‘Man’ and ‘female’

[Adutiya]

@sujato

Mātugāma is typically not contrasted with purisa, but with bhikkhu. And typically in such contexts she is seen as a temptress or threat to a bhikkhu’s chastity. The form mātugāma is peculiar; it is literally “home of a mother”. The suffix -gāma in such cases has a similar sense to the English suffix “-kind”. And sometimes mātugāma does mean “womankind”, but often it just refers to an individual woman. Like the English “-kind”, it seems that -gāma as a suffix has a connotation of fertility: its use is, so far as I know, restricted to living and growing things, such as the term bhūtagāma for plants.

You can see such a distinction in AN 5.5 itself. When discussing the power of attraction that a woman holds for a man in a general sense, it uses itthi. But when it mentions that one should not chat alone—which is a specific reference to a rule for monks (eko ekāya)—it uses mātugāma.

It seems to me that the context of SN 37.1 and 37.2 is the Buddha addressing exclusively bhikkhus. Could that account for the words used?