ABSTRACT
The English word eunuch derives from the ancient Greek word , which is a compound of (meaning “bed,”
especially “marriage bed”) and (to hold, keep, guard). Eunuchs were guardians of the marriage bed. They were qualified for that social function by being disqualified from a biological one. Aristotle, the Greek zoological philosopher, wrote a treatise on animal reproduction in the fourth century B.C.E. (which remained the best analysis of embryology until the seventeenth century); in it, he noted that “the castrated do not have the power to breed.”
