Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2016 October 28

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October 28

Did the ancients understand a whoreson had one father?

Until recently, babies all had just two parents. And I'd think it would be pretty obvious even to the ancients that a woman with a husband and a lover of two different races would give birth to one or the other. But births from women who have many sexual contacts in a short period - e.g. "whoresons", at least according to what the term seems like it should mean - well, it might be harder to keep track, and they might think that if, say, the semens literally mix together then they become one. And we have little bits of silliness in our culture that seem like they reflect an analog view of insemination, like "the best part of you ran down your mama's leg", or silly villains who are the "son of 100 maniacs" or some such. Do these reflect an earlier time when people believed that the genetics of multiple inseminators could mix, or are they just modern day fantasy/humor?

I should note that there is no a priori logical reason why this couldn't happen, even without modern embryo manipulation. There are schemes of bacterial conjugation which, if extended to the human situation, could produce this result quite handily. Indeed, if a woman's body could decide to take random pieces of sperm and use them for some sort of gene conversion or other replacement using homologous recombination at the ovum, it would allow considerable strategic possibilities to use more pieces of genes from a very fit male or less from one more average, or even to take up a limited amount of DNA from a different species; it would also allow for uptake of different sequences from different men to produce the same embryo.

Wnt (talk) 02:32, 28 October 2016 (UTC)

As I recall from Attilio Mastrocinque's From Jewish Magic to Gnosticism, a number of followers of Sethianism would reason "my mother recently had sex with the priest descended from Seth, therefore I am now descended from Seth" or something even like "the Sethian priest just buggered me, I'm now a descendant of Seth." Consider also that the Early Church would track Jesus's genealogy through Joseph to claim birthright as a descendant of David while simultaneously denying any biological inheritance. While that may not be a direct answer to your question, it does indicate that their understanding of descent wasn't as strictly material as ours. The treatment of whores is an argument in both directions: were the payments intended as a divided child support, or was the lack of further payments evidence that the kid was viewed as not belonging to any father? Ian.thomson (talk) 02:57, 28 October 2016 (UTC)

While not directly related to your question, you may find this of interest. Matt Deres (talk) 03:15, 28 October 2016 (UTC)

At one stage it was widely believed that the mother contributed nothing to the child - the man produced a seed, which contained the whole of the new person, and then sowed that seed in the woman who provided, in effect, the field in which that seed could grow (Preformationism). The child of a prostitute would certainly have been considered to have developed from one seed - but with no way of knowing which man had sowed it. This is why legitimacy was such a big issue. Wymspen (talk) 08:13, 28 October 2016 (UTC)

This is a very good point - it is easy now to forget how widespread that belief was, and for quite a long time. Ironically, in this context it was "true", at least in the sense that a preformed male gamete existed to give rise to its part of the child's genetics rather than merely having some indistinct and gradual effect on epigenesis. I suppose then that it might only be the proponents of the other position who would be at risk to suppose that the fathers' influences might be mixed, though that might be assuming too much. Wnt (talk) 11:34, 28 October 2016 (UTC)

Quite possibly not: see Telegony_(pregnancy). See also Partible paternity, although that seems to be more about legally/socially treating people as having multiple fathers rather than thinking they biologically have them. Iapetus (talk) 11:17, 28 October 2016 (UTC)

Also a great point - I suppose someone must have tried to apply it to simultaneous insemination rather than serial pregnancies. Wnt (talk) 11:36, 28 October 2016 (UTC)

""In lowland South America, the core belief is that all men who have intercourse with a woman during her pregnancy share the biological fatherhood of her child." [1] - newspaper article touching on the Bari tribe mentioned in partible paternity. SemanticMantis (talk) 14:46, 28 October 2016 (UTC)

I did have a bias against taking that too literally because in the U.S. there is a sort of partible paternity in regard to husbands (see [2] - the husband is the father of the child unless both he and the other man make out a paper to say otherwise) without any such belief, but you're right that this is what the article says. Wnt (talk) 18:50, 28 October 2016 (UTC)

From our article Pan (god): "Other sources (Duris of Samos; the Vergilian commentator Servius) report that Penelope slept with all 108 suitors in Odysseus' absence, and gave birth to Pan as a result." --151.41.136.222 (talk) 09:38, 29 October 2016 (UTC)

If we're talking mythology: Conaire Mór had both a human and a divine father, at least according to some interpretations of the story. And Gilgamesh was supposedly 2/3 divine, although I can't remember what sequence of matings was supposed to have resulted in that. Iapetus (talk) 18:06, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

Last lunatic asylum

Is it known which lunatic asylum was the last in the world to close before the appearance of psychiatric hospitals? Thanks.--93.174.25.12 (talk) 13:20, 28 October 2016 (UTC)

Austin State Hospital is still in service, though it is no longer called an "asylum". It changed the name away from "asylum" in 1925, whereas Friern changed its name in 1930. It's not clear if OP is interested in merely the name "asylum", or some other change in mental health care that loosely came along with the name changes. If OP is interested in places formerly known as asylums that are still running, then Austin State Hospital is an example. SemanticMantis (talk) 16:44, 28 October 2016 (UTC)

There are many organizations and facilities formerly named "lunatic asylum" and "insane asylum" and similar which are still in operation today under different names. There is a ship of Theseus problem when considering continuity here. For example, the Riverview Psychiatric Center is a direct continuation of a facility formerly named the Maine Insane Hospital, but it is neither at the same location, nor has the same name as originally. When did it stop being an asylum and start being a "psychiatric center"? Changes to mental health infrastructure and practices have been gradual over time, and especially susceptible to the euphemism treadmill in terms of naming practices. Articles like History of mental disorders and History of psychiatric institutions provide some good overviews for the OP to learn more about this subject. --Jayron32 17:49, 28 October 2016 (UTC)

There was a relevant mention of Friern Hospital here and Lunacy_Act_1845 here until it was removed, I am putting the links back because I thought they were interesting and might help OP. SemanticMantis (talk) 20:12, 28 October 2016 (UTC)

Not answering the question.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
As someone with long-term mental health issues, I view blanket ideologies of Deinstitutionalisation as an unmitigated disaster. We should have kept those institutions, and brought them up to modern standards. Now we have nowhere to put the long term severely mentally ill. Deinstitutionalisation was the fallacy that everyone belonged "in the community" regardless of how well they could cope with "the community", or how well (or even safely) "the community" could accommodate them. It's a bit like suggesting that we should shut down all nursing homes, and all elderly people should stay in their own home until they die (some do apparently hold this view, I gather!). Of course, an elderly person staying in their own home is ideal, but sometimes it's not possible, and we have nursing homes for good reason. To me, the mentally ill are no different. Many have argued that many of those formerly in lunatic asylums now end up either in jail or homeless instead. Do forgive my rant. 110.140.69.137 (talk) 15:54, 29 October 2016 (UTC) Rant forgiven. The original asylums where provided as a place or sanctuary (which I think your alluding too), where people went to have a respite, in which time they could recover. On leaving they’d go back to their trade and provide for their families once more. Then someone discovered barbiturates. People then went in.... never recovered.. nor seldom got released (no longer leaving of their own free will but never getting released). Ah, but this was now the age of modern medication and we should all be thankful for that – or so we are lead to believe by those doctors that know best. The UK population in the UK asylums thus rose to about a 100,000 thanks to modern medical science. Then the government wanting to save costs, closed these big 'institutions' and threw those patents out into the community. Where they now live (still) institutionalised, only this time in little flats with no access to any meaningful rehabilitation. To get around any forceful objection these people may have, they are still fed anti-psychotics in order that they can't protest in any meaningful manner. If their nearest, dearest and friends that knew them well do question this, they just get told: Best thing you can do is insure that they keep taking the tablets. Wonder how many minutes or seconds, it will take for a modern psychiatric student to come back, protest and deny this long history?--Aspro (talk) 16:57, 29 October 2016 (UTC) Psychiatry does not entirely have the most honourable history, and I think many Psychiatrists will themselves admit that. See Lobotomy for an example of one particularly frequently done horrible procedure. But I can't agree with you on anti-psychotics. I do think they have a legitimate place in modern medicine. The HUGE problem is treating them as if they are a panacea, and over-prescribing for things other than psychosis (e.g. troublesome behaviour in the intellectually disabled or personality disordered). And sometimes people do need a respite, and meaningful rehabilitation, as you say. If you're rich, you can go to The Priory, perhaps - for the few weeks your insurance will pay. If you're poor and reliant on the NHS... good luck. 110.140.69.137 (talk) 17:23, 29 October 2016 (UTC) Have a place? Before asylums prescribed additive drugs, people who had recovered naturally -with time, could leave and retake their former place in society. Now, once placed on neuroleptics, they are locked-in, because to discontinue the drugs, locks-them-in to the discontinuation syndrome (a psychiatric euphemism for iatrogenic addiction). As these drugs interfere with the functioning of the outer cortex, those who start taking them often find it very hard to be, think and behave like other people ever again. The Case for Neuroleptics Reducing Recovery from 80% to 5%. Independent researchers for decades now, have been critical that pharmaceutical companies only publishing short-term changes in 'observable' signs. With a total disregard for full recovery, long term effects and the future quality of life of those so treated. The only place that these drugs have: is to make timid psychiatrists feel that they are doing something, profit the share-holders of pharmaceutical companies and remove the guilt of the government for closing down hospitals. In that holy trinity I don't see anything about improving mental health – in fact, NGO's are saying its getting worse, year by year. Period. --Aspro (talk) 19:49, 29 October 2016 (UTC)