ABSTRACT
Classical theories of human reproduction consistently ascribed superior powers to the male principle. Some theories were quite extreme, limiting woman's contribution to the nourishment of the male seed. Aristotle's tenet that women produced no semen had numerous ramifications for his understanding of human creation. The female body became the workplace, in effect, in which the male crafted a human life. A mix of male and female seed where the female seed dominated would result in a female. Galen accepted as true the popular classical view that male seed was produced in the right testis and female seed in the left. From the classical period, the biological writings of Aristotle influenced reproductive theory well into the sixteenth century. Aristotle's view of the primacy of the male principle of creation was consistent with both the metaphysical views of his time, which depicted women and female traits as inferior, and other scientific theories of generation.
