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by Chandra Edirisuriya

'Mens sana in corpore sano' goes the Latin adage which means 'Healthy mind in a healthy body'. This goes to show that the body influences the mind. Thus the relationship between the body and the mind is clear.

Aristotle 384-322 BC Greek philosopher, pupil of Plato, tutor of Alexander the Great and the founder of the Peripatetic school at Athens, author of works on logic, ethics, politics, poetics, rhetoric, biology, zoology and metaphysics in his work 'De Generatione Animalium (The Generation of Animals) set out the difference between man and woman thus:

"Thus we shall make it clear (1) whether the female also produces semen like the male and the foetus is a single mixture of two semens or whether no semen is secreted by the female and (2) if not whether she contributes nothing else either to generation but only provides a receptacle or whether she does contribute something and if so how and in what manner she does so ... on this subject then so much may be laid down.

"But since it is necessary (1) that the weaker animal also should have a secretion greater in quantity and less concocted and (2) that being of such a nature it should be a mass of sanguineous liquid and (3) since that which nature endows with a smaller potion of heat is weaker and (4) since it has already been stated that such is the character of the female - putting all these considerations together we see that the sanguineous matter discharged by the female is also a secretion. And such is the discharge of the so called catamenia. It is plain that the catamenia are a secretion and that they are analogous in females to the semen of males ....

"Now a boy is like a female in form and the woman is, as it were, an impotent male for it is through a certain incapacity that the female is female being incapable of concocting the nutrient in its last stage into semen (and this is either blood or that which is analogous to it in animals which are bloodless owing to the coldness of their nature).

As then diarrhoea is caused in the bowels by the insufficient concoction of the blood, so are caused in the blood vessels all discharges of blood, including that of the catamenia for this also is such a discharge. Only it is natural whereas the others are morbid.

"Thus it is clear that it is reasonable to suppose that generation comes from this. For the catamenia are semen not in a pure state but in need of working up, just as in the formation of fruits the nutrient is present, when it is not yet sifted thoroughly but needs working up to purify it.

"Thus the catamenia cause generation by mixture with the semen ... women are colder than men ... since heat is associated with life and soul women have less soul than men because woman is deficient in vital heat she is unable to cook to the point of purity her secretion (menstrual blood) which unites with male secretion (semen) to form a new human being).

"The male's contribution to generation is pure and hence more valuable than woman's although both of course are necessary. Specifically man contributes the form or essence of the embryo while woman merely provides the nutrition necessary to maintain it, that is the male and not the female creates human life.

"Ultimately, woman's deficiency or lack of the male principle - sentient and rational soul - affect the bodily, intellectual and social status of women for the worse. She is physically weaker, less capable of rational thought and subordinate to the rule of men.... "In all products of Nature or art a thing is made by something actually existing out of that which is potentially such as the finished product.

"Now the semen is of such a nature and has in it such a principle of motion that when the motion is ceasing each of the parts come into being and that as a part having life or soul.

"Has the semen soul or not? The same argument applies here as in the question concerning the parts, as no part if it participate not in soul, will be a part except in an equivocal sense (as the eye of a dead man is still an eye). So no soul will exist in anything except that of which it is soul. It is plain therefore that semen both has soul and is soul potentially.

"To consider now the region of the uterus in the female the two blood vessels and the aorta divide higher up and many fine vessels from them terminate in the uterus. These become overfilled with the nourishment they convey, nor is the female nature able to concoct it, because it is colder than man's, so the blood is excreted through very fine vessels into the uterus, these being unable on account of their narrowness to receive the excessive quantity and the result is a sort of haemorrhage. The period is not accurately defined in women but tends to return during the waning of the moon....

In all females, then there must necessarily be such a secretion more indeed in those that have blood and of these most of all in man, but in the others also some matter must be collected in the uterine region.

The reason why there is more in those that have blood and most in man has been already given, but only, if all females have such a secretion have not all males one to correspond ... while the body is from the female, it is the soul that is from the male for the soul is the reality of a particular body.... (Excerpted from History of Ideas on Woman - A Source Book by Rosemary Agonito).

The role of the woman is very eloquently expressed by the saying "The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world".

There have been exceptional women throughout the history of the human race. However in consonance with the analysis of Aristotle when man lived in the jungle it is the males who played a more vigorous and physically exerting role in day to day life. The more arduous task of gathering food for sustenance was performed by the males while the female's role was restricted to taking care of the children and storing and serving the food gathered.

The woman's role has remained basically the same upto the present time.

Some of the great women who adorned the world from ancient times include maha maya Devi, the mother of Siddartha Gauthama who attained Supreme Enlightenment or Buddhahood, Kisa Gothami, his foster mother, Yasodara Devi, his wife, Visaka Mahopasika, Lord Buddha's chief woman lay devotee, Sanghamitta Theri, Virgin Mary, the Mother of Lord Jesus Christ, Ayesha, the wife of Prophet Mohammed, Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt, Xanthippe the wife of Socrates, Catherine the Great, Queen Victoria of Britain, Vijayalakshmi Pandit of India, Madam Sun Yat Sen, Prime Ministers Golda Meir, Indira Gandhi, Benazir Bhutto, Kalida Zia, Sheik Hasina, Magaret Thatcher, Presidents Corazon Aquino, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, Megawatie Sukarno, Madam Marie Curie, Pearl S. Buck, Margaret Mead, Elizabeth Taylor et al. In our country there have been heroic women like Vihara Maha Devi, the mother of King Dutugemunu. Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike, President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga, Siva Obeysekera are among the women who have played exceptional roles in modern Sri Lanka. Mention should also be made of Educationists Susan Pulimood, Clara Motwani, Wimala de Silva, Thilokasundari Kariyawasam, Uma coomaraswamy, Savithri Gunasekera, Jezima Ismail et al.

The important role the woman plays in a man's life is best expressed by the saying "There is a woman behind every successful man'.

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