:骤, THE SECOND SEⅩ SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR TRANSLATED AND EDITED BY H.M. PARSHLEY DEIRDRE BAIR VINTAGE BOOKS A DIVISION OF RANDOM HOUSE, INC. NEW YORK
INTRODUCTION TO THE VINTAGE EDITION BOOK ONE: FACTS AND MYTHS Part I D he Data of Biology 3 I The Psychoanalytic Point of View iiI The Point of view of Historical Materialism Part II HISTOrY Introduction copyright 1989 by Deirdre Bait Iv The Nomads opyright renewed 1980 by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copy. VI Patriarchal Times and Classical Antiquity blished in the United States by arough the Middle Ages to Eighted ry vn Since the French Revolution: the Job and the Vote 109 953; and in France by Librairie Gallimard in two vo Deuxieme Sexe: L Les Faits et Les Mythes, I L Experience Vecue. Part III MYths Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data IX Dreams, Fears, Idols x The Myth of Woman in Five Authors ANT or the Bread of Disgu 2. D. H. LAWRENce or Phallic Pride Translation of Le deuxieme LaudE and the handmaid of the lord Woman. 1. Title 旧HQl208B352197 ISBN0679724516(pbk) 5. STENDHAL or the Romantic of Reality 6. Summary Manufactured in the United States of America XI Myth and Reality 253 3579C8642
especially in certain of her quotations from other writers. Practically all such modifications have been made with the author's express per- mission, passage by passage; and in no case do the changes involve anything in the nature of censorship+or any intentional alteration or omission of the authors ideas In conclusion I must express my gratitude to all who have helped me in one way or another. I am indebted in particular to Professors Vincent Guilloton and Newton Arvin of Smith College, to Sabine Bass of Mount Holyoke College, to the publisher, and in less degree to still others, all of whom, I trust, are aware of my appreciation. In BOOK I spite of such assistance, errors will no doubt be found in my work, H. M. PaRSHLEY Smith College Northampton, Massachusetts Facts and Myths
DESTINY: The Data of Biology PART DESTINY CHAPTER The Data of Biology W OMAN? Very simple, say the fanciers of simple formulas: she is a womb, an ovary; she is a female-this word is sufficient to define her. In the mouth of a man the epithet female has the sound of an insult, yet he: is not ashamed of his animal nature; on the contrary, he is proud if someone says of him: "He is a maler"The term"female"is derogatory not because it emphasizes woman's animality, but because it imprisons her in her sex; and if this sex seems to man to be con temptable and inimical even in harmless dumb animals, it is evidently cause of the uneasy hostility stirred up in him by woman. Never- eless he wishes to find in biology a justification for this sentiment. The word female brings up in his mind a saraband of vast, round ovum engulfs and castrates the agile spermatozoon; the ale praying mantis and the spider, satiated with love, crush and ur their partners; the bitch in heat runs through the alleys, trail- ing behind her a wake of depraved odors; the she-monkey presents her posterior immodestly and then steals away with hypocritical co- query; and- the most superb wild beasts-the tigress, the lioness, the
THE SECOND SEX: Facts and Myths DESTINY: The Data of Biology panther-bed down slavishly under the imperial embrace of the male als. On this hypothesis sexuality might well appear to be an indis- Females sluggish, eager, artful, stupid, callous, lustful, ferocious, pensable function in the most complex forms of life; only the lower abased--man projects them all at once upon woman. And the fact is organisms could multiply without sexuality, and even here vitality that she is a female. But if we are willing to stop thinking in plati- tudes, two questions are immediately posed: what does the female largely abandoned; research has proved that under suitable conditions denote in the animal kingdom? And what particular kind of female asexual multiplication can go on indefinitely without noticeable de generation, a fact that is especially striking in the bacteria and Proto- nd daring experiments in parthen Males and females are two types of individuals which are being per and in many specie entiated within a species for the function of reproduction; fundamentally unnecessary. Besides, if the value of be defined only correlatively. But first it must be noted that even the change were demonstrated, that value would seem to stand as a division of a species into two sexes is not always clear-cut. sheer, unexplained fact. Biology certainly demonstrates the existence In nature it is not universally manifested. To cak only of animals, of sexual differentiation, but from the point of view of any end to be it is well known that among the microscopic one-celled forms-in attained the science could not infer such differentiation from the usoria, amoebae, sporozoans, and the like--multiplication is funda structure of the cell, nor from the laws of cellular multiplication, nor mentally distinct from sexuality. Each cell divides and subdivides by from any basic phe nomen itself. In many-celled animals or metazoans reproduction may take The production of two types of gametes, the sperm and the egg, does not necessarily imply the existence of two distinct sexes; as a mat- into two or more parts which become new individuals--or by blasto- ter of fact, egg and sperm-two highly differentiated types of repro- genesis-that is, by buds that separate and form new individuals. The ductive cells-may both be produced by the same individual. This phenomena of budding observed in the fresh-water hydra and other occurs in normally hermaphroditic species, which are common among coelenterates, in sponges, worms, and tunicates, are well-known ex- plants and are also to be found among the lower animals, such as A amples. In cases of parthenogenesis the egg of the virgin female de- annelid worms and mollusks. In them reproduction may be accom- lops into an embryo without fertilization by the male, which thus lished through self-fertilization or, more commonly, cross-fertiliza. may play no role at all. In the honeybee copulation takes place, but tion. Here again certain biologists have attempted to account for the the eggs may or may not be fertilized at the time of laying. The un- existing state of affairs. Some hold that the of the gonad fertilized eggs undergo development and produce the drones(males) (ovaries and testes)in two distinct individuals represents an evolu- are absent during a series of gene s in which in the aphids males fertilized and produce females. Parthenogenesis has the separate condition as primitive, and believe that hermaphroditism been induced artificially in the sea urchin, the starfish, the frog, and represents a degenerate state. These notions regarding the superiority one system or the other imply the most debatable evolutionary two cells may fuse, forming what is called a zygote; and in the honey theorizing. All that we can say for sure is that these two modes of re- bee fertilization is necessary if the eggs are to produce females. In the production coexist in nature, that they both succeed in accomplishing aphids both males and females appear in the autumn, and the ferti the survival of the species concerned, and that the differentiation of lized eggs then produced are adapted for overwintering the gametes, like that of the organisms producing them, appears to Certain biologists in the past concluded from these facts that even a In modern evolutionary the in species capable of asexual propagation occasional fertilization: is tant since necessary to renew the vigor of the race-to accomplish"rejuvena-t nstant supply of new combinations for natural selection to act upo nd sexual differentiation often plays an important part in sexual reproduc tion-through the mixing of hereditary material from two individ
THE SECOND SEX: Facts and Myt DESTINY: The Data of Biology be accidental. It would seem, then, that the division of a species into ilar(as happens in hermaphroditic species)and differentiated only male and female individuals is simply an irreducible fact of observa as particular individuals of a single type. Hegel's discussion reveals a most important significance of sexuality, but his mistake is aly In most philosophies this fact has been taken for granted without argue from significance to necessity, to equate significance with ys to of explanation. According to the Plato th, there were sity. Man gives significance to the sexes and their relations through at the beginning men, women, and hermaphrodites. Each individual sexual activity, just as he gives sense and value to all the functions ad two faces, four arms, four legs, and two conjoined bodies. At a that he es; but sexual activity is not necessarily implied in the certain time they were split in two, and ever since each half seeks to nature of the human being. Merleau-Ponty notes in the phenomeno- rejoin its corresponding half. Later the gods decreed that new human gie de la perception that human existence requires us to revise our beings should be created through the coupling of dissimilar halves ideas of necessity and contingence. Existence, "he says, "has no But it is only love that this story is intended to explain; division into casual, fortuitous qualities, no content that does not contribute to the sexes is given at the outset. Nor does Aristotle explain this division,for formation of its aspect; it does not admit the notion of sheer fact, for if matter and form must co-operate in all action, there is no necessity it is only through existence that the facts are manifested. "True for the active and passive principles to be separated in two different enough. But it is also true that there are conditions without which fact of cAtegories of individuals. Thus St. Thomas proclaims woman an"in- ce itself would seem to be impossible. To be of suggesting resent in the world implies strictly that there exists a body which is view-the accidental or contingent nature of sexuality. Hegel, how- at once a material thing in the world and a point of view toward this ever, would have been untrue to his passion for rationalism had he orld; but nothing requires that this body have this or that particular failed to attempt a logical explanation. Sexuality in his view repre- structure. Sartre discusses in L' Etre et le neat Heidegger's dictum to sents the medium through which the subject attains a concrete sense the effect that the real of man is bound up with death because of belonging to a particular kind (genre). "The sense of kind is pro- of man's finite state. He shows that an existence which is finite and yet duced in the subject as an effect which offsets this disproportionate unlimited in time is conceivable: but none the e less were n sense of his individual reality, as a desire to find the sense of himself resident in human life, the relation of man to the world and to him- in another individual of his species through union with this other, to self would be profoundly disarranged-so much so that the state- complete himself and thus to incorporate the kind (genre)within ment"Man is mortal"would be seen to have significance quite other his own nature and bring it into existence. This is copulation than that of a mere fact of observation. were he immortal, an ex. (Philosophy of Nature, Part 3, Section 369), And a little farther on istent would no longer be what we call a man. One of the essential The process consists in this, namely: that which they are in them features of his career is that the progress of his life through time selves, that is to say a single kind, one and the same subjective life, creates behind him and before him the infinite past and future, and they also establish it as such "And Hegel states later that for the it would seem, then, that the perpetuation of the species is the correl- uniting process to be accomplished, there must frst be sexual differ- tive of his individual limitation. Thus we can regard the phenome- entiation. But his exposition is not convincing: one feels in it all too non of reproduction as founded in the very nature of being. But we distinctly the predetermination to find in every operation the three iust stop there. The perpetuation of the species does not necessitate exual differentiation. True enough, this differentiation is character The projection or transcendence of the individual toward the spe ns istic of existents to such an extent that it belongs in any realistic def cies, in which both individual and species are fulfilled, could be ac- nition of existence. But it nevertheless remains true that both a mind complished without the intervention of a third element in the simple without a body and an immortal man are strictly inconceivable, relation of progenitor to offspring; that is to say, reproduction could whereas we can imagine a parthenogenetic or hermaphroditic society be asexual. Or, if there were to be two progenitors, they could be sim: On the respective functions of the two sexes man has entertained
THE SECOND SEX: Facts and Myths DESTINY: The Data of Biology refecting social myths. It was long thought-and it still is believed eat vaIl of beliefs. At first the in certain primitive matriarchal societies-that the father plays no the nuclei of the two gametes, egg and sperm, was established. The part in conception. Ancestral spirits in the form of living germs are details of their union within the fertilized re first worked out supposed to find their way into the maternal body. With the advent in 1883 by a Belgian zoologist, van Beneden of patriarchal institutions, the male laid eager claim to his posterity Aristotle's ideas were not wholly discredited, however. Hegel held It was still necessary to grant the mother a part in procreation, but it that the two sexes were of necessity different, the one active and the was conceded only that she carried and nourished the living seed, other passive, and of course the female would be the passive one created by the father alone. Aristotle fancied that the fetus arose "Thus man, in consequence of that differentiation, is the active prin- from the union of sperm and menstrual blood, woman furnishing only iple while woman is the passive principle because she remains unde- assive matter while the male principle contributed force, activity, loped in her unity. "a And even after the egg had been recognized movement, life. Hippocrates held to a similar doctrine, recognizing as an active principle, men still tried to make a point of its quiescence two kinds of seed, the weak or female and the strong or male. The contrasted with the lively movements of the sperm. Today one theory of Aristotle survived through the Middle Ages and into mod otes an opposite tendency on the part of some scientists. The dis- coveries made in the course of experiments on parthenogenesis have At the end of the seventeenth century Harvey killed female dogs ern times d them to reduce the function of the sperm to that of a simple shortly after copulation and found in the horns of the uterus small physicochemical reagent. It has been shown that in certain species sacs that he thought were eggs but that were really embryos, The the stimulus of an acid or even of a needle-prick is enough to initiate Danish anatomist Steno gave the name of ovaries to the female geni. the cleavage of the egg and the development of the embryo. On this tal glands, previously called "feminine testicles, "and noted on their basis it has been boldly suggested that the male gamete(sperm)is surface the small swellings that von Graaf in 1677 erroneously iden- not necessary for reproduction, that it acts at most as a ferment: fur tired with the eggs and that are now called Graafian follicles. The ther, that perhaps in time the co-operation of the male will become ovary was still regarded as homologous to the male gland. In the unnecessary in procreation-the answer, it would seem, to many a same year, however, the"spermatic animalcules"were discovered and womans prayer. But there is no warrant for so bold it was proved that they penetrated into the uterus of the female; but for nothing warrants us in universalizing specific life processes. The it was supposed that they were simply nourished therein and that the Phenomena of asexual propagation and of coming individual was preformed in them. In 1694 a Dutchman, to be neither more nor less fundamental than those of sexual repro- duction. I have said that the latter has no claim a priori to be consid tozoon, and in 1699 another scientist said that he had seen the ered basic; but neither does any fact indicate that it is reducible to spermatozoon cast off a kind of molt under which appeared a littie any more fundamental mechanism an,which he also drew. Under these imaginative hypotheses, Thus, admitting no a priori doctrine, no dubious theory, we are oman was restricted to the nourishment of an active, living prin. confronted by a fact for which we can offer no basis in the nature of ciple already preformed in perfection. These notions were not uni things nor any explanation through observed data, and ersally accepted, and they were argued into the nineteenth century. cance of which we cannot comprehend a priori. We ca The use of the microscope enabled von Baer in 1827 to discover the. grasp the sigr ity only by In mammalian egg, contained inside the Graafian follicle. Before long manifestations, and then perhaps the meaning of the wo it was possible to study the cleavage of the egg-that is, the early: will stand revealed stage of development through cell division-and in 1835 sarcode, I do not intend to offer here a philosophy of life; and I do not care later called protoplasm, was discovered and the true nature of the Hegel: Philosophy of nature
THE SECOND SEX: Facts and Myths DESTINY: The Data of Biolog between the mechanistic and the chromosome constitution established at the time of fertilization the purposive or teleological philosophies It is to be noted, howeve take sides maturely in the dispu According to the species concerned, it is either the male gamete or the that all physiologists and biologists use more or less finalistic lan female gamete that accomplishes this result. In the mammals it is the guage, if only because they ascribe meaning to vital phenomena. I sperm,of which two kinds are produced in equal numbers, one kind ontaining an X-chromosome(as do all the eggs), the other kind lation between life and consciousness, we can assert that every bic containing a Y-chromosome(not found in the eggs). Aside from the logical fact implies transcendence, that every function involves a proj X and Y-chror an equivalent set of ect, something to be done. Let my words be taken to imply no more hese bodies. It is obvious that when sperm and egg unite in fertiliza- tion, the fertilized egg will contain two full sets of chromosomes making up the number characteristic of the species-48 in man, for In the vast majority of species male and female individuals co-operate example. If fertilization is accomplished by an X-bearing sperm, the defined prima rily as male and female by tilized egg will contain two X-chromosomes and will develop into the gametes which they produce-sperms and eggs respectively. In a female (XX). If the Y-bearing sperm fertilizes the egg, only one some lower plants and animals the cells that fuse to form the zygote X-chromosome will be present and the sex will be male(XY).In re identical; and these cases of isogamy are signifcant because they birds and butterflies the situation is reversed, though the principle re- illustrate the basic equivalence of the gametes. In general the gametes mains the same; it is the eggs that contain either X or y and hence are differentiated, and yet their equivalence remains a striking fact determine the sex of the offspring. In the matter of heredity, the laws Sperms and eggs develop from similar primordial germ cells in the of Mendel show that the father and the mother play equal parts. The chromosomes contain the factors of heredity (genes ), and they are the female differs from that of spermatocytes in the male chiefly same. The biologist Ancel suggested in 1903 that the nine clearly- conveyed equally in egg and sperm regard to the protoplasm, but the nuclear phenomena What we should note in particular at this point is that neither ordial germ gamete can be regarded as superior to the other; when they unite cell is indifferent and undergoes development into sperm or egg de- both lose their individuality in the fertilized egg. There are two com- pending upon which type of gonad, testis or ovary, contains it. How. mon suppositions which-at least on this basic biological level-are ever this may be, the primordial germ cells of each sex contain the clearly false. The first-that of the passivity of the female-is dis- same number of chromosomes(that characteristic of the species con- proved by the fact that new life springs from the union of the two cerned), which number is reduced to one half by closely analogous gametes; the living spark is not the exclusive property of either. The processes in male and female. At the end of these developmental nucleus of the egg is a center of vital activity exactly symmetrical with processes(called spermatogenesis in the male and oogenesis in the the nucleus of the sperm. The second false supposition contradicts female) the gametes appear fully matured as sperms and eggs, differ. the first-which does not seem to prevent their coexistence. It is to the ing enormously in some respects, as noted below, but being alike in efifect that the permanence of the species is assured by the female,the that each contains a single set of equivalent chromosomes male principle being of an explosive and transitory natu Today it is well known that the sex of offspring is determined by of fact, the embryo carries on the germ plasm of the father as well as that of the mother and transmits them together to its descendants under now male, now female form. It is, so to speak, an androgynous germ plasm, which outlives the male or female individuals that are its incarnations, whenever they produce offspring the gametes are equivalent; but it may well be that they are never absolutely iden tal than that of egg an This said, we can turn our attention to secondary differences be- tween egg and sperm, which are of the greatest interest. The essen
THE SECOND SEX: Facts and Myths DESTINY: The Data of Biology tial peculiarity of the egg is that it is provided with means for nourish- tion-disquieting, as is all passive action-whereas the activity of the ing and protecting the embryo; it stores up reserve material from male gamete is rational; it is movement measurable in terms of time which the fetus will build its tissues, material that is not living sub and space. The truth is that these notions are hardly more than vaga stance but inert yolk. In consequence the egg is of massive, commonly ies of the mind. Male and female gametes fuse in the fertilized egg; herical form and relatively large. The size of birds'eggs is well they are both suppressed in becoming a new whole. It is false to say known; in woman the egg is almost microscopic, about equal in size that the egg greedily swallows the sperm, and equally so to say that m inted period(diameter. 132-. 135 mm. ) but the human sperm is he sperm victoriously commandeers the female cell's reserves, since Taller( 04-06 mm in length), so small that a cubic millimeter in the act of fusion the individuality of both is lost. No doubt move. hold 6o, ooo. The sperm has a threadlike tail a all fa ment seems to the mechanistic mind to be an eminently rational tened oval head, which contains the chromosomes. No inert sub phenomenon, but it is an idea no clearer for modern physics than stance weighs it down; it is wholly alive. In its whole structure it is action at a distance. Besides, we do not know in detail the physico- adapted for mobility. Whereas the egg, big with the future of the chemical reactions that lead up to gametic union. We can derive a mbryo, is stationary; enclosed within the female body or floating valid suggestion, however, from this comparison of the ernally in water, it passively awaits fertilization. It is the male gamet There are two interrelated dynamic aspects of life: it can nat seeks it out. The sperm is always a naked cell; the egg may or tained only through transcending itself, and it can transcen may not be protected with shell and membranes according to the only on condition that it is maintained. These two factors alway species; but in any case, when the sperm makes contact with the egg, operate together and it is unrealistic to try to separate them, yet now it presses against it, sometimes shakes it, and bores into it. The tail it is one and now the other that dominates. The two gametes at once is dropped and the head enlarges, forming the male nucleus, which transcend and perpetuate themselves when they unite; but in its now moves toward the egg nucleus. Meanwhile the egg quickly forms ructure the egg anticipates future needs, it is so constituted as a membrane, which prevents the entrance of other In the nourish the life that will wake within it. The sperm, on the contrary, starfish and other echinoderms, where fertilization takes place ex- in no way equipped to provide for the development of the ternally, it is easy to observe the onslaught of the sperms, which sur- round the egg like an aureole. The competition involved is an impor- of environment that will stimulate a new outburst of life, whereas the tant phenomenon, and it occurs in most species. Being much smaller sperm can and does travel. Without the foresight of the egg, the sperms arrival would be in vain; but without the initiative of the lat (more than 200,000, ooo to 1 in the human species ) and so each egg ter, the egg would not fulfill its living potentialities has numerous suitors We may conclude, then, that the two gametes play a fundamentally Thus the egg-active in its essential feature, the nucleus--is su identical role; together they create a living being in which both of perfcially passive; its compact mass, sealed up within itself, evokes them are at once lost and transcended. But in the secondary and nocturnal darkness and inward repose. It was the form of the sphere superficial phenomena upon which fertilization depends, it is the male that to the ancients represented the circumscribed world, the impene trable atom. Motionless, the egg waits; in contrast the it is the female element that enables this new life to be lodged in a But allegory should not be pushed too far. The ovule has sometimes It would be foolhardy indeed to deduce from such evidence that ascendence, and it ha lace is in the he In his been said that the sperm penetrates the female element only in losing book Le Temperament et le charactere, Alfred Fouillee undertakes to ts transcendence, its motility; it is seized and castrated by the inert found his definition of woman in toto upon the egg and that of man gulfs it after depriving it of its tail. This
THE SECOND SEX: Facts and Myths DESTINY: The Data of Biology ries rest upon this play of doubtful analogies. It is a question to wha losophy of nature these dubious ideas pertain; not to the laws of hese parts, from which later on, the definitive male or female struc- eredity, certainly, for, according to these laws, men and women alike tures arise. All this helps to explain the existence of conditions inter develop from an egg and a sperm. I can only suppose that in such mediate between hermaphroditism and gonochorism(sexes separate) misty minds there still float shreds of the old philosophy of the Mid Very often one sex possesses certain organs characteristic of the other; dle Ages which taught that the cosmos is an exact reflection of a ase in point is the toad, in which there is in the male a rudimental ovary called Bidder's organ, capable of producing eggs under exper microcosm-the egg is imagined to be a little female, the woman a mental conditions. Among the mammals there are indications of this giant egg. These musings, generally abandoned since the days of al- chemy, make a bizarre contrast with the scientific precision of the sexual bipotentiality, such as the uterus masculinus and the rudimen- data upon which they are now based, for modern biology conforms tary mammary glands in the male, and in the female Gartner,'s canal with difficulty to medieval symbolism. But our theorizers do not look and the clitoris. Even in those species exhibiting a high degree of too closely into the matter. In all honesty it must be admitted that sexual differentiation individuals combining both male and female characteristics may occur. Many cases of intersexuality are known in in any case it is a long way from the egg to woman. In the unfertilized egg not even the concept of femaleness is as yet established. As Hegel both animals and man; and among insects a justly remarks, the sexual relation cannot be referred back to theAre sionally finds examples of gynandromorphism, in which male and fe- lation of the gametes. It is our duty, then, to study the female organ- male areas of the body are mingled in a kind of mosaic. ism as a whole The fact is that the individual, though its genotypic sex is fixed at jt has already been pointed out that in many plants and in some fertilization, can be profoundly affected by the environment in which it develops In the ants, bees, and termites the larval nutrition deter animals(such as snails) the presence of two kinds of gametes does mines whether the genotypic female individual will become a fully not require two kinds of individuals, since every individual produces both eggs and sperms. Even when the sexes are separate, they are not developed female("queen")or a sexually retarded worker. In thes distinguished in any such fashion as are different species. Males and cases the whole organism is affected; but the gonads do not play a females appear rather to be variations on a common gro part in establishing the sexual differences of the be d, or somd. In the much as the two gametes are differentiated from similar original tis- vertebrates, however, the hormones secreted by the gonads are the sue. In certain animals( for example, the marine worm Bonellia)the essential regulators. Numerous experiments show that by varying larva is asexual, the adult becoming male or female according to the the hormonal(endocrine) situation, sex can be profoundly affected. circumstances under which it has developed. But as noted above rafting and castration experiments on adult animals and man have (page 11), sex is determined in most species by the genotypic con contributed to the modern theory of sexuality, according to which the stitution of the fertilized egg. In bees the unfertilized eggs laid by the soma is in a way identical in male and female vertebrates. It may be queen produce males exclusively; in aphids parthenogenetic eggs usu- regarded as a kind of neutral element upon which the infuence of ally produce females. But in most animals all eggs that develop have gonad imposes the sexual characteristics. Some of the horm been fertilized, and it is notable that the sexes are produced in ap- secreted by the gonad act as stimulators, others as inhibitors. Even the proximately equal numbers through the mechanism of chromosomal nital tract itself is somatic, and embryological investigations show sex-determination, already explained that it develops in the male or female direction from an indifferent In the embryonic development of both sexes the tissue from which and in some respects hermaphroditic condition under the hormonal the gonads will be formed is at first indifferent; at a certain stage fuence Intersexuality may result when the hormones are abnormal either testes or ovaries become estal blished; and similarly in the de when mnt of the other sex organs there is an early indifferent period female(Xx). This is why the young in the sex of the embryo cannot be told from an examination of