise sympathetic with womens'
>concerns who get mildly irritated at this kind of ranting. And I'm one
>of those men. For 25 years I have been beating your drum without resorting
>to this kind of irrelevance and I have seen much progress. As a matter of
>fact what you are saying is polarizing and unproductive. If you have an
>issue let's talk about it. There are a lot more burning concerns for women
>today than whether we should say 'mankind' or 'humankind'.
>

I beg your pardon.  I did not mean to rant.  I forget sometimes how a
post may be interpreted for emotional content.  It is difficult when we
cannot discuss things face to face.  I was really complaining about
imprecision, not about sexism.  Perhaps as a biologist (are you also
one?) I find it more confusing because I don't assume mankind =
humankind since biology frequently discusses the differences among
genders.  I was honestly confused by the post, but then remembered that
this was a public network so that the common language use must have been
intended.

Back to some sort of science.

>In article <1363@manta.NOSC.MIL> north@manta.nosc.mil.UUCP (Mark H. North) writes:
>>In article <67971@bu.edu.bu.edu> pamela@bu-bio.UUCP (Pamela Hall) writes:

>>How would the readers of this net interpret the various types of
>>marriage laws that currently exist?  Does anyone think that they reflect
>>a need have clear knowledge of parentage?  This is in reference to the
>>biological differences between men and women, in that women have much
>>greater confidence in identifying their offspring then men.
>>
>
>This paragraph looks like it might be interesting and addressing an
>important issue. Can you rephrase it?
>
 

OK to get the ball rolling,

I would suggest that many of the constraints that existed in marriage
and the social values of differences among male and female behavior
(which the American version has more or less done away with) were
designed to control the reproduction of females so that males could be
sure of parentage.  For instance, the idea that if women had many
partners they were promiscious, but for men that was "natural".
Translated to be that men were free to cuckold another man's woman but
it was her responsibility to make sure her husband was only raising his
own children.

Laws of inheritence which work through the male line would result in
requiring women to be much more chaste, because males can only rely upon
the women's word as to who the father of the child was.  It always
seemed to me that laws of inheritence working through matriarchical
lines make much more biological sense.  But then there is the question
of political power.  

Aside;  is it not true that being Jewish is determined by one's mother's
religion and not one's father's ?  I realise converts exist, but what is
the orthodox view?

Pamela Hall