The Today Show (Australian version), commenting on Tom Cruise’s and Katie Holmes’ desire for a baby boy lists assorted myths associated with choosing the sex of the child, inter alia:
The ancient Greeks used to believe that girls were created from sperm from the left testicle so in order to get a boy, they used to tie up the left testicle during intercourse!
The Greeks (well, some of them at least) seemed to associate ‘female’ with the left side and ‘male’ with the right. Here’s a bit from a passage in Aristotle’s Generation of Animals (765a15ff or thereabouts):
Again, as has in fact been said before, a female embryo has actually been observed in the right part of the uterus, and a male one in the left part, and both male and female in the self-same part, and that not once but several times over ; or the male one on the right side, and the female on the left, and no less both are formed on the right side]. There are some who are firmly convinced of a similar view to this, and maintain that males who copulate with the right or left testicle tied up produce male or female offspring respectively : this used in fact to be maintained by Leophanes. Some allege that the same occurs in the case of those who have one testis excised. This statement is untrue, and is a mere piece of guesswork on their part. They start from probabilities and guess what will occur ; they prejudge that it is so before they see it happen.
Well, they had a 50-50 chance of being right …
rogueclassicism 
One thought on “Whence Boys? Whence Girls”