re: theories of conception.

I'm fairly sure that the idea of a male impregnating a woman with a Mini-Me hung on into the Middle Ages. The idea that sex caused babies came about pretty quick once people started raising herd animals and were able to observe the goings-on (but you knew that). I'm not sure when the concept of how and when the sex of the baby was determined was understood.

Just spent a few moments trying to find a website. Tricky search. Still looking.

Thanks, connie. It is a tricky search. I also feel like I have no googleability today.

Thank you, Deena, -t, and topic!Cindy.

one theory was that the male sort of planted a whole mini-baby, but can't--for the life of me--remember which society, or when.

I'm pretty sure I remember that as being ancient Greece.

Yep. In one version of the Orestes story, he's being punished by the Furies for killing his mother (she had killed his father, etc.). It was decided that avenging his father overroad the sin of killing his mother, because the Father was the true parent and the mother was merely a sort of incubator-nurse combo.

Not my favorite myth cycle ever.

I did some googling too. I found a lot of nothing.

Gronk. I've showered, and eaten, and am just about ready to get on the road.

Morning people are weird.

I think Greece around the time of Plato and those guys had the idea that the woman was just a vessel for the man's generative seed. I don't know when/how that changed, though.

It was still the belief at the time of Aquinas, I believe. You might try googling on the term 'preformation'. Apparently there's a book by one Clara Pinto-Correia, called The Ovary of Eve, which discusses the battle between theories that humans began fully formed within the sperm, and that they did so within the ovary.

There was a belief for some time that the sperm contained a homunculus--a tiny person that grew in the womb. This led to the belief that each homunculus contained a homunculus and so on ad infinitum like Russan dolls. Here's one thing I found: [link] There seemed to be a fair amount of information from googling "homunculus" and "sperm."

Google's giving me no love. Unfortunately, I can't even remember in what context I learned what little I know. It might have been a book I got for my sister on the history of motherhood. I'd go to a nice library and browse the history of science section, and make friends with some librarians, Cindy.

Timelies.

I have nothing to contribute on the homunculi discussion, but it's interesting.

re: The Vader M&M picture. [link] What is most disturbing is that it looks like the M&M is chained at the wrists.

Didn't Ayla work out that whole sperm/egg thing?