The ancient myth of the original, four-legged, two-headed human
Long before modern gender debates, ancient myths described a primordial humanity that was far more complex than the binary. From Sumerian priests to Greek legends, the concept of the androgynous being has served as a powerful symbol of unity, divinity, and the original, unbroken state of mankind.
In the Platonic myth recounted in the Symposium, humanity began as spherical, powerful beings with four arms, four legs, and two heads. These original humans were so formidable that they dared to rebel against the Greek gods, attempting to stack Mount Ossa atop Mount Olympus. In response, the gods divided these beings in two, scattering them across the Earth and creating the separate sexes we recognize today.
This theme of a lost, unified state appears across diverse cultures. In ancient Sumer, the 'gala' priests served the goddess Inanna, adopting female names and using the women's 'eme-sal' dialect. Similarly, in Mesopotamian traditions, the kurgarrū and assinnu served Ishtar, often dressing in female attire. In Jewish tradition, the Mishnah and Genesis Rabbah describe the first human, Adam, as an 'androgynous' or 'double-faced' being, embodying both male and female in a single body.
The concept has also permeated Western esotericism and alchemy. The 1550 anthology 'De Alchemia' describes the 'Divine Androgyne' as the result of a sacred marriage between the masculine 'Sol' and feminine 'Luna.' This 'unity of opposites' suggests that the androgynous state represents a transcendental perfection.
In modern psychology, the focus has shifted from myth to measurable traits. While early models like Sandra Bem’s 1977 Bem Sex Role Inventory (BSRI) suggested that possessing both masculine and feminine traits could lead to greater mental health and flexibility, more recent 21st-century models, such as those by Woodhill and Samuels (2022), seek to de-gender these traits entirely, focusing instead on factors like social efficacy and creativity.
Source: Androgyny
