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Updated: May 15, 2025
But the Civil Law does not regard Hermaphrodites as Monsters, it permits them to make a Choice of either of the two Sexes for the Business of Copulation, either in the Capacity of Men or Women; but if the Hermaphrodite does not perform his Part agreeable to Nature, the same Law inflicts the Punishment due to Sodomy, because he has abus'd one Part, contrary to Matures Laws.
Cicero, Aristotle, Strabonius, and Pliny all speak concerning this subject. Martial and Tertullian noticed this anomaly among the Romans. Aetius and Paulus Aegineta speak of females in Egypt with prolonged clitorides which made them appear like hermaphrodites. Throughout the Middle Ages we frequently find accounts, naturally exaggerated, of double-sexed creatures.
Others say. That Nature having always a particular care of the Propagation of Mankind, endeavours for the most part to produce Females: And thus we may observe, the Number of Men Hermaphrodites to exceed the Women ones, Nature having chalk'd out to the first the Lines of a Woman's privy Parts.
But if, in fact, all hermaphrodites do occasionally intercross with other individuals, the difference between hermaphrodites and unisexual species, as far as function is concerned, becomes very small.
Some of the early travellers, both among the Illinois and among other tribes, where the same practice prevailed, mistook them for hermaphrodites. The Miamis and Piankishaws were in close affinities of language and habits with the Illinois. All these tribes belonged to the great Algonquin family.
This Story sufficiently shews the unnatural Intrigues of some Masculine Females, where by the falling down and largeness of the Clitoris, they have been taken for Men, as mention'd in my Description of Hermaphrodites, and are capable of every Action belonging to a Man, but that of Ejaculation.
Some are of Opinion that Hermaphrodites are form'd whilst the Terms are upon Women, which being always impure, they can produce nothing but Monsters; but to this it may be answer'd, that when Children are conceived during the Sowing of the Terms, there is a greater probability of their being born with the Itch, or other scorbutick Distempers, than of their being Hermaphrodites.
But if, in fact, all hermaphrodites do occasionally intercross with other individuals, the difference between hermaphrodites and unisexual species, as far as function is concerned, becomes very small.
With species in a state of nature, every naturalist has in fact brought descent into his classification; for he includes in his lowest grade, or that of a species, the two sexes; and how enormously these sometimes differ in the most important characters, is known to every naturalist: scarcely a single fact can be predicated in common of the males and hermaphrodites of certain cirripedes, when adult, and yet no one dreams of separating them.
This would answer for one of the causes of sterility in these cases. There is a type of hermaphroditism in which the sex cannot be definitely declared, and sometimes dissection does not definitely indicate the predominating sex. Such cases are classed under the head of neuter hermaphrodites, possibly an analogy of the "genus epicoenum" of Quintilian.
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