Theory, truth, or myth?

1. Bartholomeus Spranger, Hermaphroditus and the Nymph Salmacis, 1582. Oil on Canvas

Religion and mythological stories are at times mixed together in historical writings and paintings. This caused barriers to form in certain arguments and theories over what was truth and myth in gender. Ancient Greeks told mythological stories of Gods and monsters which were passed into some aspects of angels and demons in religion; these stories were filled with wondrous acts of power and magic to inspire devotion to the Gods. These legends have been kept alive through written account by men like Ovid in his epic poem Metamorphoseon libri written in 8 A.D. In book IV, Hermaphroditus encounters a nymph by the name of Salmacis who enchants a spring to make it so anyone who bathed in it would come out half-man and half-women.[1] Bartholomeus Spranger depicts this scene in 1582 during a time of gender exploration and rising curiosity with anatomical dissections with his painting, Hermaphroditus and the Nymph Salmacis [fig. 1]. The word hermaphrodite would be coined from the god Hermaphroditus after this encounter but changed to a term of criticism. In Plato’s Symposium, he wrote “The original human nature was not like the present, but different. In the first place the sexes were originally three in number, not as they are now; there was man, woman and the union of the two having a double nature; they once had a real existence, but it is now lost, and the name only is preserved as a term of reproach.”[2]

Adam and Eve are vital for understanding early modern ideas on women. Juedo-Christian texts claimed that God created Adam, then took one of Adams' ribs to create Eve.[3] This set the precedent for women as subordinate to men for millennia to come. Albrecht Durer’s representations of Adam and Eve is an engraving that shows the scene of the original sin taking place[fig.2]. Durer’s depiction is an artistic interpretation, while Govert Bidloo and Gerard de Lairesse’s representations of Adam and Eve can be found engraved into the 1685 medical book Anatomia Humani Corporis as templates for understanding gender differences [fig. 3]. Judeo-Christian religion and medicine were at times indistinguishable from one another.

The influx of information on women gained during in the 15^th century and forward busted many myths and theories men had about their opposite sex. The more they learned about the differences between man and woman on an internal level, the more intriguing the cases of hermaphrodites and eunuchs became. They did not fit into categories as easily. “The uterus that entered the Renaissance was had seven chambers: three for males, three for females, and one for hermaphrodites. The uterus that left the Renaissance was a single vessel with only one chamber equally available to male and female embryos”.[4][fig.4] Andreas Vesalius depicts what he believed the uterus looked like in his 1543 treatis, De corporis humani fabrica what he believed the uterus looked like within the female body. [fig 5]

Juedo-Christian religious constructs dictated that gender had was a static concept because of Adam and Eve, mainly myths and legends were used as a counter theory that the mother had indulged in sin and devilish actions, even so the “deformity” of absence or excess of sexual genitalia would place the person into the category of monster in Europe[5]. The treatises and books made in this 15^th to 18^th century gave gender a more kinetic impression than previously considered by Judeo-Christian texts. Ambroise Pare in 1573 wrote Monstres et Prodiges. Here he “classified hermaphrodites into four types: male hermaphrodites who can impregnate a woman; female hermaphrodites who menstruate, produce seed, and have non-functioning male genitals; and hermaphrodites with two sets of functional sexual organs.”[6]