[Yahwe]

I have finally worked it out.

Circumcision.

I never understood why it cropped up in so many different societies. It had always perplexed me and I never thought. Oh curse my puritanical victorian mindset!!! Why could I never put two and two together.

Every society needs control. Fine. So I obsess about this. But it doesn't make sense. Those in power are men why suffer pain on other men?

Then come the distracting health arguments. They are irrelevant because circumcision is older than the belief in 4 bodily humours.

What I forgot is what I ought to have learned from the divine Augustus' marriage laws. Every society also needs CHILDREN.

Circumcision inhibits masturbation.

Thus the sexual impulse is directed towards a positive societal benefit - babies.

It's so simple that I feel dim for not knowing.