The Woman's Role in Human Reproduction and Generation According to Ancient Greek and Roman Philosophers

Authors

Olivia Miller, University of Nebraska - LincolnFollow

Date of this Version

Spring 2020

Document Type

Thesis

Citation

Miller, Olivia. 2020. The Woman's Role in Human Reproduction and Generation According to Ancient Greek and Roman Philosophers. Undergraduate Honors Thesis. University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Comments

Copyright Olivia Miller 2021.

Abstract

From the Greek archaic period to the end of the Roman Empire, theories of reproduction and inheritance developed as new philosophers and medical practitioners tackled fundamental issues of generation and sex. Without tools to help them see the complex chemical and cellular processes of the body, ancient thinkers relied on their own observations and commonly-held beliefs about sex and gender to understand the human body. Until the Roman Empire, dissections and similar forms of clinical study were strictly taboo, with the result that the Greek philosophers could not conduct close investigations into human anatomy. Instead, they relied on their own observations of human faculties, observable physical traits, and societal interactions between men and women. In the earliest theories of the time, the role of women in reproduction was often discounted as secondary to the dominance of the man’s; just as men held the social and political power of the day, ancient assumptions held men as the driving force in the generation of offspring.