Plutarch Quaestiones Romanae 102

[102] Why do they name boys when they are nine days old, but girls when they are eight days old?

Does the precedence of the girls have Nature as its cause? It is a fact that the female grows up, and attains maturity and perfection before the male. As for the days, they take those that follow the seventh: for the seventh is dangerous for newly-born children in various ways and in the matter of the umbilical cord: for in most cases this comes away on the seventh day: but until it comes off, the child is more like a plant than an animal. ¹

Or did they, like the adherents of Pythagoras, regard the even number as female and the odd number as male? ² For the odd number is generative, and, when it is added to the even number, it prevails over it. And also, when they are divided into units, the even number, like the female, yields a vacant space between, while of the odd number an integral part always remains. Wherefore they think that the odd is suitable for the male, and the even for the female.

Or is it that of all numbers nine ³ is the first square from the odd and perfect triad, while eight is the first cube from the even dyad? Now a man should be four-square, ⁴ eminent, and perfect; but a woman, like a cube, should be stable, domestic, and difficult to remove from her place. And this should be added, that eight is the cube of two arid nine the square of three: women have two names, men have three.

[102]

Question 102.

Why do they name boys when they are nine days old, and girls when they are eight?

Solution. Perhaps it’s a natural reason, that girls are forwarder, for the female grows up and comes to full stature and perfection before the male. But they take the day after the seventh, because the seventh is dangerous to infants by reason of the navel-string; for with many it falls off at seven days, and until it falls off, an infant is more like a plant than an animal. Or is it, as the Pythagoreans reckon, that the even number is the feminine, and the odd number the masculine? For it is a fruitful number, and excels the even in respect of its composition. And if these numbers be divided into units, the even, like a female, hath an empty space in the middle; the odd number always leaves a segment full in the middle, wherefore this is fit to be compared to the male, that to the female. Or is it thus, that of all numbers nine is the first square number made of three, which is an odd and perfect number, but eight is the first cube made of two, an even number; whence a male ought to be square, superexcelling, and complete; but a woman, like a cube, constant, a good housewife, and no gadding gossip? This also may be added that, as eight is a cube from the root two, and nine a square from the root three, so the female makes use of two names, and the males of three.