The Vish-Vruksha of Patriarchy : Chapter 3 (Biology)

Continued from Chapter 2.

This will a pretty simple chapter. I feel embarrassed to write this, because everyone already knows it since high school. The problem is, most people are seen to be not quite conscious of scientific knowledge, and would rather repeat traditional dialogues of the older generations (who did not have the knowledge). Well, there exists a difference between 'gathering knowledge' and 'internalizing it'.

Let's get down to business. An ovum (egg) has 23 chromosomes. A sperm has 23 chromosomes. They meet and produce a full human being with 46 chromosomes. So why is the sperm worshipped and the egg ignored? That is easy to explain. Seeing is believing. The semen is visible, and people know that it as a gene-carrier. But they have not seen the egg, and hence, have no clue about its existence. They know the uterus, which grows big in pregnancy for everyone to see. (BTW, I have not seen my own heart/pancreas/gall bladder, but I know they exist). 

Traditional psyche holds the notion that "Akaash ka beej Dharti mein phut-ta hain", that the father is the sky and the mother is the earth. Drawing an analogy with farming in an agricultural society, Indian culture thinks that "the sperm (alone) becomes a baby in the womb". Here is a catch that we missed out. If the egg (ovum) was unnecessary, the sperm and the womb could have been in the same body! The male body could itself carry the baby. Why does the sperm need to transferred to the female body? Because the egg, the biggest cell, is there. We missed the elephant in the room! Why have the egg? Why cannot the sperm itself be armed with 46 chromosomes and grow into a full human being? Well, Nature is intelligent. It knows that sexual reproduction is genetically flexible as compared to vegetative propagation. It is doing its own genetic engineering for millions of years to evolve the species. 

Even the Western societies thought that the "male's bun" gets baked in the "female's oven"! They did not know that hiding inside the oven is another half-bun, which must meet the males half-bun (not full bun) in the oven. Otherwise the male half-bun will die and be chucked out of the oven in a month at most. Bottomline : Respect the Egg. Respect its 23 chromosomes. Stop denying its existence like an ignorant fool. You cannot see the egg, because a mammal does not lay eggs like others species (fish, amphibians, reptiles, insects, birds). But this is not an excuse to be complacently unaware of its existence. 

This ignorance made the male think that he was propagating his own lineage. He did not know that half of the off-spring's genetics come from the mother. He wanted a son to inherit his property. He began blaming the female for delivering a girl! Ok listen. Out of the 2x23 pairs = 46 chromosomes in a human, there is one pair of sex chromosomes. Females have XX chromosomes as the 23rd pair, and males have XY. The mother's egg can provide only an X chromosome to the offspring. It is the father's sperm who either gives X to produce a daughter, or gives Y to produce a son. 

In a typical 28-day menstrual cycle, there is only a 24-hour window, roughly at the middle of the cycle, when the woman ovulates and carries a live ovum (egg). A sperm deposited in her cervix can stay alive for 2-3 days, and travels to meet the egg. An ovum can stay alive for 24 hours only. Thus, having sex during the fertile window, i.e., during Day 11-14 of the cycle can lead to pregnancy. Otherwise the egg and the sperms both die and are drained out in the next menses. The uterus gets fresh again for the next cycle. On any of the remaining 24 days of the cycle, the sperm barely stands a chance! 

Lineage, derived from the word 'line', should actually be replaced with 'descendency', which is not linear, but exponential. A man knows he got his Y-Chromosome from his father; who, in turn, got it from his own father, and so on. Thus, Y-chromosome-based lineage is linear, and is very easy to understand and track. This explains why surnames are owned by males, to be imposed on Y-less females (without their permission). A man knows he got his X-Chromosome from his mother, but the mother herself could have gotten it from either her mother or her father. Thus the X-Chromosome could not be tracked, and hence matrilineage was vague. But coming to the basic question : why was the lineage information at all required? Read Chapter 1 : to transfer personal property. Meritocracy gave way to nepotism. Monarchy became hereditary. Professions ran in families. This has been the norm in every civilization.  It is only recently that democracy is running most of the world. 

Remember, we have talked about only one pair of chromosomes, i.e., the sex chromosomes. The rest of the 22 pairs can be coming from any of the ancestors. Every individual has two (02) parents, four (04) grandparents, eight (08) great-grandparents, sixteen (16) great-great grandparents, and so on. Your 46 chromosomes can come any of the previous seven (07) generations, consisting of 2-raised-to-the-power-seven = 64 individuals. You can get your cancer / diabetes / hair / height / fat distribution / etc. from your father's mother's father's mother, or from your mother's father's mother's father.  

The male insecurity about his progeny reached amusing levels. He was seen doubting "Yeh bachcha mera hain?" Dude, why were you not around your pregnant wife to confirm this information? You were busy showing off your archery skills and muscle power to other men in sports and wars. Therefore you confined the females in the house (as your reproductive slave) to prevent her from mating with someone else! You stopped her from going out of the house and claim her own place under the sun. You used domestic violence to make her behave exactly according to your wishes. You chained her in metal jewelry to hear her movements and know her whereabouts all the time. And now, you are demanding answers? Fatherhood is a responsibility. It is neither a privilege, nor an entertainment, nor a deal, nor an entitlement. You cannot have the cake and eat it, too. You cannot have an heir without sharing the responsibility of bringing him/her up. 

Notice : a poor father does not bother much about his children. He has no property to pass on to. He does not require an heir. If he still yearns for a son, He is actually simply doing what others do, ignorant of root of the Vishvruksha of patriarchy. Unofficial marital separations are very common in lower and lower-middle class, without legal divorces. The man is often seen to leave the wife and children, because he has limited means to look after them. 

Coming back to economics, should we be rich-and-patriarchal or poor-and-equal? The challenge is to create a society that is sufficiently rich and socially equal at the same time. Why be stinking rich and destroy the planet in the process? 

Things will continue to unravel as we move on to Chapter 4 (War). 

The Vish-Vruksha of Patriarchy : Chapter 2 (Inheritance, Progeny, Monoandry)

Continued from Chapter 1.

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The male, who built his wealth, wanted a successor. Notice this : having a successor was a 'want', not a 'need'.  He did not want to part with his hard-earned wealth and wanted only and only his own progeny to inherit it. In a way, it is Okay. A person would want to give his/her possessions to her own children, not to any arbitrary person under the sun. (Though one can always legally transfer one's wealth to anyone or any organization as one pleases).

The problem was, he could not remember who his progeny was, since he had mated with several females. Those females, in turn, had also mated with several males during their reproductive age. This became a huge confusion. The genetic lineage could not be identified! Even if the male had mated with only one female, he was not sure of that female had mated with other males! Therefore, who was his successor?! Who does he give his property to? Utter confusion!

The female never had to worry about this. She knew for sure who her child was (it was a no-brainer). She had given birth, nurtured, and looked after the child (for years). She also knew who the father of the child was, though it was a redundant piece of information for her! She brought up her child, taught her/him life skills, educated him/her, trained her/him and developed his/her value-systems. She could have only one child in a year (gestation period is 280 days, and then the female reproductive system needs a few months to return to normal, and the menstrual cycle to resume). The male, on the other hand, could have several children in a year (the process of sperm-transfer took hardly a few minutes). However, the male was competing with other males. This competition was two-fold : (1) Fighting to accumulate more wealth as private property, and (2) Fighting to 'mark' his female who is bearing his progeny.

It is this striving for genetic evidence of paternity that led males into perceiving, employing, utilizing, and exploiting women as baby-producing machines. A male wanted to 'mark' a female as his heir-bearer, and prevent her from mating with another male. In order to promulgate mono-andry, the 'institution' of marriage developed : a female was 'allowed' to mate with only one male. However, the male could marry as many females as he pleased (polygamy), simultaneously; without anyone 'allowing' him to. This helped him remember which females he had exclusively mated with, thereby confirming paternity and ensuring a genetic heir.

Mind you, all this planning and development was happening without any say of the females, who had already been silenced into submission through their financial-dependence on males. By now, the economic power of males and their ability to provide food and shelter to females has caused the females to 'look up' to males and unconditionally obey them. Being obligated to the males, the females began cooperating to enhance the male interest. Female obedience to males had already become a norm. The female remained wary of males all the time (Disobedient females were tamed  by superior physical power of males). In spite of that, those females who could not be tamed were outcast from the mainstream society, tame women bitched about them, and they were no longer provided for (they were left to fend for themselves). Pregnancy and child-bearing made females asking for food-and-shelter from males, because she did not have to time to hunt/grow her own food or earn her own money. Therefore, most females yielded to the institution of marriage, through fear and survival instincts. The male became her 'provider', later elevated to 'pati parmeshwar'. The scales of power tilted, making it a more vertical relationship. The male gave orders, and the female took orders. The female relinquished her independence to forward the male pursuit of concentration of wealth. 

Men started controlling women. Women lost her sexual freedom (in exchange of food and shelter) and became reproductive slaves. A female's virginity became a 'prized' possession. Men wanted to mate with 'fresh' wombs, not a womb 'dirtied' by another male! Biology check : they did not know that an unused sperm gets washed out of the womb in the next menstrual cycle, making it fresh again! (More about this in the upcoming Biology Chapter). So ingrained became the idea of monoandry that men started equaling the woman's virginity with her 'character', completely ignoring her biological needs. She was supposed to control her sexuality and become passive about it. She was not supposed to show any sexual desire, but rather patiently wait for a man to make the sexual advance. A woman who 'dared' to approach a male for mating, i.e., who made the 'first' move, was labeled as "chaalu" and characterless. "A girl should not approach, but wait to be approached" became the default modus operandi of male-female interaction. Thus started the sexual suppression of women. 

Over centuries, women forgot that they are naturally sexual beings. They never explored their reproductive system nor masturbated. "Enjoying herself'" made her feel guilty. So scared she was of feeling happy and fulfilled, that she stopped enjoying sex, let alone orgasm during the act. Even if she did climax, it was by the man's effort : the woman took no active part. She waited for things 'to be done' to her. Even men forgot that women are sexual beings. Sexual excitement in female became an alien concept for men. A sexually excited female made a man uncomfortable. A woman expressing sexual desires shocked men so much that they became judgmental of such women. Trying to dominate and control every aspect of a woman's existence, he developed a sense of entitlement of sex. He began assuming that the wife "owes" him sex at his will. Thus, women became sex slaves to their husbands. 

Coming back to the institution of marriage, the man wanted to 'tag' a female as his exclusive baby-producing machine. When he chose a female (mind you, women had already lost their choices), he wanted to announce it to the world, such that no other male impregnates his chosen female. This process of announcement needed a social gathering. All those who gathered saw the pair, wished them well, and saved this piece of information in their long-term memory. They also knew that this pair is going to reproduce now (read : they are going to have sex tonight in the suhaag raat). In order to display monoandry, the female was 'marked' as 'taken'. Presto! Sindoor! That was a 'red signal' to stop other males from approaching her! BTW, Men don't put any markers of marriage on himself because a woman will not approach him for marriage herself. She has already been programmed since pre-teenage not to talk to boys.

Sindoor became a status symbol for the hypnotized woman. She wore it with a sense of duty and dedication. She actually showed it off, announcing to the world that she had a male protector of her vagina. Can you imagine a man wearing Mangalsutra with a sense of duty?

Widows removed off their sindoor. It is because there was no living penis to penetrate her vagina now. But because her womb has already been 'dirtied' by her husband's sperms during his lifetime, no other man would approach her. That explains why widow-remarriage was something unheard off in India until the 19th century. The same holds true today for divorced women : they were considered as stale wombs. No medical professional nor Biology book could dehypnotize men and women. This takes us to Chapter 3 (Biology).