Conflicting Theories/ideas/myths About Milk Kinship
One particular theory mentioned by Peter Parkes is an Arab folk-analogy that breast milk is supposed to be “transformed male semen” that arises from Hertiers Somatic Scheme. There is no evidence that Arabs ever considered a mothers milk to be ‘transformed sperm’. Another suggested analogy is that breast milk was a refinement of uterine blood. It is also suggested since that milk is of the woman, her moods and dispositions are transferred through the breast milk. Peter Parkes mentions that milk-kinship was “further endorsed as a canonical impediment to marriage by several eastern Christian churches”. This gives us evidence that this was widely practiced among numerous religious communities, and not just Islamic communities, in the early modern Mediterranean.
Hertiers Somatic Scheme
Hertiers Somatic Scheme states that marriage between milk kin is forbidden because ‘the milk is from the man’. However, the rules of Sunni marital incest show that this is in fact incorrect as these rules apply through a standard of adoptive kin relations. Hertiers Somatic Scheme is where the misconception that milk is considered transformed sperm comes from. This idea is incorrect, and was deduced generally from an Arab saying that the milk is from the man.
Read more about this topic: Milk Kinship
Famous quotes containing the words conflicting, theories, ideas, myths, milk and/or kinship:
“Certainly for us of the modern world, with its conflicting claims, its entangled interests, distracted by so many sorrows, so many preoccupations, so bewildering an experience, the problem of unity with ourselves in blitheness and repose, is far harder than it was for the Greek within the simple terms of antique life. Yet, not less than ever, the intellect demands completeness, centrality.”
—Walter Pater (1839–1894)
“Generalisation is necessary to the advancement of knowledge; but particularly is indispensable to the creations of the imagination. In proportion as men know more and think more they look less at individuals and more at classes. They therefore make better theories and worse poems.”
—Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859)
“Yet, if the pupil be of a texture to bear it, the best university that can be recommended to a man of ideas is the gauntlet of the mobs.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Two myths must be shattered: that of the evil stepparent . . . and the myth of instant love, which places unrealistic demands on all members of the blended family. . . . Between the two opposing myths lies reality. The recognition of reality is, I believe, the most important step toward the building of a successful second family.”
—Claire Berman (20th century)
“Yet do I fear thy nature,
It is too full o’th’ milk of human kindness
To catch the nearest way.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“The spiritual kinship between Lincoln and Whitman was founded upon their Americanism, their essential Westernism. Whitman had grown up without much formal education; Lincoln had scarcely any education. One had become the notable poet of the day; one the orator of the Gettsyburg Address. It was inevitable that Whitman as a poet should turn with a feeling of kinship to Lincoln, and even without any association or contact feel that Lincoln was his.”
—Edgar Lee Masters (1869–1950)