Why Do Men Marry_2

I just got some additional information about this subject. I felt that I should share it with you. I'm a little surprised that one of you hasn't already brought it up.

Plato in his book Symposium relates a speech supposedly given by Aristophanes at a dinner of about 6 of the great minds then living in Athens. According to this speech there were at one time three different sexes among humans. There were male, female and androgynous. At that time each of these persons was the equivalent, in organs and extremities of two of today's persons. That is: each had four legs, four arms with appropriate number of hands and fingers. Other organs that were normally singular, were in these people, doubled. The head was double the size of the current human head and had two faces. The genitals came in two sets for each body. The males had two male sexual appendages and the female had two sets of female genitals. The androgynous had a set of one each, male and female. There were many of each sex, but the greatest number of individuals were the androgynous persons. The extra legs and arms gave the people all kinds of ways of mobility. They could could stretch out their arms and legs and appear to be like a great ball. In This guise they would rush down the hills and across the valleys making a great stir and causing mischief of all sorts. Frequently someone would get in their way and the results could be limbs and heads broken. This would then cause the victim's relatives to demand satisfaction. These incidents would expand until the gods interred with some great natural disaster that would take their mines off the feud.

For what ever reason, lost now in history, these people could not be content to live quiet industrious lives. They were constantly battling with one another. Blood was frequently being spilled. The gods were very concerned about this situation and summoned a great council of the gods to determine how to correct the problem. When this type of situation had arisen before the gods it had been the race of giants who had caused the problems. The gods had attempted to settle it by wiping out the giants. That is why giants no longer roam the earth. However, the removal of the giants had little effect on the problems. The mayhem continued without let up. The gods were reluctant then to destroy a whole race with no better results could be anticipated than they had gotten with the giants.

Finally Zeus came up with a proposal. "Lets reduce the people in size. We will split them down the middle. With fewer arms and legs they won't be able to get into so much trouble. The junior gods immediately shouted "hosanna! This is the solution we've been looking for." Then Zeus sent down a covey of godlets to perform the necessary operations and all of the humans were divided into two parts. Where there had been one man there was now two. Where there was one women there was now two. where there was one androgynous person there was now one woman and one man. The gods all sat back and smiled confident that the future would be quieter and more harmonious.

Aside from the desired peace which resulted there was addition aide effects. The androgynous persons who had been seperated were now alone without their mate of the past. They felt incomplete. Something was missing. Their other half was gone. Ever since then man and woman had sought to find the missing part. This is what drives men to look for his female par and women to seek their male part. Each looking for the missing part. To complete what had been their whole.

Another by-product was that those who had been a half part of a male were now seeking the other male part and thos who had been a half part of a female were now seeking the other female part.

And that is the story according to Plato who seemed to particularly like the male seeking male part..