Liverpool opinions
Nobody is indispensible - The diminished role of men
By John
Williams
Mathematical proof exists to demonstrate that the male of the species is surplus to requirements. You see if the world's population was reduced to ten men and one woman then the odds are that Homo Sapiens would become extinct, for the following reasons. Firstly, She could die in giving birth to her first child. Secondly the woman might produce only males. Thirdly, she might be infertile. Any one of these scenarios would spell the end of the species. The reverse, however, would be entirely different. One man and ten women, assuming that the man was fertile, would increase the chances of species survival enormously.
This is not speculation, as any livestock farmer will attest. That is why they keep only one bull to serve many heifers, one cockerel to serve many hens, one Billy goat to serve many goats, one ram, one stallion etc. The superfluous males are culled at birth. Imagine, for fantasy's sake, an ancient community where the women realised this truth, and, after deciding that the excess males were just unwanted mouths to feed, expelled all but one of the masculine surplus. Nice for the chosen man, but hell for the rejects!
Picture those poor guys scuffling out in the bush with nothing to do but scrawl graffiti in the dust and dream about ladies. Language acquisition among males at that point must have included expressions such as 'frantic', 'frustrated, 'frenzied', and 'repressed', which obviously represented a quantum leap from 'ugh'!
I have a vision of one of these reluctant celibates sneaking back into the settlement, desperate for a taste of home cooking, when he is spotted by some of the more assertive females, who belligerently pursue him into the bush.
Cornered, he picks up a handful of rocks. His action prompts shrieks of derision from the women who point out to him that he is outnumbered twenty to one, and that while he might get three of them with his missiles the rest would grind his last will and testament into the dust.
Panic-stricken he spontaneously acquires juggling skills, tosses the rocks into the air and begins to enthral his pursuers with his dazzling and hitherto unseen prestidigitation, (another new language acquisition).
Fascinated, the oldest of the women, formerly called Dawn, but who, in recognition of her advancing years, had been renamed Eve, stepped forward and exclaimed,
" You gotta matinee and an evening spot!"
The man was supinely grateful for the lifeline, and the thought of a matinee plus an evening spot left him trembling with anticipation. The very next day another pariah turned up claiming to have the juggler under a cast iron contract. After some discussion the women allowed him back too.
The word spread, and performers of all kinds arrived at the settlement. Storytellers, poets, dancers, both formal and exotic. All were accepted, as were their various agents. Before long only the talentless and the charismatically challenged were left out in the cold. Several of them huddled together and came up with a plan, which involved dressing up in fearsome masks and making loud and threatening gestures toward any isolated women they encountered.
The women were naturally disturbed by the threat to their security and their uncharacteristic fear, given that they accepted childbirth without flinching, allowed the masquerading males to offer their protection. Their offer was readily accepted and thus the military caste was born.
The last man to be left to his own devices was totally incompetent and, ironically enough, was called Abel. One night, while he was stalking a lost sheep, he tripped over a stone. In a flint-hearted fury he picked it up and hurled it into a grassy knoll whereupon it struck another rock causing sparks to fly and setting the grass ablaze.
Abel, despite being clumsy, ugly and penniless (in effect a prime candidate for auto castration, a la Howard Stern), was nobody's fool. In truth, he was nobody's anything, but he realised that he was on a winner with the rolling stones and he was right.
When the women saw that he could create fire, they intuitively recognised the potential for the invention of smoothing irons, cooking pans, sewing needles and eye-brow tweezers.
Abel was promptly elevated to the status of head honcho and as the years went by he was able to transform his incendiary trick into a sacred secret. In so doing he was able to gain absolute control over his acolytes and then went on to establish his own rules governing the behaviour of both men and women, who by then were all totally under the spell of his pyro-magic.
"When magicians cease to act upon the world, and, instead, impart values to the world, religion is born." Ernst Cassirer An essay on man.