ANDROGYNES, in natural history, a name given
Andro-
gyneous
ven to those living creatures which, by a monstrous formation of their generative parts, seem (for it is only seeming) to unite in themselves the two sexes, that of the male and of the female. This usus naturæ, this defect, or perhaps redundancy, in the animal-structure, is described by medical authors in the following manner. There is a depravation in the structure of the parts intended by nature for propagation, when, besides those concealed parts that are found necessary for the discharge of prolific functions, the pudenda of the other sex likewise appear. This monstrous production of nature is diversified in four different ways; of which three appear in males and one in females. In men, the female pudendum, clothed with hair, sometimes appears contiguous to the perineum; at other times, in the middle of the scrotum; at other times, which constitutes the third diversity, through that part itself which in the midst of the scrotum exhibits the form of a pudendum, urine is emitted. Near that part which is the test of puberty, and above the pudendum, even in females, the masculine genitals appear in some, conspicuous in all their three forms, one resembling the virream or yard, the other like the two testicles; but for the most part it happens, that, of the two instruments of generation, one is feeble and inert; and it is extremely rare that both are found sufficiently valid and proper for feats of love; nay, even in a great many, both these members are deficient and impotent, so that they can perform the office neither of a male nor of a female.
With respect to them, it appears, from a collation of all the circumstances which have been observed by naturalists worthy of credit, that there is no such thing as a perfect androgyne, or real hermaphrodite; that is to say, a living creature which, by its unnatural, or rather preternatural structure, possesses the genuine powers of both sexes, in such a manner as to be qualified for performing the functions of either with success: the irregularity of their fabrication almost always consists in something superfluous added to one of the two sexes, which gives it the appearance of the other, without bestowing the real and characteristical distinction; and every hermaphrodite is almost always a very woman. Since this monstrous exhibition of nature is not such as to abrogate the rights or destroy the character of humanity amongst human beings, this involuntary misfortune implies no right to deprive those upon whom it is inflicted by nature, of the privileges natural to every citizen; and as this deficiency is no more infectious than any other corporeal mutilation, it is not easy to see why marriage should be prohibited to one of these unhappy beings, merely on account of its equivocal appearance, which acts in the character of its prevailing sex. If such a creature, by the defect of its construction, should be barren; this does not infer any right of dissolving the marriage which it may have contracted, more than the same sterility proceeding from any cause whether known or unknown, if his or her consort should not on that account require a divorce. It is only the licentious abuse either of one or the other sex which can be subjected to the animadversion of the police. See HERMAPHRODITE.
Such are the sentiments of the authors of the French Encyclopédie. After all, we cannot forbear to add, that from such heterogeneous matches nature seems to
VOL. I. Part II.
recoil with innate and inextinguishable horror. Nor are any of these invincible aversions implanted in our frame without a final cause worthy of its Author. We would gladly ask these free-thinking gentlemen, in cases where the sexes are so unnaturally confounded, how the police can, by its most severe and rigorous animadversions, either detect or prevent those licentious abuses against which they remonstrate? Since, therefore, an evil so baneful to human society could no otherwise be prevented than by the sanction of Nature against such horrible conjunctions, the instinctive antipathy which they inspire was highly worthy of her wisdom and purity.