IRGIN IEWS by RGINIA

THE THREE AXES OF

HUMAN FUNCTION

For countless generations past, the human species has thought of itself in the same way it thought of animals, namely that we were divid- ed into two sexual types and that fact controlled all other aspects of ex- istence. When you look at a pair of animals, a male and a female of the same species, they look pretty much alike except for some specific ex- tra appendages in particular species such as the lion's mane, the deer's antlers and the peacock's feathers. These differences are part of the communication and interaction patterns that are involved in reproduc- tive behaviour. And naturally the external genitalia are different.

When you watch the day-to-day behaviour of the pair you see that they eat, sleep, play, move about and do other things pretty much the same. When you do find some specific difference in behaviour like the male dogs lifting the leg to urinate, it usually turns out to have one specific significance, namely marking off territory. Males of many species are territorial and they signify to others of their kind that a given area is their "property." Some animals mark it with the smell of urine, others, like rodents do it with little piles of feces along the boun- daries, birds and insects do it with sound. The songs of the robin, for in- stance, are notice to all possible intruding robins to stay away. So the point I'm making is that essentially the moment-to-moment behavior of animals does not differ appreciably between males and females. What differences do appear to exist are parts of the reproductive cycle which of course is different.

When mankind appears on the scene he too is divided into males and females and in our species, too, there are differences in male and female behaviour in the reproductive cycle which includes courtship before copulation, pregnancy, birth, breast feeding until weaned and care and education of the young till they are self-sufficient. These

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