Testicles, Trust and Truth Telling Biblical Oaths, Greeting Rituals in Male Baboons, and Gender as a Cosmic Symbol

(Pt. I) Establishing Trust Among Men and Baboons Honor Is a Game That Women Arent Allowed to Play Introduction It has long been known that in certain cultures (including the Hebrews of the time of Abraham) men might guarantee an oath between them by a ritual clasping of the genitals. It was further assumed that the idea of testify and testament were related to this practice, because of the Latin word testis which means both witness and testicle. However plausible it seems, this verbal connection is probably mistaken. It is more likely that the origin of testify and testament is through the Greek/Latin roots tri (three) and stis (stand), suggesting a third party, or objective bystander, as well as a supporter.1 But regardless of etymological questions, it is well known that several Biblical passages speak of one man putting his hand under the thigh of another man as a guarantee of the first mans commitment to keep a promise. The English phrase under his thigh in the Genesis texts cited below is the same expression used in the original Hebrew. Its not a euphemistic substitution to make the original appear more delicate. I cant imagine that the Hebrew writers would want to be delicate. However, this indirect expression leaves us with the problem of knowing exactly what the action is that is used in the oaths, as well as understanding its symbolic meaning. Lets examine the texts; first, concerning Abraham and his servant: And Abraham was old, and well stricken in age: and the Lord had blessed Abraham in all things. And Abraham said unto his eldest servant of his house, that ruled over all that he had, Put, I pray thee, thy hand under my thigh: And I will make thee swear by the Lord, the God of Heaven, and the God of the earth, that thou shalt not take a wife unto my son of the daughters of the Canaanites, among whom I dwell: But thou shalt go unto my country, and to my kindred, and take a wife unto my son Isaac. And the servant put his hand under the thigh of Abraham his master, and sware unto him concerning that matter. (Gen 24: 2-4; 9 And second, concerning Abrahams grandson, Israel (Jacob) and Joseph: And the time drew nigh that Israel must die: and he called his son Joseph, and said unto him, If now I have found grace in thy sight, put, I pray, thy hand under my thigh, and deal kindly and truly with me; bury me not, I pray thee, in Egypt: But I will lie with my fathers, and thou shalt carry me out of Egypt, and bury me in their buryingplace. (Gen 47:29-30)

2 The Hebrew word for thigh (yarek) means the fleshy or soft parts, but its unclear whether this refers to the penis or testicles or both - i.e. the male genitals in general. (Genitals and general are related too, but thats another topic). I believe thigh here (yarek) refers to both, for several reasons. First, seed is generated in the testicles, and clearly signifies offspring - the line of inheritance - so it is proper in relation to the Genesis oaths which concern keeping the proper blood lines. But second, God commanded circumcision of Abraham and all his progeny, as a covenant; it was a symbol of their religious not just their tribal - inheritance. Third, circumcision was also a sign of perfection or purity, and so we find Biblical references to uncircumcised lips, uncircumcised heart and uncircumcised ears.2 Well return to this idea later in the essay. In the two passages of Genesis above, a promise or oath is extracted - in one case by Abraham and in the other by Israel (or Jacob), Abrahams grandson. There is a third related text in Genesis, where Jacob has left his father-in-law Laban, and traveled south to meet his estranged brother Esau. He was alone at night when a man (later said by Jacob to be God elohim) wrestled with him until dawn, but could not beat Jacob. And when he [the man] saw that he prevailed not against him, he touched the hollow of Jacobs thigh; and the hollow of Jacobs thigh was out of joint [separated], as he wrestled with him. And he said, Let me go, for the day breaketh, And he said, I will not let thee go, except thou bless me. (Gen 32: 25-26) This account sounds strange indeed, even, I expect, to a fundamentalist believer. How could God (or as is said in some interpretations, an angel) wrestle with Jacob, and not overcome him, and then ask to be let go because the sun was rising? For our discussion, though, whatever the circumstances, it is another instance of touching the thigh or taking the genitals, and the question remains, what does this action mean? This particular case contrasts markedly with the two cited previously, in that it betokens a negotiation forced by circumstances, rather than suggesting an attitude of trust, and the request to grant a favor. The stalemate in a competitive and violent interaction leads to an unwilling compromise an exchange of liberty for a blessing. It should be emphasized that in the earlier citations, the one who exacted the promise was the one whose genitals were being touched (or held). This might seem counter- intuitive, if taking a mans genitals in hand implies having him at a disadvantage (grabbing him by the gonads as it is commonly put). This, in fact, seems to be the situation pictured in the contest between Jacob and elohim. Ill return to these texts later, but first let me introduce a parallel topic, from the world of non-human primates. Lets look at some scientists observations about the behavior of male baboons, to help clarify our theme, i.e. how male genitals relate to trust and promises. Ritual greetings among male baboons Researching this topic I came across an article in the American Anthropological Society journal which examines, and tries to interpret, certain greeting behaviors in male baboons, where one animal touches the genitals of another. The researchers were trying to see connections

3 between animal rituals and the idea of trust which might mirror the need for rituals in a linguistic human society. The title says a lot: Explaining Religion Without Explaining it Away: Trust, Truth and the Evolution of Cooperation in Roy A Rappaports The Obvious Aspects of Ritual. The authors - John Watanabe and Barbara Smuts - surprised me on three counts. First, although they are social scientists (she in psychology; he in anthropology), their analysis was sympathetic to religious belief, and did not try to show that it has no rational basis (i.e.explain it away). Second, they showed respect and appreciation of the older Rappaports work, although the latter seems to have fallen out of favor. And third, they dealt with truth and truth-telling, with no tone of relativism. I think these attitudes are unusual in contemporary social scientists. But what do they (and Rappaport) say? The authors summarize their project in the prcis: Rappaports subsequent work on ritual explored how the obvious aspects of ritual formalism and the need to perform literally embody in its performers expressions of sanctity and truth that counter the threats of lying and alternative inherent in symbolic communication. He recognized that symbolic meaning and truth presuppose social cooperation and trust between individuals, and ritual serves uniquely to reaffirm this mutuality at the level of both individual behavior and conventional meaning. Through a study of male greetings among olive baboons this paper illustrates how ritual in Rappaports sense may indeed intensify cooperation in socially complex but nonlinguistic contexts by establishing behaviorally transparent means of certifying otherwise opaque individual intentions. Thus, not only may ritual sanctify symbolic communication, but it also may have played a crucial role in its evolution.3 The authors spent the summer of 1983 in Kenya, following and studying a troop of baboons, trying to learn why males would sometimes greet each other by mounting and patting each others testicles. This behavior is especially surprising, since baboon males tend to be very competitive and aggressive towards each other, and typically the dominant (i.e. stronger, tested) animal will chase the other away, or injure him. Their long, razor sharp canines can easily cause serious harm, and sometimes do. The greeting efforts often included approaching with eyes in contact, with the hips twisted towards the other, and with come hither facial expressions. All of these are characteristic of courting and sexual interactions between males and fertile females. Smuts and Watanabe soon learned two additional interesting aspects of the male greeting behavior. First, it included lip smacking, nuzzling and embracing, which is typical of interactions between females and their nursing young. In other words, it has nothing to do with sexuality. And secondly, these male greeting rituals were most marked, regular and symmetrical (i.e. shared equally and by turns) in pairs or coalitions of older males (e.g. Alex and Boz), who were observed to have established a close, long-term and beneficial bond almost a friendship, one might say. This bonding was beneficial, insofar as it allowed these males to team up against younger, stronger, more dominant males, and chase them away from fertile females, so that the elders could mate with them. One incident is especially remarkable. Alex had allied with two other elders, and the three were harassing a young male who was consorting with a female. They had little luck, until Boz appeared at the top of a rise, saw what was happening, and rushed into the interaction, chasing the young male away. But then he began moving off with the desired female. Apparently

4 incensed by such self-serving behavior, Alex leaped on Boz, who left off, and walked away looking sheepish. This could be viewed as evidence of punishment, brought on when the established trust relation was violated. For our purposes, this study offers several important general ideas. Among higher nonhuman primates, ritual can become a sign (not a symbol) of relationships that can be accepted or rejected. The fact that the rituals are exaggerated and unusual (special) allows them to be recognized as ritual, and acting them out indicates the participants understand the rules. These ritual male greetings take aspects of what could be called instinctual or genetic behavior - i.e. parts of the sexual behavior, and parts of the mother-infant behavior - and recombine them into a new signifier. Going against the natural competitiveness regarding sexuality, these special greetings are used as a means gradually to develop trust between individuals. This mutual confidence bond that one animal can make with another (his natural competitor) is established for the sake of future rewards; it is nothing that is spontaneous or the consequence of direct stimulus-response mechanisms, and in a sense, it goes against the evolutionary norm, which favors the strongest male. In addition, it seems that there is here also a rudimentary notion of obligation to play by the rules, once the bond is made, so that infringements can even be punished. Of course all these ideas come close to psychologizing, and ascribing thoughts and motives to animals which have no language, and therefore must remain opaque in this regard. But the authors suggest something deeper here: the suggestion of symbolism, i.e. of language, or at least what is necessary for language to work. [B]aboon greetings might even be said to entail rudimentary symbolic communication. That is, baboons may evidence in their greetings the ability to conventionalize acts and interactions as something other than what they manifestly appear to be.4 The authors frequently give appreciative comments about Roy Rappaports contributions to the larger questions of ritual in general, and what its role can be in human society. In various ways he dealt with the problems of truly symbolic behaviors, in human societies, where the existence of language brings with it the problems of lying, misrepresentation and changing meanings. Rappaport was able to place ritual as a link that helps to bridge the tension among those whose theories reduce everything to individual genetics and evolution, and those whose emphasis is on the social origins of individual behavior or what is the same, the tension between the individual and the group. And he was particularly interested in religious rituals in this regard. Ritual can be agreed to and passed along in social groups, without any need for connecting it with language or abstraction. It can act as an anchor, or a kind of agreed upon guarantee that the group can be trustworthy to do it right. In The Obvious Aspects of Ritual, Rappaport said: although the concept of the sacred and the notion of the divine would literally be unthinkable without language it may also be that language and social orders founded upon language could not have emerged without the support of sanctity [i.e. religious behavior] I have therefore argued that if there are to be words at all it is necessary to

5 establish The Word, and that The Word is established by the invariance of [ritual]. It may at least be suggested, furthermore, that it emerged phylogenetically as some expressions drawn from the burgeoning language of the earlier hominids were absorbed into, and subordinated to, the invariance of already existing nonverbal rituals which seem to be common in the animal world. 5 Gender and Trust in the Modern World This essay began with a look at bonds of trust and truth-telling between males in the Bible accounts. Then it went off on a tangent, to see if the idea of trust is a masculine issue, and if it has some animal basis. By trust, I mean that one can be confident that the other is truthful, or cares about the truth and is also true to his or her word, which means she or he will feel obliged (honor bound) to do what has been stated in seriousness. The question arises whether there are societies where something comparable occurs between or among women? My quick response is negative. It seems to me that women are typically viewed as untrustworthy, by women as well as men. The more I have looked, the more this idea has been confirmed, and indeed I have found no culture where women are held equal to men in regard to trust or truth-telling. I would like to discover if this attitude towards women is universal, and if so, what is its origin or explanation. Is distrust of women a function of cultural traditions, socio-economic roles, religious teachings, genetics, or psychological make-up? It may be that all of these factors play a part in the explanation. Of course the question is as complex as it is important, and in one way or another has engaged generations of research in history, sociology, anthropology, literary criticism and other fields, so I would be foolish to claim any new insights. However, being of philosophical bent, and always looking for the bigger picture, I hope to find a few generalities which might help organize my view of the issue, and help others to do the same. The idea of trustworthiness seems almost quaint and old fashioned in our commercialized, consumerist, self-interested society. If a man is as good as his word, it seems there are very few good men to be found today. People are encouraged by the popular media to be untrustworthy, for many reasons. The most pervasive and obvious is that marketing is based on deception it is the effort to take advantage of others for ones own sake, and to manipulate others view of what is being offered, and of the person who offers it. This same purpose and technique also underlie the culture of social media, where people try to generate a profile of themselves, to sell themselves not only to friends but to the widest possible public audience. Not only is honesty and keeping ones word hard to find in modern, Western culture; so is truth itself. As is often said, In war, the first casualty is truth. And our media are a battlefield in a culture of war, whether it be commercial competition, or the quest for social popularity, or the struggle for power among politicians and special interest groups. Even those of us who prefer reality to illusion have to struggle to find truth there. Internet technology could potentially give immediate access to good information - even reasoned analysis and sound judgments - to billions of people around the world. But its difficult to learn how to use it, and to distinguish fact from

6 opinion, truth from falsity, sincerity from lies, genuine from sham, and useful knowledge from temporary distracting amusement. When I say that women are viewed as untrustworthy, that is not to say that men are viewed as typically or inherently trustworthy. Not in America at least. The claim Im examining is rather that women are inherently untrustworthy; whereas men are capable of being trustworthy, and indeed, should strive to develop trustworthiness as a trait of true manhood. It seems that distrust of women is common to all cultures. It is a cultural attitude not natural one which must be learned; and we can see in contemporary modern social sciences an increasing awareness of the importance, as well as the difficulty, of understanding and overcoming it. Presumably young children typically believe in their mothers as much as in their fathers, and assume that what they say is always true. And I think people who genuinely love one another want to trust and be trusted equally, regardless of gender, unless experience or personal prejudice works against this. These ideas suggest, if not prove, that women are not naturally untrustworthy, or incapable of having that trait. I think its safe to say that no one is truly trustworthy that is, feels honor bound to speak the truth and to keep her word - until and unless she or he has being raised to develop this trait and has committed to it. Its a matter of moral growth. Trustworthiness, then, seems to be an almost universally accepted value, which all individuals ought to develop, but the degree to which it is encouraged changes from culture to culture and from time to time. Paradoxically, for the most part, women are neither expected nor encouraged to develop trustworthiness, and often they are thought incapable of it. I began then to research how attitudes towards women and towards matters of trust differed around the world and over time. At the same time, I tried to refine ideas of what trust and truth-telling entail, and how they relate to honor, respect and nobility topics I have written about elsewhere.6 The first thing I noticed is the apparent distinction between traditional cultures and Western cultures, in regard to the respect that is given to women. Our popular media is full of stories from around the world and at home about abusive attitudes towards women, and cases of extreme violence and brutality. This is often - perhaps usually - presented in the context of fundamentalist religious attitudes particularly in Islamic countries, but also in other communities where the power structure favors orthodox views about women, whether Islamic, Jewish, Christian, Confucian or Hindu. (For some reason, Buddhist and Christian communities are less apt to make the news in this regard.) Religious societies are traditional societies, and it is often hard to distinguish religion from tradition. Western societies are not traditional. They continue to develop and refine their ideas, laws and habits regarding human rights, equality and empowerment. As these developments continue, in the name of improvement, they will bring resistance from the natural tendency we all have to resist change, especially when we are comfortable with the status quo, or feel that it benefits us as groups or individuals (whether or not it disadvantages others). Furthermore, critical observers see injustice and moral problems where others do not. The only question is to decide whether any proposed change is truly a moral issue, or only a matter of self- interest. Matters of gender seem particularly susceptible to blindness on the one hand (of those who dont

7 want change), and overemphasis on the other (by those who do want change). In recent decades since the 1960s when the feminist movement became part of mainstream thinking even the question of defining objectivity and morality have become problematic, together with gender problems inherent in language itself. Trust of women in primal, ancient or prehistoric societies In looking at what might be called world history, or the history of civilizations, it is often said that some places and some ages have seen cultures that held (or hold) women in equal or even higher esteem than men, but these are either small isolated tribal groups today, or else they were ancient, or even prehistoric civilizations. Today, almost all of the worlds population belongs to societies in which women clearly have an inferior place, and the idea of trustworthiness is viewed from that perspective. So-called Western culture is characterized by democratic views of equality, formalized in national constitutions. If we include in this group Europe, North America and Japan as the most developed examples, this represents only about 15 percent of the worlds people. And even in these modern areas, large numbers of citizens live in communities which still hold to sexist values predominately from religious traditions (e.g. Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Hindu and Confucian). Perhaps because of the evidence that women are ill-treated all around the world, and in the larger context of Western trends toward individualism, free expression and various political and social revolutions, feminism and womens studies developed in the 1960s. It became popular to suggest that human societies were originally not patriarchal, as they are today in large part, but rather matriarchal, or at least that they gave equal favor to men and women in terms of authority, and influence in economic and religious life, as well as in domestic life. Artifacts like fertility figures, or votive goddesses found in Europe, Pakistan, and the Aegean islands, for instance, seemed to support this view, in their emphasis of traits suggesting birth, nurturing and beauty. But these were cultures without writing, so there was room for much interpretation and misinterpretation. The Minoan culture on and around Crete is famous for paintings and drawings of male and female figures, in formal dress and hair styles, participating in what look like religious celebrations and fanciful (or imagined?) sports, like bull vaulting. But although there was a rudimentary written language there, it was used primarily for keeping accounts in temple economics, and gives no clear written evidence about gender relations. Feminist enthusiasm of the 1960s and 1970s brought about what archeologist Lauren Talalay calls gender ideology in the 80s, in a revisionist malestrom.7 The writings of archeologist Marija Gimbutas (1921 - 1994) and others led to a kind of goddess movement, in such popular works as The First Sex, The Chalice and the Blade, Motherself, and The Myth of the Goddess. Gimbutas and others argue that the abundance of female figurines in prehistoric contexts of Greece and south-eastern Europe reflects an early, pan-Mediterranean belief in a Great Mother Goddess, a matriarchal social structure, and a time when women ruled either supreme or at least in partnership with men8 Talalay, who is curator of the Kelsey Archeological Museum at the University of Michigan, recommends more caution in this kind of study, and faults some of the unwarranted assumptions on which this literature is based.

8 Cynthia Eller, a professor of Womens Studies and Religious Studies at Montclair State University, critiqued the whole goddess movement in her 2000 book, The Myth of Matriarchal Prehistory; Why an Invented Past Wont Give Women a Future.9 This work generated many arguments, pro and con10 In my opinion, both sides seem to be using the data for reasons that go beyond objective science. The controversy seems to have come about partly because the work of Gimbutas also led to the development of organizations of womens spirituality of various sorts, such as the Belilli Productions group. In other words, the whole issue moves far from archeology and anthropology (or any social science) and involves very touchy current political and social movements. Some critics say the Goddess Movement is escapist, by encouraging passive, even traditional views of femininity (domesticity, nurturing, non-violence, organic farming, etc.), while others claim it is too activist and political and pushes an extreme feminist agenda. Probably it is both, as well as a genuine search for truth. It does seem to me, however, that scholars of whatever gender are now more cautious than in earlier generations, trying not to say too much concerning the place of women in ancient cultures, especially prehistoric ones. From what I can see, it would be rash to think there was ever an age where women were treated as equal to men, much less where they were honored and even dominant. There were a few places in full-fledged civilizations (i.e. where written language was fully developed), in which some women apparently had certain legal rights, equal to men, as well as positions of authority and honor. In Egypt, for instance, especially in the Old Kingdom (2700-2200 BCE) and long before Greek and Roman influence - some women could own land, run businesses and be professionals (e.g. make textiles), make contracts, wills and divorce agreements, trade, and take important roles in public events and religious ceremonies. These are seen not only in pictures and hieroglyphic inscriptions, but also in written records. Janet Johnson, of the University of Chicago Oriental Institute has a balanced perspective about Ancient Egyptian society. She says, despite the various legal rights women had, that great disparity between the social and legal status of women can be observed in both documentary and literary materials.11 I would add that it is doubtful that even upper class women - let alone all women in the society - had lives of equal right and honor with the men. It is quite apparent, I think, that by the time full-fledged historical civilizations developed, such as in Egypt and Sumeria in the Middle East, India in South Asia, China and Japan in the Far East, Greece and Rome in the Mediterranean, and Mayans in Mesoamerica, there is little evidence that women played roles of dominance, or even equal importance with men. So today it remains to be seen, through much painstaking and tedious research of archeology and anthropology, what can be safely said about the ways various peoples have dealt with gender relationships, and how they relate to the Western ideal (if not the reality) of equality and human worth. In addition, we must now be very cautious and take account of gender issues as they arise in the ways that social scientists gather, view and interpret the data they use. Ive taken perhaps too long to come to the following conclusion. Within recorded history, as well as what can be surmised of prehistory, no culture anywhere on earth has honored women, nor even apparently afforded women equal status with men. The title alone of one article suggests something rather pessimistic about all states: State formation in Sumer and the Subjugation of Women The author, Ruby Rohrlich, says It is the thesis of this paper that a

9 critical factor in state formation is the emergence of patriarchy.12 Women are not honored, because civilizations where honor exists are patriarchal. Cultures of Honor and Truth-telling The subject of this essay is gender, in regard to truth-telling and trust. The idea of truthtelling belongs, of course, to every culture in which language exists (which means in every human culture). For as soon as words are spoken, it is clear that they may or may not be true, i.e. represent reality. To use language for social benefit, one has to count on the speakers veracity. But the cultural ideal of truth telling, and the idea of being honor-bound to stand by ones word, as well as the proposal to make promises formal, and even to warrant them by some ritual sign belongs only to certain cultures. I call them cultures of honor, and I suggest they have especially existed in societies that had a noble class. Typically these were militant, feudal societies. Not all militant societies are feudal. The Tartars and Mongols were not feudal, even though Kublai Khan could be said to have established (or accepted) feudal structures in China, after he conquered it. Conquering hordes of migrant warriors, such as the Mongols under Kublai Khans grandfather Genghis Khan, were not what I would call cultures of honor, though they no doubt displayed loyalty and courage. Being without land, these cultures could not last, and needed to rape the lands they rampaged through. They centered on brute power of the leaders, and most importantly, they had no code of honor or internalized set of principles to set the order of society. Egypt had a military force, but it wasnt ever a militant society run by warrior nobles. Warriors were not an upper class, and rule was by a priest-dominated bureaucracy, under the Pharoah who was considered divine. Feudal societies are exemplified by Medieval China, Japan, Europe and India, and to a lesser extent, Archaic Greece and Republican Rome. Even in such cultures of honor, or noble cultures, men were not all generally honorable, truthful or trustworthy, of course, any more than women. But the mythology of honor was widespread. Perhaps few of the actual warriors leaders who were known by their bloodlines and ancestry were considered nobles, and not all of these acted that way. In such cultures, it appears that honor as a character trait was held in high esteem even by the commoners. There are many stories and cautionary tales in the traditions of such societies to illustrate how dishonorably and ignobly certain members of the nobility actually behaved, but that would only emphasize the importance of honor. Even the most illustrious among them sometimes failed to live up to the ideals e.g. Lancelot, who was brought down by love. Confucius Sayings give many examples of inferior people who pretended to be nobles, exaggerating their importance, and putting on extravagant rituals totally out of keeping with their roles. These were typically war lords, who took power by force rather than by good character or inheritance. The Mahabharata in Hindu tradition talks of nobles who cheated at cards and connived to take private advantage. Cicero in Rome, and Socrates in Greece told stories about true noble character, and self-serving pragmatism. The warriors of the Illiad were brave, and loyal to their chiefs, but few of them were truly honorable. They seldom followed a code that held them to any standard higher than their own petulant ego demands. And none of them seems to have honored women in general, let alone expected them to be trustworthy or bound by their

10 word. (Think of Helen.) Greek warriors took women as spoils of war, and squabbled over who should get the best prize. Achilles the hero refused to fight, left the battle field and sulked in his tent twelve days when Agamemnon the commander in chief took Achiles promised Briseis, to replace his own prize Chryseis, whom he was forced to return to her priest father, to end a plague the latter called down on them all. Perhaps the Christian knights in parts of Europe internalized a code of honor to a high degree, at least in their stories from the Age of Chivalry. Even so, with regard to the place of women in such feudal societies, they were not generally honored, although among the noble class there are cases of highborn women being honored. And later in the European medieval era, when there was less need for fighting, and towns began to develop that were exempt from the feudal order, we read of knight-warriors of Europe who swore undying and chaste devotion to some particularly perfect woman, or even to the mental image of such a one, and who took responsibility for her care and protection, or at least so it is said in the romantic tales of chivalry. (In Don Quixote, Cervantes shows us how quaint and unmodern these values seemed, even in his day, 500 years ago, although his hero is an admirable character.) In feudal Japan under the Shoguns, a few women rose to be legendary warriors, and even leaders, e.g. Queen Himeko (end of the 3rd Century BCE), Tomoe (end of the 12th Century, and Hojo Masako (the general in nuns habits). But these were exceptional and perhaps more fabulous than historic13 By contrast with the mythology about chivalry, there have also long been popular stories about nobles in Christian Europe who were anything but chivalrous, exercising their Right of the First Night with the spouses of their subjects; but this story is probably false. At least it was not written anywhere as law; and as one critic suggested, there was no need to make it into law. No doubt men have always used power to get sexual favors, in every culture, no matter how noble. My point in these examples is this. Although there were variations in feudal societies around the world, I have not found historical or legendary evidence that any of them held women equal to men in regard to being truthful, or taking oaths to keep their word. And since the latter traits, together with courage and loyalty were the chief marks of a person of honor a noble person it seems that feudal cultures set the standard of all patriarchal societies generally (which means, in effect, all societies). The standard is that superior people are honorable i.e. speak the truth, keep their word, are brave and loyal. Women are not honored, so they are not expected to be honorable in this regard; and it is believed they are generally not capable of it. Let me offer a few suggestions about why this might be the case, having to do with psychology, physiology and socioeconomic roles, and the expectations of a patriarchal community especially a patriarchy of nobility. First, is it a question of feminine thinking? Feminine Psyche Is there an inherent feminine mentality or psychological makeup - that explains why most men think women are typically not truthful or trustworthy, and most women agree? Aristotle thought so. He argued this by claiming that politically and socially, women are passive (as are children and slaves), whereas men are active. Biologically too, the female contributes the

11 passive matter of the fetus, while the male contributes the active form which comes from the sperm. And in the uterus, male sex traits (i.e. genitals) come at a later stage than female, so males are more fully developed. Females are immature or undeveloped males. These ideas have carried through to the present day, and are confirmed in various ways by modern psychology, in the thinking of men who have set the mainstream (e.g. Freud, Bettelheim, Erikson). These ideas are reinforced in popular press and in commercialized stereotypes of female sexuality and character. Women are depicted as natural homemakers, objects of beauty and nurturers, but emotional, irrational and needing support. Of course this viewpoint works wonders for marketing certain products that cater to (or create) womens tastes and interests. Naomi Weisstein critiqued this biased viewpoint very effectively, in an influential paper of 1968: Psychology Constructs the Female.14 She says, The central argument of my article, then, is this. Psychology has nothing to say about what women are really like, what they need and what they want, especially because psychology does not know. Psychology does not know for two reasons. First, it works from general theoretical claims, almost exclusively by men, without being based on experience. And second, it starts with the assumption that psychology discovers (in women as well as men) some sort of independent, inner, essential character the psyche which comes with birth; and it pays little or no attention to the primary formative role of social influences. At the end of her essay, Weisstein says, Until psychologists begin to respect evidence, and until they begin looking at the social contexts within which people move, psychology will have nothing of substance to offer in this task of discovery. I dont know what immutable differences exist between men and women apart from differences in their genitals; perhaps there are some other unchangeable differences; probably there are a number of irrelevant differences. But it is clear that until social expectations for men and women are equal, until we provide equal respect for both men and women, our answers to this question will simply reflect our prejudices. Another feminist writer, perhaps less radical, but equally influential, is Carol Gilligan. She doesnt suggest, as Weisstein does, that the feminine psyche, or femininity is largely a myth, created by societal and economic forces that benefit from the idea. Instead, she suggests that womens perspective their way of thinking and being in the world - has been wrongly characterized as somehow inferior to that of men, and somehow less adult and responsible. It is true, as she shows from her own studies with women in and around universities, that mens thinking differs from womens whose sexuality remains more diffuse, whose perception of self is so much more tenaciously embedded in relationships with others and whose moral dilemmas hold them in a mode of judgment that is in insistently contextual.15 Rather than agreeing with the male conclusion (She refers e.g. to Piaget, Erikson and Kohlberg) that the solution has been to consider women as either deviant or deficient in their development, Gilligan argues that the different feminine voice brings a necessary balance to the construction and resolution of moral problems. Gilligan points to studies on sex-role stereotypes which prove there is a discrepancy between concepts of womanhood and adulthood i.e. that

12 the picture of woman and adult dont match in the popular consciousness.16 Her conclusion is that the conception of adulthood is itself problematic. The stereotypes suggest a splitting of love and work that relegates the expressive capacities requisite for the former to women while the instrumental abilities necessary for the latter reside in the masculine domain. Yet looked at from a different perspective, these stereotypes reflect a conception of adulthood that is itself out of balance, favoring the separateness of the individual over its connection to others and leaning more toward an autonomous life of work than toward the interdependence of love and care. One more critic in the problem of women and feminine nature should be mentioned Karen Horney (1885 -1952). She was a German psychoanalyst, who left the Freudian school over differences with Freuds notion of explaining womens psychological makeup in terms of relationships with their fathers, and so-called penis envy. In the place of his idea that all people have the same basic psychological issues from birth, Horney emphasized the social origins of individual personalities, and the healthy, or neurotic, thinking that develop differently in each person (male or female), depending on those relationships. Physiological and Socioeconomic Roles Affect Trust in Women Thus far I have found no reason to think that women are any less honorable than men, or specifically, that they cannot be trusted to speak truth or keep their word. My too brief look at cultural history and psychology suggests that there is no natural reason to think there is anything lacking in women with respect to these qualities. So it remains to offer explanations why societies have gone in the direction of those biases. In the rest of the essay, I will be thinking in areas about which I have no expertise, and with little social scientific data to judge; so allow me to make some educated guesses that need argument and criticism. The first idea that comes to mind for me is that child-rearing cant be ignored as a factor in explaining traditional attitudes about women. Remember we are talking about truth-telling and trust as societal values, as well as matters of individual character. I think these are aspects of a complex society - a civilization which has written language, and which involves large numbers of people (not all of whom know each other), and a range of roles, and levels of authority. These factors would not apply equally to a small, tribal, subsistence group. It seems, however, that even in large complex societies, women are still associated primarily, if not exclusively, with child-rearing. This is aided by the fact that human offspring, unlike most animals, need a long period to grow to maturity and independence. They need nurturing and protection, in a domestic life which is the provenance of women. Womens place is in the home. Civilizations came into being, and continued to develop because of agriculture; that seems clear. Even in societies that had extensive trade and commerce (such as Greece, Rome, Egypt and China), the majority of people were engaged in farming. Whether or not women helped in the farm tasks, they could not forego their obligation to manage the hearth, keep the shelter, cook, nurse and raise children, and give attention to sickness and injury. It appears that all this feminine activity, despite its central necessity to every culture, was kept isolated within

13 the domestic realm, and regarded as only a piece of the patriarchal whole. Together with all the other aspects of society (organization, management, regulation, belief systems, religious life, economy, relations with foreigners, etc.), the domestic world was also under men. The warring aspects of feudal cultures involved a still greater complexity of skills and the relegation of authority. Feudalism grew largely out of the desire to control and expand land holdings, or protect against invasions. There is no reason why feudal order would change the basic view that womens place is in the home. It isnt until very recently - say, since the advent of democratic values in the 18th Century - that the idea of equality of persons was seriously thought of, and of course that was not expanded to include women until the 20th Century. And as any serious student of even the most developed Western nations will see, today women are still not afforded the same freedom, authority and respect that are given to men, regardless of the laws. Paradoxically, the old school (literally medieval) belief that women are not capable of keeping their word, or speaking the truth, is encouraged in our present Western societies by totally modern forces - primarily capitalism and consumerism - which tell citizens that (a) anyone can succeed, and (b) everyone deserves to get whatever he (or she?) aspires to. This grand myth flies in the face of ordinary peoples experience, which no doubt frustrates them. So I suggest that many men, frustrated by their apparent lack of opportunity and success, express themselves by treating women as subordinates in one way or another, to keep them from competing either in the workplace or in the home. Perhaps they also want to convince themselves that women are lacking in intellect or practical job skills, and that their proper place is in the home. And at home men may ease their frustrations about perceived failures with drinking, or abuse, or proving they can be the king of their own castle. Perhaps this is the place to remind ourselves that we have not seen the end of racist and sexist views which remain the sources of discrimination and personal attack today - sometimes in shocking breaking news items, such as the mass murder in 2011 by a nationalistic extremist in Norway (one of the worlds centers of international peace initiatives); and skin-head attacks on gays, blacks and various immigrant groups, seen regularly, in various parts of Europe and the US, as well as violence against women. Nazism pushed the masculine and racist viewpoint to staggering proportions. Hitler knew well how to inflame a group against certain minorities - but even against women who were not up to the self-image of superior German men. In Mein Kampf, he wrote disparagingly of the majority of his fellow citizens. The great majority of a nation is so feminine in its character and outlook that its thought and conduct are ruled by sentiment rather than by sober reasoning. This sentiment, however, is not complex, but simple and consistent. It is not highly differentiated, but has only the negative and positive notions of love and hatred, right and wrong, truth and falsehood. Its notions are never partly this and partly that The broad masses of the people are not made up of diplomats or professors of public jurisprudence nor simply of persons who are able to form reasoned judgment in given cases, but a vacillating crowd of human children who are constantly wavering between one idea and another

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The art of propaganda consists precisely in being able to awaken the imagination of the public through an appeal to their feelings, in finding the appropriate psychological form that will arrest the attention and appeal to the hearts of the national masses 17 Hitler equates femininity to irrationality, sentimentality, vacillation, weakness, childishness and of course lack of self-control negative qualities that apply to most of the population, male or female. The implication is that these people must to be led by a few good men something he and his associates set about doing. Hitlers views of the effeminate masses linking women to childishness, irrationality, simplicity, changeability, the need to be led, etc. are just the stereotypical view to which feminists like those cited above are objecting. They are also very similar to what Freud outlined in his 1921 study, Group Psychogy and the Analysis of the Ego and his earlier work Totem and Taboo of 1912, when he analyses people in groups, who revert to their more primal states. I have no idea whether Hitler read Freud, but in any case, the traits shared by women, children and the masses according to Hitler and discussed by Freud were already found in Darwins tentative thought that the primitive form of human society was that of a horde [i.e. an undisciplined group, not necessarily large] ruled over by a powerful male.18 In Pt. II of this essay, we will look at male and female circumcision - in their history, interpretations and abuses - and put them into a larger context about sexual rituals generally. I hope to make a case for the view that there is a deeper meaning to sexuality, and that only by understanding gender as the primary cosmic symbol can we hope to make the world and its peoples whole.

See Joshua T. Katz, Testimonia Ritus Italici, in Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, Vol 98 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Classics Dept, 1998), 182-217; The Free Dictionary (on line); and Online Etymology Dictionary (on line). 2 See Ex 6:12, 30; Deut 10:16, 30:6; Jer 6:10. 3 John Watanabe and Barbara Smuts, Explaining Religion Without Explaining It Away: Trust, Truth and the Evolution of Cooperation in Roy A. Rappaports The Obvious Aspects of Ritual, in American Anthropologist New Series, Vol 101 #1 (Mar 1999), 98-112, prcis, my emphasis added. 4 Watanabe and Smuts, p.195. 5 Roy Rappaport, Ecology, Meaning and Religion (Richmond, CA: North Atlantic Books, 1979), 210-211, cited in Watanabe and Smuts, p.106. 6 Justin Synnestvedt, Respect, Relativism and Cultures of Honor, 2012, at Scribd.com. http://www.scribd.com/doc/82492158/Respect-Relativism-and-Cultures-of-Honor. 7 Lauren E. Talalay, A Feminist Boomerang: The Great Goddess of Greek Prehistory, in Gender and History, Vol 6 #2, 1994, 165-183 (published online by Wiley. 8 Talalay, p.165. 9 Cynthia Eller, The Myth of Matriarchal Prehistory; Why an Invented Past Wont Give Women a Future (Boston: Beacon Press, 2000). 10 E.g. Joan Marler, The Myth of Universal Patriarchy: A Critical Response to Ellers The Myth of Matriarchal Prehistory, 2003, at Belilli Productions website; Max Dashu Knocking Down Straw Dolls, in Feminist Theology (Sagebrush Publ, 2005), 185-216 (against Eller); and Kathryn Rountree, The Past is a Foreigners Country: Goddess Feminists, Archeologists and the Appropriation of Prehistory, in Journal of Contemporary Religion, vol 16,#1 ( 2001) Taylor & Francis, 5-27.

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Janet H. Johnson, Womens Legal Rights in Ancient Egypt, University of Chicago Oriental Institute, in Fathom (digital) Archives, 2002. 12 Ruby Rohrlich, State formation in Sumer and the Subjugation of Women, in Feminist Studies Vol 6 #1(1980), 76-102. 13 See Warrior Women of Feudal Japan, at reaperlight.hubpages.com. 14 Naomi Weisstein, Psychology Constructs the Female, in Journal of Social Education, Vol 35 (1970), 362-73. 15 Carol Gilligan, In a Different Voice: Womens Conception of Self and of Morality, in Harvard Educational Review, Vol 47#4, 1977, 481-517. 16 Gilligan cites Broverman, Vogel, Broverman, Clarkson, and Rosenkrantz, 1972. 17 Hitler, Mein Kampf, Ch. VI On Propaganda, 1925, transl James Murphy, (London: Hurst & Blackett LTD, 1939) in e-book form from Project Gutenberg Australia, 2002, my emphasis. 18 Sigmund Freud, Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego, The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud (New York: W.W Norton, 1959) p. 69.

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