Q.In our society the women are often blamed for giving birth to daughters. Can you explain why this is not correct?
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Start your 14-day free trial to unlock the full solution →The sex of a child is determined by the father’s sperm, not the mother’s egg, so blaming women for giving birth to daughters is scientifically wrong.
In many societies, including parts of India, a deep-rooted bias persists: when a couple has daughters, the woman is often held responsible. This belief is not only unjust but also contradicts basic biology. To understand why, we need to look at how sex is determined in humans — a process that depends entirely on the chromosomes contributed by the father.
Every human cell normally contains 23 pairs of chromosomes. Out of these, 22 pairs are called autosomes, which are the same in both males and females. The 23rd pair is the sex chromosome pair. In females, this pair is XX — both chromosomes are of the same type. In males, the pair is XY — one X and one Y chromosome. This difference is crucial.
When a mother produces eggs through meiosis, each egg cell receives one X chromosome (since she has only X chromosomes to give). So every egg carries an X. The father, however, produces sperm cells that are of two kinds: half carry an X chromosome, and half carry a Y chromosome. The sex of the baby is decided at the moment of fertilisation — it depends entirely on which type of sperm fuses with the egg.
If an X-carrying sperm fertilises the egg, the resulting combination is XX — a girl. If a Y-carrying sperm fertilises the egg, the combination is XY — a boy. The mother contributes only an X chromosome in every case. She has no control over whether the sperm that reaches her egg carries an X or a Y. That is determined purely by chance, with roughly equal probability.
The NCERT textbook for Class 10 Science (Chapter 9, Heredity and Evolution) explains this clearly: “The sex of the child is determined by the type of sperm that fuses with the egg.” It also states that the mother cannot be blamed because she contributes only X chromosomes. …
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