Bring forth men-children only! For thy undaunted mettle should compose Nothing but males. Macbeth, Act I., Sc. VII.
For men’s sake, the authors of these women; Or women’s sake, by whom we men are men. Love’s Labour’s Lost, Act IV., Sc. III.
Be advis’d, fair maid: To you your father should be as a god; One that compos’d your beauties; yea, and one To whom you are but as a form in wax, By him imprinted, and within his power To leave the figure, or disfigure it. Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act I., Sc. I.
The child would therefore resemble the parent of opposite sex.
Nurse to Henry VIII: ’Tis a girl * * * as like you As cherry is to cherry. Act V., Sc. I.
Paulina pleading to Leontes on the birth of a daughter to his wife Hermione:
Behold, my lords, Although the print be little, the whole matter And copy of the father,—eye, nose, lip; The trick of ’s frown; his forehead; nay, the valley, The pretty dimples of his chin and cheek; his smiles; The very mould and frame of hand, nail, finger. Winter’s Tale, Act II., Sc. III.
It is a very old opinion that the mental state of parents during coition influenced to a certain extent the mental activity of the offspring. Bastards were supposed to excel in this respect on account of the mental excitement during the intercourse from which they took their origin. Burton held this view in his “Anatomy of Melancholy,” and, after reading King Lear, we know that Shakespeare also held it.
Edmund.Why brand they us With base? with baseness? bastardy? base? base? Who in the lusty stealth of nature take More composition and fierce quality Than doth, within a dull, stale, tired bed Go to the creating a whole tribe of fobs, Got ’tween sleep and wake. Act. I., Sc. II.
His allusions to pregnancy are many.