The age at which the sexual powers begin has been
related already. As for their end, the menstrual discharges ceases
in most women about their fortieth year; but with those in whom it
goes on longer it lasts even to the fiftieth year, and women of that
age have been known to bear children. But beyond that age there is
no case on record.
6
Men in most cases continue to be sexually competent until they are
sixty years old, and if that limit be overpassed then until seventy
years; and men have been actually known to procreate children at
seventy years of age. With many men and many women it so happens
that they are unable to produce children to one another, while they
are able to do so in union with other individuals. The same thing
happens with regard to the production of male and female offspring;
for sometimes men and women in union with one another produce male
children or female, as the case may be, but children of the opposite
sex when otherwise mated. And they are apt to change in this respect
with advancing age: for sometimes a husband and wife while they are
young produce female children and in later life male children; and
in other cases the very contrary occurs.
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