Anybody here read Patrick Rothfuss? (The Kingkiller Chronicles) - history/culture experts weigh in.

SPOILER ALERT for those who have not read the books.
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The books - The Name of the Wind and The Wise Man's Fear - are wonderfully written fantasy novels. However, one thing really bothered me in the second book that stretched my willing suspension of disbelief. I've been reading fantasy since I was a kid and I'm almost 50 now, but this one has stuck in my craw.

Kvothe travels to Ademre to learn more of their special martial arts/tai chi type ritual, the Adem. While there, the entire culture believes that men & women don't reproduce through sex, but that women ripen and produce children without men involved. (sex in the culture is very casual, so men & women often hook up with multiple partners...)

Is there any historical precedent for a culture that doesn't know that men & women produce through sex? It kind of blew my mind that the Ademre would be fairly advanced in some aspects, but be completely in the dark about something like this? I thought this was just basic to human nature that until recently when artificial insemination became possible, that you needed a man and a woman? Now, if there really is a culture where this happened, I'll change my mind.

(My other problem was that the second book was 1,000 pages or so long, but not a lot seemed to happen, despite the excellent writing.)