Tengu

Toads are one of the animal examples Simone de Beauvoir uses to examine reproduction and parental care. Their importance lies in a specific reversal of the assumption that care for offspring naturally belongs to the female: in the account, the male toad can carry the eggs and help them hatch.## Reproduction and parental careThe discussion first notes that fertilization in toads does not involve ordinary coitus: the male embraces the female, stimulating her to lay eggs, and releases sperm as the eggs emerge. In the midwife toad, the father winds the strings of eggs around his feet and carries them, helping ensure that they hatch. The example makes paternal care visible as a biological possibility, rather than an exclusively human or socially prescribed role.## Place in the biological argumentDe Beauvoir places the toad alongside fish and birds in a broader comparison of how reproduction and care are distributed across species. Fish may leave eggs to develop without parental help, while in some species males defend or carry them; among birds, females commonly incubate eggs, but males may help build nests, protect and feed young, or in rarer cases take the lead in incubation and care. These contrasts resist treating the female body as nothing more than a reproductive vessel or assuming that care follows one universal pattern.## Significance for the discussion of womenThe toad example supports a distinction between reproductive biology and the social organization of women’s lives. Elsewhere in the argument, De Beauvoir contends that women’s biological circumstances acquire different practical consequences according to social and economic conditions, including whether pregnancies are imposed and whether society provides support for pregnancy and childcare. The male toad’s role does not itself explain human gender relations; it serves as a concrete counterexample to the idea that offspring care is necessarily and exclusively maternal, reinforcing the book’s insistence that biological observations cannot by themselves settle questions of social destiny.