A guide to the sexes written in 1505 has been unearthed. It suggests that women are 'failed males' and that we can kill animals 'with a single glance' during menstruation...
Want to test a woman’s virginity? The De Secretis Mulerium book (The Secrets of Women) suggests making her sniff a lettuce. The controversial guidelines contain secrets about females that take would make the suffragettes rotate in their graves.
The most outrageous claim from the book, found in the archives of the Royal Society of Chemistry in central London, is that females are merely 'failed males'. The book is thought to have been written by Albertus Magnus to help a priest understand women. How thoughtful of him...
‘The author aimed to provide information enabling men to avoid women instead of putting them to death, as had been argued by earlier writers,’ Helen Rodnite Lemay, who translated the book from Latin, told today's Metro newspaper.
The book claims that to test a woman’s virginity she should smell a lettuce. If she then needs to go to the loo, she is corrupted (or just really needs a wee...?).
Other gems include the advice that husbands who want their wives to bear a boy should give them wine containing the womb and intestines of a hare. Delicious. Once pregnant, he can determine whether his ploy has been successful by staring at her breeasts (yes, really). If her right breast is larger than her left, he's done his job well and the couple are expecting a boy, but if the left is bigger than the right, she'll give birth to a girl.
The guidelines were apparently seen to be 'progressive' compared to earlier ideas about women.
We've never been so pleased to be in the 21st century...! Let us know your thoughts and any outdated old wives' tales below.
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