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International Library of Psychology
Philosophy and Scientific Method
Sex and Repression in
Savage Society
International Library of Psychology
Philosophy and Scientific Method
GENERAL EDITOR: C. K. OGDEN, M.A. {Magdalene College, Cambridge)
Philosophical Studies . . . . . . by G. E. Moore, Litt.D.
The Misuse of Mind by Karin Stephen
Conflict and Dream* 6y W. H. R. Rivers, F.R.S.
Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus . . . . . fry L. Wittgenstein
Psychological Types* fry C. G. Jung, M.D.
Scientific Thought* fry C. D. Broad, Litt.D.
The Meaning of Meaning . . . . fry C. K. Ogden and I. A. Richards
Individual Psychology ....... fry Alfred Adler
Speculations (Preface by Jacob Epstein) fry T. E. Hulme
The Psychology of Reasoning* ..... fry Eugenio Rignano
The Philosophy OF " As If " fry H. Vaihinger
The Nature of Intelligence . . . . . fry L. L. Thurstone
Telepathy and Clairvoyance fry R. Tischner
The Growth of the Mind . . . . . . . fry K. Koffka
The Mentality of Apes . . . . . . . fry W. Kohler
Psychology of Religious Mysticism . . . . . . fry J. H. Leub."
The Philosophy of Music . . . . . . . fry W. Pole, F.R.S.
The Psychology of a Musical Prodigy . . . . . fry G. Revesz
Principles of Literary Criticism . . . . . fry I. A. Richards
Metaphysical Foundation of Sciences . . . . fry E. A. Burtt, Ph.D.
Thought and the Brain* . . . ' . . . . fry H. Pi6ron
Physique and Character* ...... fry Ernst Kretschmer
Psychology of Emotion < . fry J. T. MacCurdy, M.D.
Problems of Personality ..... in honour of Morton Prince
The History of Materialism . ... . . . ^ F. A. Lange
Personality* . . . . . fry R. G. Gordon, M.D.
Educational Psychology ....... fry Charles Fox
Language and Thought of the Child ...... fry J. Piaget
Sex and Repression in Savage Society* . . . fry B. Malinowski, D.Sc.
Comparative Philosophy ...... fry P. Masson-Oursel
SocLAL Life in the Animal World . . . . . . fry F. Alverdes
How Animals Find their Way About . . . . fry E. Rabaud
The Social Insects fry W. Morton Wheeler
Theoretical Biology fry J. von UexkOll
Possibility . . fry Scott Buchanan
The Technique of Controversy fry B. B. Bogoslovskv
The Symbolic Process . . . . . . . . fry J. F. Markey
Political Pluralism fry K. C. Hsiao
History of Chinese Political Thought . . .fry Liang Chi-Chao
Integrative Psychology* ....... fry W. M. Marston
The Analysis of Matter ..... fry Bertrand Russell, F.R.S.
Plato's Theory of Ethics . . . . . . . frv R. C. Lodge
Historical Introduction to Modern Psychology . . . . fry G. Murphy
Creative Imagination ........ fry June E. Downey
Colour and Colour Theories .... fry Christine Ladd-Franklin
Biological Principles . . . . . . . byJ.H. Woodger
The Trauma of Birth ......... fry Otto Rank
The Statistical Method in Economics . . . . . fry P. S. Florence
The Art of Interrogation . . . . . . fry E. R. Hamilton
The Growth of Reason ....... fry Frank Lorimer
Human Speech ........ fry Sir Richard Paget
Foundations of Geometry and Induction . . . . .fry Jean Nicod
The Laws of Feeling . . . . . . . . . fry F. Paulhan
The Mental Development of the Child . . . . . fry K. Buhler
EiDETic Imagery . . . . . . . . . fry E. R. Jaensch
The Concentric Method . . . . . . fry M. Laignel-Lavastine
The Foundations of Mathematics . . . . . fry F. P. Ramsey
The Philosophy of the Unconscious . . . . fry E. von H.mitmann
Outlines of Greek Philosophy fry E. Zeller
The Psychology of Children's Drawings fry Helga Eng
Invention and the Unconscious . . . . fry J. M. Montmasson
The Theory of Legislation by Jeremy Bentham
The Social Life of Monkeys fry S. Zuckerman
The Development of the Sexual Impulses . . . fry R. E. Money-Kyrle
Constitution Types in Delinquency . . . . . fry W. A. Willemse
The Sciences of Man in the Making . . . . fry E. A. Kirkpatrick
Ethical Relativity . . . . . . fry E. A. Westermarck
The Gestalt Theory ....... fry Bruno Petermann
The Psychology of Consciousness fry C. Daly King
The Spirit of Language . . . . . . fry K. Vossler
The Dynamics of Education . . . . . .fry Hilda Taba
The Nature of Learning ...... fry George Humphrey
The Individual and the Commxjnity . . . . -fry Wen Kwei Liao
Crime, Law, and Social Science . , .fry Jerome Michael and M. J. Adler
Dynamic Social Research . . . fry J. J. Hader and E. C. Lindeman
Speech Disorders fry S. M. Stinchfield
The Nature of Mathematics fry Max Black
The Neural Basis of Thought fry G. G. Campion and Sir Grafton Elliot Smith
Law and the Social Sciences ..... fry Huntington Cairns
Plato's Theory of Knowledge . . . . . fry F. M. Cornford
Infant Speech . . . . . fry M. M. Lewis
• Asterisks denote that other books by the same author are included in the Series.
Sex and Repression
in Savage Society
By
BRONISLAW MALINOWSKI
m
LONDON
KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUBNER & Co., Ltd.
BROADWAY HOUSE, 68-74 CARTER LANE, E.C.4
1937
First published 1927
Reprinted ... 1 937
Made and Printed in Great Britain by
PERCY LUND, HUMPHKIES & CO. LTD.
12 Bedford Square, London, W.C.i
and at Bradford
TO
MY FRIEND
PAUL KHUNER
New Guinea, 1914, Australia, 1918,
South Tyrol, 1922.
PREFACE
'T^HE doctrine of psycho-analysis has had within
the last ten years a truly meteoric rise in popular
favour. It has exercised a growing influence over
contemporary literature, science, and art. It has in
fact been for some time the popular craze of the day.
By this many fools have been deeply impressed and
many pedants shocked and put off. The present writer
belongs evidently to the first category, for he was for
a time unduly influenced by the theories of Freud and
Rivers, Jung, and Jones. But pedantry will remain
the master passion in the student, and subsequent
reflection soon chilled the initial enthusiasms.
This process with all its ramifications can be
followed by the careful reader in this little volume.
I do not want, however, to raise expectations of a
dramatic volte-face. I have never been in any sense
a follower of psycho-analytic practice, or an adherent
of psycho-analytic theory ; and now, while impatient
of the exorbitant claims of psycho-analysis, of its
chaotic arguments and tangled terminology, I must
yet acknowledge a deep sense of indebtedness to it
for stimulation as well as for valuable instruction in
some aspects of human psychology.
Vlll
PREFACE
Psycho-analysis has plunged us into the midst of
a dynamic theory of the mind, it has given to the study
of mental processes a concrete turn, it has led us to
concentrate on child psychology and the history of
the individual. Last but i;iot least, it has forced
upon us the consideration of the unofficial and
unacknowledged sides of human life.
The open treatment of sex and of various shameful
meanesses and vanities in man — the very things for
which psycho-analysis is most hated and reviled —
is in my opinion of the greatest value to science, and
should endear psycho-analysis, above all to the
student of man ; that is, if he wants to study his
subject without irrelevant trappings and even without
the fig leaf. As a pupil and follower of Havelock Ellis,
I for one shall not accuse Freud of " pan-sexualism "
— however profoundly I disagree with his treatment
of the sex impulse. Nor shall I accept his views under
protest, righteously washing my hands of the dirt
with which they are covered. Man is an animal, and,
as such, at times unclean, and the honest anthro-
pologist has to face this fact. The student's grievance
against psycho-analysis is not that it has treated sex
openly and with due emphasis, but that it has
treated it incorrectly.
As to the chequered history of the present volume,
the first two parts were written much earlier than
the rest. Many ideas laid down there were formed
PREFACE ix
while I was engaged in studying the Hfe of Melanesian
communities on a coral archipelago. The instruc-
tions sent to me by my friend Professor C. G. Seligman,
and some literature with which he kindly supplied
me, stimulated me to reflect on the manner in which
the Oedipus complex and other manifestations of
the " unconscious " might appear in a community
founded on mother-right. The actual observations
on the matrilineal complex among Melanesians are
to my knowledge the first application of psycho-
analytic theory to the study of savage life, and as
such may be of some interest to the student of man,
of his mind and of his culture. My conclusions are
couched in a terminology more psycho-analytic than
I should like to use now. Even so I do not go much
beyond such words as " complex " and " repression ",
using both in a perfectly definite and empirical sense.
As my reading advanced, I found myself less
and less inclined to accept in a wholesale manner the
conclusions of Freud, still less those of every brand and
sub-brand of psycho-analysis. As an anthropologist
I feel more especially that ambitious theories with
regard to savages, hypotheses of the origin of human
institutions and accounts of the history of culture,
should be based on a sound knowledge of primitive
hfe, as well as of the unconscious or conscious aspects
of the human mind. After all neither group-marriage
nor totemism, neither avoidance of mother-in-law
X PREFACE
nor magic happen in the " unconscious " ; they are all
solid sociological and cultural facts, and to deal with
them theoretically requires a type of experience which
cannot be acquired in the consulting room. That my
misgivings are justified I have been able to convince
myself by a careful scrutiny of Freud's Totem and
Taboo, of his Group-Psychology and the Analysis of
the Ego, of Australian Totemism by Roheim and of
the anthropological works of Reik, Rank, and Jones.
My conclusions the reader will find substantiated in
the third part of the present book.
In the last part of the book I have tried to set forth
my positive views on the origins of culture. I have
there given an outline of the changes which the animal
nature of the human species must have undergone
under the anomalous conditions imposed upon it by
culture. More especially have I attempted to show
that repressions of sexual instinct and some sort of
" complex " must have arisen as a mental by-product
of the creation of culture.
The last part of the book, on Instinct and Culture,
is in my opinion the most important and at the same
time the most debatable. From the anthropological
point of view at least, it is a pioneering piece of work ;
an attempt at an exploration of the " no-specialist's-
land " between the science of man and that of the
animal. No doubt most of my arguments will have
to be recast, but I believe that they raise important
PREFACE xi
issues which will sooner or later have to be considered
by the biologist and animal psychologist, as well as
by the student of culture.
As regards information from animal psychology and
biology I have had to rely on general reading. I have
used mainly the works of Darwin and Havelock Ellis ;
Professors Lloyd Morgan, Herrick, and Thorndike ;
of Dr. Heape, Dr. Kohler and Mr. Pyecroft, and such
information as can be found in the sociological books
of Westermarck, Hobhouse, Espinas and others.
I have not given detailed references in the text and
I wish here to express my indebtedness to these
works ; most of all to those of Professor Lloyd Morgan,
whose conception of instinct seems to me the most
adequate and whose observations I have found most
useful. I discovered too late that there is some
discrepancy between my use of the terms instinct and
habit and that of Professor Lloyd Morgan, and in our
respective conceptions of plasticity of instincts. I do
not think that this implies any serious divergence
of opinion. I believe also that culture introduces
a new dimension in the plasticity of instincts and
that here the animal psychologist can profit from
becoming acquainted with the anthropologist's con-
tributions to the problem.
I have received in the preparation of this book much
stimulation and help in talking the matter over with
my friends Mrs. Brenda Z. Seligman of Oxford ;
xu
PREFACE
Dr. R. H. Lowie and Professor Kroeber of California
University ; Mr. Firth of New Zealand ; Dr. W. A.
White of Washington, and Dr. H. S. Sulhvan of
Baltimore ; Professor Herrick of Chicago University,
and Dr. Ginsberg of the London School of Economics ;
Dr. G. V. Hamilton and Dr. S. E. JelUffe of New York ;
Dr. E. Miller of Harley Street ; Mr. and Mrs. Jaime
de Angulo of Berkeley, California, and Mr. C. K.
Ogden of Cambridge ; Professor Radcliffe-Brown of
Cape Town and Sydney, and Mr. Lawrence K. Frank
of New York City. The field-work on which the book
is based has been made possible by the munificence
of Mr. Robert Mond.
My friend Mr. Paul Khuner of Vienna, to whom
this book is dedicated, has helped me greatly by his
competent criticism which cleared my ideas on the
present subject as on many others.
B. M.
Department of Anthropology,
London School of Economics,
University of London.
February. 1927.
CONTENTS
PAGE
Preface ...... vii
PART I
THE FORMATION OF A COMPLEX
CHAPTER
I. The Problem . . . . i
II. The Family in Father-right and
Mother-right .... 8
III. The First Stage of the Family
Drama ..... i8
IV. Fatherhood in Mother-right . 25
V. Infantile Sexuality • • • 33
VI. The Apprenticeship to Life . . 40
VII. The Sexuality of Later Childhood 49
VIII. Puberty ..... 59
IX. The Complex of Mother-right , 74
PART II
THE MIRROR OF TRADITION
I. Complex and Myth in Mother-right 83
II. Disease and Perversion . . 85
III. Dreams and Deeds ... 91
IV. Obscenity and Myth . . . 104
xiv CONTENTS
PART III
PSYCHO-ANALYSIS AND ANTHROPOLOGY
PAGE
I. The Rift Between Psycho-analysis
AND Social Science . . 135
II. A " Repressed Complex " . 142
III. " The Primordial Cause of Culture " 148
IV. The Consequences of the Parricide 154
V. The Original Parricide Analysed 159
VI. Complex or Sentiment ? . . 173
PART IV
INSTINCT AND CULTURE
I. The Transition from Nature to
Culture ..... 179
II. The Family as the Cradle of
Nascent Culture . . . 184
III. Rut and Mating in Animal and Man 193
IV. Marital Relations . . . 201
V. Parental Love .... 207
VI. The Persistence of Family Ties
in Man . . . ... 218
VII. The Plasticity of Human Instincts 225
VIII. From Instinct to Sentiment . . 229
IX. Motherhood and the Temptations
OF Incest ..... 243
X. Authority and Repression . 253
XI. Father-right and Mother-right . 263
XII. Culture amd the Complex . . 274
Index ...... 281
" After ignoring impulses for a long time in behalf
of sensations, modern psychology now tends to start
out with an inventory and description of instinctive
activities. This is an undoubted improvement. But
when it tries to explain complicated events in personal
and social life by direct reference to these nature powers
the explanation becomes hazy and forced . . .
" We need to know about the social conditions which
have educated original aztivities into definite and
significant dispositions before we can discuss the
psychological element in society. This is the true
meaning of social psychology . . . Native human
nature supplies the raw materials but custom furnishes
the machinery and the designs ... Man is a creature
of habit, not of reason nor yet of instinct.
" The treatment of sex by psycho-analysts is most
instructive, for it flagrantly exhibits both the consequences
of artificial simplification and the transformation of
social results into psychic causes. Writers, usually
male, hold forth on the psychology of woman as if they
were dealing with a Platonic universal entity . . . They
treat phenomena, which are peculiarly symptoms of the
civilization of the West at the present time, as if they
were the necessary efforts of fixed native impulses of
human nature,"
JOHN DEWEY, in Human Nature and Conduct
PART I
THE FORMATION OF A COMPLEX
I
THE PROBLEM
pSYCHO-ANALYSIS was born from medical
practice, and its theories are mainly psychological,
but it stands in close relation to two other branches
of learning — biology and the science of society.
It is perhaps one of its chief merits that it forges
another link between these three divisions of the science
of man. The psychological views of Freud — his
theories of conflict, repression, the unconscious, the
formation of complexes — form the best elaborated part
of psycho-analysis, and they cover its proper field.
The biological doctrine — the treatment of sexuality and
of its relation to other instincts, the concept of the
' libido ' and its various transformations — is a part of
thetheory which is much less finished, less free from
contradictions and lacunae, and which receives more
criticism, partly spurious and partly justified. The
sociological aspect, which most interests us here, will
deserve more attention. Curiously enough, though
sociology and anthropology have contributed most
2 SEX AND REPRESSION
evidence in favour of psycho-analysis, and though the
doctrine of the Oedipus complex has obviously a
sociological aspect, this aspect has received the least
attention.
Psycho-analytic doctrine is essentially a theory of
the influence of family life on the human mind. We
are shown how the passions, stresses and conflicts
of the child in relation to its father, mother,
brother and sister result in the formation of certain
permanent mental attitudes or sentiments towards
them, sentiments which, partly living in memory,
partly embedded in the unconscious, influence the
later life of the individual in his relations to
society. T am using the word sentiment in the technical
sense given to it by Mr. A. F. Shand, with all the
important implications which it has received in
his theory of emotions and instincts.
The sociological nature of this doctrine is obvious —
the whole Freudian drama is played out within a
definite type of social organization, in the narrow circle
of the family, composed of father, mother, and
children. Thus the family complex, the most impor-
tant psychological fact according to Freud, is due
to the action of a certain type of social grouping
upon the human mind. Again, the mental imprint
received by every individual in youth exercises further
social influences, in that it predisposes him to the
formation of certain ties, and moulds his receptive
THE FORMATION OF A COMPLEX 3
dispositions and his creative power in the domains
of tradition, art, thought, and reUgion.
Thus the sociologist feels that to the psycho-
logical treatment of the complex there should be
added two sociological chapters : an introduction
with an account of the sociological nature of family
influences, and an epilogue containing the analysis
of the consequences of the complex for society. Two
problems therefore emerge for the sociologist.
First problem. If family life is so fateful for human
mentality, its character deserves more attention.
For the fact is that the family is not the same in all
human societies. Its constitution varies greatly with
the level of development and with the character of
the civilization of the people, and it is not the same
in the different strata of the same society. According
to theories current even to-day among anthropo-
logists, the family has changed enormously during
the development of humanity, passing from its first
promiscuous form, based on sexual and economic
conununism, through ' group-family ' based on ' group-
marriage', 'consanguineous family', based on
' Punalua marriage ', through the Grossfamilie and
clan kindred to its final form in our present-day
society — the individual family based on monogamous
marriage and the patria potestas. But apart from such
anthropological constructions which combine some
fact with much hypothesis, there is no doubt that
4 SEX AND REPRESSION
from actual observation among present-day savages
we can see great variations in the constitution of the
family. There are differences depending on the
distribution of power which, vested in a varying
degree in the father, give the several forms of
patriarchy, or vested in the mother, the various
sub-divisions of mother-right. There are considerable
divergencies in the methods of counting and regarding
descent — matriliny based on ignorance of fatherhood
and patriUny in spite of this ignorance ; patriUny
due to power, and patriliny due to economic reasons.
Moreover, differences in settlement, housing, sources
of food supply, division of labour and so on, alter
greatly the constitution of the human family among
the various races and peoples of mankind.
The problem therefore emerges : do the conflicts,
passions and attachments within the family vary
with its constitution, or do they remain the same
throughout humanity ? If they vary, as in fact
they do, then the nuclear complex of the family
cannot remain constant in all human races and
peoples ; it must vary with the constitution of the
family. The main task of psycho-analytic theory
is, therefore, to study the limits of the variation ;
to frame the appropriate formula; and finally, to
discuss the outstanding types of family constitution
and to state the corresponding forms of the nuclear
complex.
THE FORMATION OF A COMPLEX 5
With perhaps one exception,^ this problem has not
yet been raised, at least not in an explicit and
direct manner. The complex exclusively known
to the Freudian School, and assumed by them to be
universal, I mean the Oedipus complex, corresponds
essentially to our patrilineal Aryan family with the
developed patria potestas, buttressed by Roman law
and Christian morals, and accentuated by the
modern economic conditions of the well-to-do bour-
geoisie. Yet this complex is assumed to exist in every
savage or barbarous society. This certainly cannot be
correct, and a detailed discussion of the first problem
will show us how far this assumption is untrue.
The second problem. What is the nature of the
influence of the family complex on the formation
of myth, legend, and fairy tale, on certain types
of savage and barbarous customs, forms of social
organization and achievements of material culture ?
This problem has been clearly recognized by the
psycho-analytic writers who have been applying
their principles to the study of myth, reUgion, and
culture. But the theory of how the constitution of the
family influences culture and society through the forces
of the family complex has not been worked out
^ I refer to Mr. J. C. Fliigel's The Psycho- Analytic Study of the
Family, which, though written by a psychologist, is throughout
orientated in the sociological direction. The later chapters, especially
XV and XVII, contain much which is an approach to the present
problem, although the writer does not formulate it explicitly.
6 SEX AND REPRESSION
correctly. Most of the views bearing on this second
problem need a thorough revision from the sociological
point of view. The concrete solutions, on the other
hand, offered by Freud, Rank and Jones of the actual
mythological problems are much sounder than their
general principle that the " myth is the secular dream
of the race ".
Psycho-analysis, by emphasizing that the interest
of primitive man is centred in himself and in the
people around him, and is of a concrete and dynamic
nature, has given the right foundation to primitive
psychology, hitherto frequently immeshed in a false
view of the dispassionate interest of man in nature
and of his concern with philosophic speculations
about his destiny. But by ignoring the first problem,
and by making the tacit assumption that the Oedipus
complex exists in all types of society, certain errors
have crept into the anthropological work of psycho-
analysts. Thus they cannot reach correct results
when they try to trace the Oedipus complex, essentially
patriarchal in character, in a matrilineal society ; or
when they play about with the hypotheses of group-
marriage or promiscuity, as if no special precautions
were necessary when approaching conditions so entirely
foreign to the constitution of our own form of
family as it is known to psycho-analytic practice.
Involved in such contradictions, the anthropo-
logizing psycho-analyst makes a hypothetical assump-
THE FORMATION OF A COMPLEX 7
tion about some type of primitive horde, or about
a prehistoric prototype of the totemic sacrifice, or
about the dream character of the myth, usually
quite incompatible with the fundamental principles
of psycho-analysis itself.
Part I of the present work is essentially an
attempt based on facts observed at first hand among
savages, to discuss the first problem — the dependence
of the nuclear complex upon the constitution of
the family. The treatment of the second problem
is reserved for Part II, while in the last two parts the
same twin subjects are discussed in a general manner.
II
THE FAMILY IN FATHER-RIGHT AND
MOTHER-RIGHT
' I ^HE best waj^ to examine this first problem — in
what manner the ' family complex ' is influenced
and modified by the constitution of the family in a
given society — is to enter concretely into the matter,
to follow up the formation of the complex in the
course of typical family life, and to do it com-
paratively in the case of different civilizations. I do
not propose here to survey all forms of human
family, but shall compare in detail two types, known
to me from personal observation : the patrilineal
family of modern civilization, and the matrilineal
family of certain island communities in North-Western
Melanesia. These two cases, however, represent
perhaps the two most radically different types of
family known to sociological observation, and will
thus serve our purpose well. A few words will be
necessary to introduce the Trobriand Islanders of
North-Eastem New Guinea (or North-Western
Melanesia) who will form the other term of our
comparison, besides our own culture.
THE FORMATION OF A COMPLEX 9
These natives are matrilineal, that is, they Uve
in a social order in which kinship is reckoned through
the mother only, and succession and inheritance
descend in the female line. This means that the boy
or girl belongs to the mother's family, clan and com-
munity : the boy succeeds to the dignities and social
position of the mother's brother, and it is not from
the father but from the maternal uncle or maternal
aunt, respectively, that a child inherits its possessions.
Every man and woman in the Trobriands settles
down eventually to matrimony, after a period of sexual
play in childhood, followed by general licence in
adolescence, and later by a time when the lovers live
together in a more permanent intrigue, sharing with
two or three other couples a communal ' bachelor's
house '. Matrimony, which is usually monogamous,
except with chiefs, who have several wives, is
a permanent union, involving sexual exclusiveness,
a common economic existence, and an independent
household. At first glance it might appear to
a superficial observer to be the exact pattern
of marriage among ourselves. In reaUty, however, it is
entirely different. To begin with, the husband is
not regarded as the father of the children in the
sense in which we use this word ; physiologically
he has nothing to do with their birth, according
to the ideas of the natives, who are ignorant of
physical fatherhood. Children, in native belief, are
10 SEX AND REPRESSION
inserted into the mother's womb as tiny spirits,
generally by the agency of the spirit of a deceased
kinswoman of the mother.^ Her husband has then
to protect and cherish the children, to ' receive
them in his arms ' when they are bom, but they
are not ' his ' in the sense that he has had a share
in their procreation.
The father is thus a beloved, benevolent friend,
but not a recognized kinsman of the children.
He is a stranger, having authority through his
personal relations to the child, but not through his
sociological position in the lineage. Real kinship,
that is identity of substance, 'same body', exists
only through the mother. The authority over the
children is vested in the mother's brother. Now
this person, owing to the strict taboo which prevents
all friendly relations between brothers and sisters,
can never be intimate with the mother, or therefore
with her household. She recognizes his authority,
and bends before him as a commoner before a chief,
but there can never be tender relations between
them. Her children are, however, his only heirs
and successors, and he wields over them the direct
potestas. At his death his worldly goods pass into
their keeping, and during his lifetime he has to hand
^ See the writer's The Father in Primitive Psychology (Psyche
Miniatures), 1927, and " Baloma, Spirits of the Dead ", Journ. R.
Anthrop. Inst.. 1916.
THE FORMATION OF A COMPLEX ii
over to them any special accomplishment he may
possess — dances, songs, myths, magic and crafts.
He also it is who supplies his sister and her household
with food, the greater part of his garden produce going
to them. To the father, therefore, the children look
only for loving care and tender companionship.
Their mother's brother represents the principle of
discipline, authority, and executive power within
the family. 1
The bearing of the wife towards her husband is not
at all servile. She has her own possessions and her
own sphere of influence, private and public. It
never happens that the children see their mother
buUied by the father. On the other hand, the father
is only partially the bread-winner, and has to
work mainly for his own sisters, while the boys know
that when they grow up they in turn will have to
work for their sisters' households.
Marriage is patrilocal : that is, the girl goes to join
her husband in his house and migrates to his com-
munity, if she comes from another, which is in general
the case. The children therefore grow up in a com-
munity where they are legally strangers, having no
right to the soil, no lawful pride in the village glory ;
^ For an account of the strange economic conditions of these
natives, see the writer's " Primitive Economics " in Economic
Journal, 1921, and Argonauts of the Western Pacific, chapters ii
and vi. The legal side has been fully discussed in Crime and Custom
in Savage Society, 1926.
12 SEX AND REPRESSION
while their home, their traditional centre of local
patriotism, their possessions, and their pride of
ancestorship are in another place. Strange combina-
tions and confusion arise, associated with this dual
influence.
From an early age boys and girls of the same mother
are separated in the family, owing to the strict taboo
which enjoins that there shall be no intimate relations
between them, and that above all any subject con-
nected with sex should never interest them in common.
It thus comes about that though the brother is really
the person in authority over the sister, the taboo
forbids him to use this authority when it is a question
of her marriage. The privilege of giving or withholding
consent, therefore, is left to the parents, and the
father — ^her mother's husband — is the person who
has most authority, in this one matter of his daughter's
marriage.
The great difference in the two family types
which we are going to compare is beginning to be
clear. In our own type of family we have the
authoritative, powerful husband and father backed
up by society. 1 We have also the economic arrange-
^ I should like to mention that although under " our own "
civilization I am here speaking about the European and American
communities in general, I have in mind primarily the average type
of continental family, as this was the material on which the con-
clusions of psycho-analysis were founded. Whether among the higher
social strata of the Western European or of the North American
THE FORMATION OF A COMPLEX i,^
ment whereby he is the bread-winner, and can —
nominally at least — ^withhold supplies or be generous
with them at his will. In the Trobriands, on the other
hand, we have the independent mother and her husband,
who has nothing to do with the procreation of the
children, and is not the bread-winner, who cannot
leave his possessions to the children, and has
socially no estabUshed authority over them. The
mother's relatives on the other hand are endowed with
very powerful influence, especially her brother, who is
the authoritative person, the producer of supplies for
the family, and whose possessions the sons will inherit
at his death. Thus the pattern of social life and the
constitution of the family are arranged on entirely
different lines from those of our culture.
It might appear that while it would be interesting
to survey the family life in a matrilineal society,
it is superfluous to dwell on our own family Ufe, so
intimately known to everyone of us and so frequently
recapitulated in recent psycho-analytic literature. We
might simply take it for granted. But first of all,
it is essential in a strict comparative treatment to keep
the terms of the comparison clearly before our eyes ;
cities we are now slowly moving towards a condition of mother-
right more akin to the legal ideas of Melanesia than to those of
Roman Law and of continental custom, I do not dare to prophesy.
If the thesis of this book be correct, some modern developments
in matters of sex (" petting parties ", etc.), as well as the weakening
of the patriarchal system, should deeply modify the configurations
of the sentiments within the family.
14 SEX AND REPRESSION
and then, since the matriUneal data to be given here
have been collected by special methods of anthropological
field work, it is indispensable to cast the European
material into the same shape, as if it had been observed
by the same methods and looked at from the anthropo-
logical point of view. I have not, as stated already,
found in any psycho-analytic account any direct
and consistent reference to the social milieu, still
less any discussion of how the nuclear complex and
its causes vary with the social stratum in our society.
Yet it is obvious that the infantile conflicts will not
be the same in the lavish nursery of the wealthy
bourgeois as in the cabin of the peasant, or in the one-
room tenement of the poor working-man. Now just
in order to vindicate the truth of the psycho-analytic
doctrine, it would be important to consider the lower
and the ruder strata of society, where a spade is called
a spade, where the child is in permanent contact
with the parents, living and eating in the same room
and sleeping in the same bed, where no ' parent sub-
stitute ' complicates the picture, no good manners
modify the brutality of the impact, and where the
jealousies and petty competitions of daily life clash
in hardened though repressed hostility.^
^ My personal knowledge of the life, customs and psychology of
Eastern European peasants has allowed me to ascertain deep
differences between the illiterate and the educated classes of the
same society as regards the mental attitude of parents to children
and vice versa.
THE FORMATION OF A COMPLEX 15
It may be added that when we study the nuclear
complex and its bed-rock of social and biological
actuality in order to apply it to the study of folk-lore,
the need of not neglecting the peasant and the
illiterate classes is still more urgent. For the popular
traditions originated in a condition more akin to that
of the modern Central and Eastern European peasant,
or of the poor artisan, than to that of the overfed
and nervously overwrought people of modern Vienna,
London, or New York.
In order to make the comparison stand out
clearly I shall divide the history of childhood
into periods, and treat each of them separately,
describing and comparing it in both societies. The
clear distinction of stages in the history of family life
is important in the treatment of the nuclear complex,
for psycho-analysis — and here really lies one of its
chief merits — has brought to light the stratification
of the human mind, and shown its rough corre-
spondence to the stages in the child's development.
The distinct periods of sexuality, the crises, the
accompanying repressions and amnesias in which
some memories are relegated to the unconscious —
all these imply a clear division of the child's life into
periods.^ For the present purpose it will be enough
1 Although in Professor Freud's treatment of infantile sexuality,
the division into several distinct stages plays a fundamental role, yet
in his most detailed work on the subject (Drei Abhandlungen zur
Sexualtheorie, 5th edition) the scheme of the successive stages is
i6 SEX AND REPRESSION
to distinguish four periods in the development of the
child, defined by biological and sociological criteria.
1. Infancy, in which the baby is dependent for its
nourishment on the mother's breast and for safety
on the protection of the parent, in which he cannot
move independently nor articulate his wishes and
ideas. We shall reckon this period as ranging from
birth to the time of weaning. Among savage peoples,
this period lasts from about two to three years. In
civilized communities it is much shorter — ^generally
about one year only. But it is better to take the
natural landmarks to di\dde the stages of childhood.
The child is at this time physiologically bound up
with the family.
2. Babyhood, the time in which the offspring,
while attached to the mother and unable to lead
an independent existence, yet can move, talk, and
freely play round about her. We shall reckon this
period to take up three or four years, and thus bring
the child to the age of about six. This term of life
covers the first gradual severing of the family bonds.
not lucidly nor even explicitly drawn up. This makes the reading
of this book somewhat difficult to a non-specialist in psycho-
analysis, and it creates certain ambiguities and contradictions,
real and apparent, which the present writer has not yet fully solved.
Fliigel's otherwise excellent exposition of psycho-analysis {op. cit.)
also suffers from this defect, especially regrettable in a work which
sets out to clear up and systematize the doctrine. The word
' child ' throughout the book is used sometimes to mean 'baby ',
sometimes ' adolescent ', and the sense as a rule has to be inferred
from the context. In this respect I hope that the present outline
will be of some use.
THE FORMATION OF A COMPLEX 17
The child learns to move away from the family and
begins to be self-sufficient.
3. Childhood, the attainment of relative inde-
pendence, the epoch of roving about and playing
with other children. This is the time also when in all
branches of humanity and in all classes of a society the
child begins in some way or other to become initiated
into full membership of the community. Among
some savages, the preliminary rites of initiation begin.
Among others and among our own peasants and
working people, especially on the Continent, the child
begins to be apprenticed to his future economic life.
In Western European and American communities
children begin their schooling at this time. This
is the period of the second severing from family
influences, and it lasts till puberty, which forms its
natural term.
4. Adolescence, between physiological puberty and
full social maturity. In many savage communities,
this epoch is encompassed by the principal rites of
initiation, and in other tribes it is the epoch in which
tribal law and order lay their claim on the youth
and on the maiden. In modem civilized communities
it is the time of secondary and higher schooling,
or else of the final apprenticeship to the life task.
This is the period of complete emancipation from
the family atmosphere. Among savages and in our
own lower strata it normally ends with marriage and
the foundation of a new family.
Ill
THE FIRST STAGE OF THE FAMILY DRAMA
TT is a general characteristic of the mammals that
the offspring is not free and independent at birth,
but has to rely for its nourishment, safety, warmth,
cleanliness and bodily comfort on the care of
its mother. To this correspond the various bodily
arrangements of mother and child. Physiologically
there exists a passionate instinctive interest of the
mother in the child, and a craving of the suckling
for the maternal organism, for the warmth of her
body, the support of her arms and, above all, the milk
and contact of her breast. At first the relation is
determined by the mother's selective passion — to her
only her own offspring is dear, while the baby would
be satisfied with the body of any lactant woman.
But soon the child also distinguishes, and his attach-
ment becomes as exclusive and individual as that
of the mother. Thus birth establishes a link for
life between mother and child.
This link is first founded on the biological fact
that young mammals cannot live unaided, and thus
the species depends for its survival on one of the
strongest instincts, that of maternal love. But
18
THE FORMATION OF A COMPLEX 19
society hastens to step in and to add its at first feeble
decree to the powerful voice of nature. In all human
communities, savage or civilized, custom, law and
morals, sometimes even religion, take cognizance
of the bond between mother and offspring, usually
at a? early a stage as the beginning of gestation.
The mother, sometimes the father also, has to keep
various taboos and observances, or perform rites
which have to do with the welfare of the new life
within the womb. Birth is always an important
social event, round which cluster many traditional
usages, often associated with religion. Thus even the
most natural and most directly biological tie, that
between mother and child, has its social as well as
its physiological determination, and cannot be
described without reference to the influence exercised
by the tradition and usage of the community.
Let us briefly summarize and characterize these
social co-determinants of motherhood in our own
society. Maternity is a moral, reUgious and even
artistic ideal of civilization, a pregnant woman is
protected by law and custom, and should be regarded
as a sacred object, while she herself ought to feel proud
and happy in her condition. That this is an ideal
which can be reaUzed is vouched for by historical
and ethnographical data. Even in modem Europe,
the orthodox Jewish communities of Poland keep
it up in practice, and amongst them a pregnant
20 SEX AND REPRESSION
woman is an object of real veneration, and feels
proud of her condition. In the Christian Aryan
societies, however, pregnancy among the lower classes
is made a burden, and regarded as a nuisance ;
among the well-to-do people it is a source of
embarrassment, discomfort, and temporary ostracism
from ordinary social life. Since we thus have to
recognize the importance of the mother's pre-natal
attitude for her future sentiment towards her offspring,
and since this attitude varies greatly with the milieu
and depends on social values, it is important that this
sociological problem should be studied more closely.
At birth, the biological patterns and the
instinctive impulses of the mother are endorsed and
strengthened by society, which, in many of its
customs, moral rules and ideals, makes the mother
the nurse of the child, and this, broadly speaking,
in the low as in the high strata of almost all nations of
Europe. Yet even here in a relation so funda-
mental, so biologically secured, there are certain
societies where custom and laxity of innate im-
pulses allow of notable aberrations. Thus we have
the system of sending the child away for the first
year or so of its life to a hired foster mother, a custom
once highly prevalent in the middle classes of France ;
or the almost equally harmful system of protecting
the woman's breasts by hiring a foster mother, or by
feeding the child on artificial food, a custom once
THE FORMATION OF A COMPLEX 21
prevalent among the wealthy classes, though to-day
generally stigmatized as unnatural. Here again the
sociologist has to add his share in order to give the
true picture of motherhood, as it varies according to
national, economic and moral differences.
Let us now turn to consider the same relation
in a matrilineal society on the shores of the Pacific.
The Melanesiai; woman shows invariably a passionate
craving for her child, and the surrounding society
seconds her feelings, fosters her incUnations and idealizes
them by custom and usage. From the first moments
of pregnancy, the expectant mother is made to watch
over the welfare of her future offspring by keeping a
number of food taboos and other observances. The
pregnant woman is regarded by custom as an object of
reverence, an ideal which is fully realized by the
actual behaviour and feelings of these natives. There
exists an elaborate ceremony performed at the first
pregnancy, with an intricate and somewhat obscure
aim, but emphasizing the importance of the event
and conferring on the pregnant woman distinction and
honour.
After the birth, mother and child are secluded for
about a month, the mother constantly tending her
child and nursing it, while certain female relatives
only are admitted into the hut. Adoption under
normal circumstances is very rare, and even then the
child is usually given over only after it has been
22 SEX AND REPRESSION
weaned, nor is it ever adopted by strangers, but by
nearest relatives exclusively. A number of obser-
vances, such as ritual washing of mother and
child, special taboos to be kept by the mother, and
visits of presentation, bind mother and child by links
of custom superimposed upon the natural ones.^
Thus in both societies, to the biological adjustment
of instinct there are added the social forces of custom,
morals and manners, all working in the same direction
of binding mother and child to each other, of giving
them full scope for the passionate intimacy of mother-
hood. This harmony between social and biological
forces ensures full satisfaction and the highest bliss.
Society co-operates with nature to repeat the happy
conditions in the womb, broken by the trauma of
birth. Dr. Rank, in a work which has already
proved of some importance for the development of
psycho-analysis, 2 has indicated the significance for
later Ufe of intra-uterine existence and its memories.
Whatever we might think about the ' trauma ' of birth,
there is no doubt that the first months after birth
reaUze, by the working of both biological and
^ An important form of the taboo observed by a mother after
birth is the sexual abstinence enjoined upon her. For a beautiful
expression of the high moral view of natives concerning this custom
see The Contact of Races and Clash of Culture, by G. Pitt-Rivers,
1927, chap, viii, sec. 3.
* Das Trauma der Geburt (1924). Needless to say, the conclusions
of Dr. Rank's book are entirely unacceptable to the present writer,
who is not able to adopt any of the recent developments of psycho-
analysis nor even to understand their meaning.
THE FORMATION OF A COMPLEX 23
sociological forces, a state of bliss broken by the
' trauma ' of weaning. The exceptional aberrations
from this state of affairs are to be found only among
the higher strata of civilized communities.
We find a much greater difference in the fatherhood
of the patriarchal and matrilineal family at this period,
and it is rather unexpected to find that in a savage
society, where the physical bonds of paternity are
unknown, and where mother right obtains, the father
should yet stand in a much more intimate relation to
the children than normally happens among ourselves.
For in our own society, the father plays a very small
part indeed in the life of a young infant. By custom,
usage, and manners, the well-to-do father is kept out
of the nursery, while the peasant or working man
has to leave the child to his wife for the greater part
of the twenty-four hours. He may perhaps resent
the attention which the infant claims, and the time
which it takes up, but as a rule he neither helps nor
interferes with a small child.
Among the Melanesians ' fatherhood,' as we know, is a
purely social relation . Part of this relation consists in his
duty towards his wife's children ; he is there ' to receive
them into his arms ', a phrase we have already quoted ;
he has to carry them about when on the march the
mother is tired, and he has to assist in the nursing at
home. He tends them in their natural needs, and cleanses
them, and there are many stereotyped expressions
24 SEX AND REPRESSION
in the native language referring to fatherhood and
its hardships, and to the duty of fiUal gratitude towards
him. A typical Trobriand father is a hard-working
and conscientious nurse and in this he obeys the call
of duty, expressed in social tradition. The fact is,
however, that the father is always interested in the
children, sometimes passionately so, and performs
all his duties eagerly and fondly.
Thus, if we compare the patriarchal and the matriUneal
relation at this early stage, we see that the main point of
difference lies with the father. In our society, the father
is kept weU out of the picture, and has at best a subordi-
nate part. In the Trobriands, he plays a much more
active role, which is important above all because it
gives him a far greater scope for forming ties of affection
with his children. In both societies there is
found with a few exceptions, little room for conflict,
between the biological trend and the social conditions.
IV
FATHERHOOD IN MOTHER-RIGHT
TX 7E have now reached the period when the child
is already weaned, when it is learning to walk
and begins to speak. Yet biologically it is but slowly
gaining its independence from the mother's body.
It clings to her with undiminished, passionate desire
for her presence, for the touch of her body and the
tender clasp of hen arms.
This is the natural, biological tendency, but in our
society, at one stage or another, the child's desires are
crossed and thwarted. Let us first realize that the period
upon which we now enter is introduced by the process of
weaning. By this the blissful harmony of infantile life is
broken, or at least modified. Among the higher classes,
weaning is so prepared, graduated and adjusted
that it usually passes without any shock. But among
women of the lower classes, in our society, weaning
is often a painful wrench for the mother and certainly
for the child. Later on, other obstacles tend to
obtrude upon the intimacy of the mother with the child,
in whom at that stage a notable change is taking place.
He becomes independent in his movements, can feed
himself, express some of his feelings and ideas, and
25
26 SEX AND REPRESSION
begins to understand and to observe. In the higher
classes, the nursery arrangements separate the mother
from the child in a gradual manner. This dispenses
with any shock, but it leaves a gap in the child's life,
a yearning and an unsatisfied need. In the lower
classes, where the child shares the parents' bed, it
becomes at a certain time a source of embarrassment
and an encumbrance, and suffers a rude and more
brutal repulsion.
How does savage motherhood on the coral islands
of New Guinea compare at this stage with ours ?
First of all, weaning takes place much later in life,
at a time when the child is already independent, can
run about, eat practically everjrthing and foUow
other interests. It takes place, that is, at a moment
when the child neither wants nor needs the mother's
breast any more, so that the first wrench is eliminated.
' Matriarchate,' the rule of the mother, does not in
any way entail a stem, terrible mother-virago. The
Trobriand mother carries her children, fondles them,
and plays with them at this stage quite as lovingly
as at the earlier period, and custom as well as morals
expects it from her. The child is bound to her, also,
according to law, custom and usage, by a closer tie
than is her husband, whose rights are subservient
to those of the offspring. The psychology of the
intimate marital relations has therefore a different
character, and the repulsion of the child from the
THE FORMATION OF A COMPLEX 27
mother by the father is certainly not a typical
occurrence, if it ever occurs at all. Another difference
between the Melanesian and the typical European
mother is that the former is much more indulgent.
Since there is little training of the child, and hardly
any moral education ; since what there is begins
later and is done by other people, there is scarcely
room for severity. This absence of maternal discipUne
precludes on the one hand such aberrations of severity
as are sometimes found among us ; on the other hand,
however, it lessens the feeling of interest on the part
of the child, the desire to please the mother,
and to win her approval. This desire, it must be
remembered, is one of the strong Unks of filial
attachment among us, and one which holds great
possibilities for the establishment of a permanent
relation in later life.
Turning now to the paternal relation we see that, in
our society, irrespective of nationality or social class,
the father still enjoys the patriarchal status.^ He
is the head of the family and the relevant link in
the lineage, and he is also the economic provider.
^ Here again I should like to make an exception with regard
to the modern American and British family. The father is in
process of losing his patriarchal position. As conditions are in
flux, however, it is not safe to take them into consideration here.
Psycho-analysis cannot hope, I think, to preserve its " Oedipus
complex " for future generations, who will only know a weak and
henpecked father. For him the children will feel indulgent pity
rather than hatred and fear !
28 SEX AND REPRESSION
As an absolute ruler of the family, he is liable to
become a tyrant, in which case frictions of all sorts
arise between him and his wife and children. The
details of these depend greatly on the social milieu.
In the wealthy classes of Western civilization, the
child is well separated from his father by all sorts
of nursery arrangements. Although constantly with
the nurse, the child is usually attended to and controlled
by the mother, who, in such cases, almost invariably
takes the dominant place in the child's affections.
The father, on the other hand, is seldom brought within
the child's horizon, and then only as an onlooker
and stranger, before whom the children have to
behave themselves, show off and perform. He is the
source of authority, the origin of punishment, and
therefore becomes a bogey. Usually the result is
a mixture ; he is the perfect being for whose benefit
everything has to be done ; and, at the same time,
he is the ' ogre ' whom the child has to fear and
for whose comfort, as the child soon reaUzes, the house-
hold is arranged. The loving and sympathetic father
will easily assume the former role of a demi-god. The
pompous, wooden, or tactless one will soon earn the
suspicion and even hate of the nursery. In relation
to the father, the mother becomes an intermediary
who is sometimes ready to denounce the child to
the higher authority, but who at the same time can
intercede against punishment.
THE FORMATION OF A COMPLEX 29
The picture is different, though the results are not
dissimilar, in the one-room and one-bed households
of the poor peasantry of Central and Eastern Europe,
or of the lower working classes. The father is brought
into closer contact with the child, which in rare
circumstances allows of a greater affection, but usually
gives rise to much more acute and chronic friction.
When a father returns home tired from work, or drunk
from the inn, he naturally vents his ill-temper on the
family, and bullies mother and children. There is no
village, no poor quarter in a modem town, where
cases could not be found of sheer, patriarchal cruelty.
From my own memory, I could quote numerous
cases where peasant fathers would, on returning home
drunk, beat the children for sheer pleasure, or drag
them out of bed and send them into the cold night.
Even at best, when the working father returns
home, the children have to keep quiet, stop rowdy
games and repress spontaneous, childish outbursts
of joy and sorrow. The father is a supreme source
of punishment in poor households also, while the
mother acts as intercessor, and often shares in the
treatment meted out to the children. In the poorer
households, moreover, the economic role of provider
and the social power of the father are more quickly
and definitely recognized, and act in the same direction
as his personal influence.
The role of the Melanesian father at this stage is
30 SEX AND REPRESSION
very different from that of the European patriarch.
I have briefly sketched in Chapter IV his very different
social position as husband and father, and the part he
plays in the household. He is not the head of the
family, he does not transmit his lineage to his children,
nor is he the main provider of food. This entirely
changes his legal rights and his personal attitude to
his wife. A Trobriand man will seldom quarrel with
his wife, hardly ever attempt to brutalize her, and he
will never be able to exercise a permanent tyranny.
Even sexual co-habitation is not regarded by native
law and usage as the wife's duty and the husband's
privilege, as is the case in our society. The Trobriand
natives take the view, dictated by tradition, that
the husband is indebted to his wife for sexual services,
that he has to deserve them and pay for them. One
of the ways, the chief way, in fact, of acquitting
himself of this duty is by performing services for her
children and showing affection to them. There are
many native sayings which embody in a sort of loose
folk-lore these principles. In the child's infancy
the husband has been the nurse, tender and loving ;
later on in early childhood he plays with it, carries it,
and teaches it such amusing sports and occupations
as take its fancy.
Thus the legal, moral and customary tradition
of the tribe and all the forces of organization combine
to give the man, in his conjugal and paternal rdle.
THE FORMATION OF A COMPLEX 31
an entirely different attitude from that of a patriarch.
And though it has to be defined in an abstract manner,
this is by no means a mere legal principle, detached
from life. It expresses itself in every detail of daily
existence, permeates all the relations within the
family, and dominates the sentiments found there.
The children never see their mother subjugated or
brutalized or in abject dependence upon her husband,
not even when she is a commoner married to a chief.
They never feel his heavy hand on themselves ; he
is not their kinsman, nor their owner, nor their
benefactor. He has no rights or prerogatives. Yet
he feels, as does every normal father all over the
world, a strong affection for them ; and this, together
with his traditional duties, makes him try to win their
love, and thus to retain his influence over them.
Comparing European with Melanesian paternity, it
is important to keep in mind the biological facts as
well as the sociological. Biologically there is
undoubtedly in the average man a tendency towards
affectionate and tender feelings for his children.
But this tendency seems not to be strong enough
to outweigh the many hardships which children
entail on a parent. When, therefore, society steps
in and in one case declares that the father is the
absolute master, and that the children should be there
for his benefit, pleasure and glory, this social influence
tilts the balance against a happy equilibrium of
32 SEX AND REPRESSION
natural affection and natural impatience of the
nuisance. When, on the other hand, a matrilineal
society grants the father no privileges and no right
to his children's affections, then he must earn them,
and when again, in the same uncivilized society,
there are fewer strains on his nerves and his ambitions
and his economic responsibilities, he is freer to give
himself up to his paternal instincts. Thus in our
society the adjustment between biological and social
forces, which was satisfactory in earliest childhood,
begins to show a lack of harmony later on. In the
Melanesian society, the harmonious relations persist.
Father -right, we have seen, is to a great extent
a source of family conflict, in that it grants to
the father social claims and prerogatives not com-
mensurate with his biological propensities, nor with the
personal affection which he can feel for and arouse
in his children.
INFANTILE SEXUALITY
T^RAVERSING the same ground as Freud and the
psycho-analysts, I have yet tried to keep clear
of the subject of sex, partly in order to emphasize
the sociological aspect in my account, partly in order
to avoid moot theoretical distinctions as to the nature
of mother-and-child attachment or the ' libido ' . But at
this stage, as the children begin to play independently
and develop an interest in the surrounding work and
people, sexuality makes its first appearance in forms
accessible to outside sociological observation and
directly affecting family life.^ A careful observer of
European children, and one who has^not forgotten his
own childhood, has to recognize that at an early age,
say, between three and four, there arises in them
a special sort of interest and curiosity. Besides the
world of lawful, normal and ' nice ' things, there opens
^ The reader who is interested in infantile sexuality and child
psychology should also consult A. Moll, Das Sexualleben des Kindes
(1908) ; Havelock Ellis's Studies in the Psychology of Sex (1919 ed.,
pp. 13 seqq., also vol. i, 1910 ed., pp. 36 seqq. and 235 seqq. and
passim). The books of Ploss-Renz, Das Kind in Brauch und Sitte
der Volker (Leipzig, 1911-12); Charlotte Biihler, Das Seelenleben
des Jugendlichen (1925) ; and the works of William Stern on Child
Psychology are also important.
33 D
34 SEX AND REPRESSION
up a world of shame-faced desires, clandestine interests
and subterranean impulses. The two categories of
things, ' decent ' and ' indecent ', ' pure ' and ' impure ',
begin to crystallize, categories destined to remain
throughout life. In some people the ' indecent '
becomes completely suppressed, and the right values of
decency become hypertrophied into the virulent
virtue of the puritan, or the still more repulsive
hypocrisy of the conventionally moral. Or the ' decent '
is altogether smothered through glut in pornographic
satisfaction, and the other category develops into
a complete pruriency of mind, not less repulsive
than hypocritical ' virtue ' itself.
In the second stage of childhood which we are now
considering, that is according to my scheme from
an age of about four to six years, the ' indecent '
centres round interests in excretory functions,
exhibitionism and games witii indecent exposure,
often associated with cruelty. It hardly differentiates
between the sexes, and is little interested in the act
of reproduction. Anyone who has lived for a long
time among peasants and knows intimately their child-
hood will recognize that this state of affairs exists as a
thing normal, though not open. Among the working
classes things seem to be similar.* Among the higher
^ That conscientious sociologist, Zola, has provided us with rich
material on the subject, entirely in agreement with my own observa-
tions.
THE FORMATION OF A COMPLEX 35
classes ' indecencies ' are much more suppressed, but
not very different. Observations in these social strata,
which would be more difficult than among peasants,
should, however, be urgently carried out for pedagogical,
moral and eugenic reasons, and suitable methods
of research devised. The results would, I think,
confirm to an extraordinary degree some of the
assertions of Freud and his school.^
How does the newly awakened infantile sexuaUty
or infantile indecency influence the relation to the
family ? In the division between things ' decent '
and ' indecent ', the parents, and especially the mother,
are included wholly within the first category,
and remain in the child's mind absolutely untouched
by the ' indecent.' The feeling that the mother
might be aware of any prurient infantile play is
extremely distasteful to the child, and there is a strong
disinclination to allude in her presence or to speak
with her about any sexual matters. The father,
who is also kept strictly outside the ' indecent '
category, is, moreover, regarded as the moral authority
whom these thoughts and pastimes would offend.
^ Freud's contentions of the normal occurrence of premature
sexuality, of little differentiation between the sexes, of anal-eroticism
and absence of genital interest are, according to my observations,
correct. In a recent article (Zeitschrift ]ur Psycho-Analyse, 1923),
Freud has somewhat modified his previous view, and affirms, without
giving arguments, that children at this stage have, after all, already
a ' genital ' interest. With this I cannot agree.
36 SEX AND REPRESSION
For the ' indecent ' always carries with it a sense of
guilt.i
Freud and the psycho-analjrtic school have laid great
stress on the sexual rivalry between mother and
daughter, father and son respectively. My own
opinion is that the rivalry between mother and
daughter does not begin at this early stage. At any
rate, I have never observed any traces of it. The
relations between father and son are more complex.
Although, as I have said, the little boy has no thoughts,
desires or impulses towards his mother which he
himself would feel belong to the category of the
'indecent', there can be no doubt that a young
organism reacts sexually to close bodily contact
with the mother. 2 A well-known piece of advice
^ The attitude of the modern man and woman is rapidly changing.
At present we studiously ' enlighten ' our children, and keep ' sex '
neatly prepared for them. In the first place, however, we must
remember that we are dealing here with a minority even among
the British and American " intelligentsia ". In the second place,
I am not at all certain whether the bashfulness and awkward attitude
of children towards their parents in matters of sex will be to any
great extent overcome by this method of treatment. There seems
to exist a general tendency even among adults to eliminate the
dramatic, upsetting, and mysterious emotional elements out of any
stable relationship based on every-day intercourse. Even among
the essentially ' unrepressed ' Trobrianders the parent is never
the confidant in matters of sex. It is remarkable how much easier
it is to make any delicate or shameful confession to those friends
and acquaintances who are not too intimately connected with our
daily hfe.
* Since this was first written in 1921, I have changed my views
on this subject. The statement that 'a young organism reacts
sexually to close bodily contact with the mother ' appears to me
THE FORMATION OF A COMPLEX 37
given by old gossips to young mothers in peasant
communities is to the effect that boys above the age
of three should sleep separately from the mother.
The occurrence of infantile erections is well known
in these communities, as is also the fact that the boy
clings to the mother in a different way from the girl.
That the father and the young male child have a
component of sexual rivalry under such conditions
seems probable, even to an outside sociological observer.
The psycho-analysts maintain it categorically. Among
the wealthier classes crude conflicts arise more seldom,
if ever, but they arise in imagination and in a more
refined though perhaps not less insidious form.
It must be noted that at this stage when the child
begins to show a different character and temperament
according to sex, the parents' feelings are differentiated
between sons and daughters. The father sees in the
son his successor, the one who is to replace him in
the family lineage and in the household. He becomes
therefore all the more critical, and this influences his
feelings in two directions : if the boy shows signs
of mental or physical deficiency, if he is not up to the
type of the ideal in which the father believes, he will
be a source of bitter disappointment and hostility.
On the other hand, even at this stage, a certain
now absurd. I am glad I may use this strong word, having written
the absurd statement myself. I have set forth what appears to me
the adequate analysis of this phase in infantile psychology later
on, Part IV, Chapter IX.
38 SEX AND REPRESSION
amount of rivalry, the resentment of future super-
session, and the melancholy of the waning generation
lead again to hostility. Repressed in both cases, this
hostility hardens the father against the son and provokes
by reaction a response in hostile feelings. The mother,
on the other hand, has no grounds for negative
sentiments, and has an additional admiration for the
son as a man to be. The father's feeling towards the
daughter — a repetition of himself in a feminine form —
hardly fails to evoke a tender emotion, and perhaps
also to flatter his vanity. Thus social factors mix
with biological and make the father cUng more tenderly
to the daughter than to the son, while with the mother
it is the reverse. But it must be noted that an
attraction to the offspring of the other sex, because it
is of the other sex, is not necessarily sexual attraction.
In Melanesia, we find an altogether different type
of sexual development in the child. That the biological
impulses do not essentially differ, seems beyond
doubt. But I have failed to find any traces of what
could be called infantile indecencies, or of a
subterranean world in which children indulge
in clandestine pastimes centring round excretory
functions or exhibitionism. The subject naturally
presents certain difficulties of observation, for it is
hard to enter into any personal communication with
a savage child, and if there were a world of indecent
things as amongst ourselves, it would be as futile
THE FORMATION OF A COMPLEX 39
to inquire about it from an average grown-up native
as from a conventional mother, father, or nurse in
our society. But there is one circumstance which
makes matters so entirely different among these
natives that there is no danger of making a mistake :
this is that with them there is no repression, no
censure, no moral reprobation of infantile sexuality
of the genital type when it comes to light at a somewhat
later stage than the one we are now considering —
at about the age of five or six. So if there were any
earlier indecency, this could be as easily observed
as the later genital stage of sexual plays.
How can we then explain why among savages
there is no period of what Freud calls ' pre-genital',
' anal-erotic ' interest ? We shall be able to understand
this better when we discuss the sexuality of the
next stage in the child's development, a sexuality
in which native Melanesian children differ essentially
from our own.
VI
APPRENTICESHIP TO LIFE
TX 7E enter now on the third stage of childhood,
commencing between the ages of five and seven.
At this period a child begins to feel independent,
to create its own games, to seek for associates of the
same age, with whom it has a tendency to roam about
unencumbered by grown-up people. This is the time
when play begins to pass into more definite occupa-
tions and serious life interests.
Let us follow our parallel at this stage. In Europe,
entrance into school or, among the uneducated classes,
some sort of preliminary apprenticeship to an economic
occupation removes the child from the influence of
the family. The boy or girl lose to some extent
their exclusive attachment to the mother. With the
boy, there frequently takes place at this period a trans-
ference of sentiment to a substitute mother, who
for the time being is regarded with some of the
passionate tenderness felt for the mother, but with no
other feelings. Such transference must not be con-
fused with the much later tendency of adolescent
boys to fall in love with women older than themselves.
At the same time, there arises a desire for independence
40
THE FORMATION OF A COMPLEX 41
from the all-possessive intimacy of maternal interest,
which makes the child withhold its absolute confidence
from the parent. Among the peasants and lower
classes, the process of emancipation from the mother
takes place earlier than in the higher, but it is
similar in all essentials. When the mother is deeply
attached to the child, especially to the boy, she is
apt to feel a certain amount of jealousy and resentment
at this emancipation and to put obstacles in its
way. This usually makes the wrench only more
painful and violent.
The children on the coral beaches of the Western
Pacific show a similar tendency. This appears there
even more clearly, for the absence of compulsory
education and of any strict discipline at this age
allows a much freer play to the natural inclinations
of infantile nature. On the part of the mother there
is in Melanesia, however, no jealous resentment
or anxiety at the child's new-found independence,
and here we see the influence of the lack of any deep,
educational interest between mother and child. At
this stage, the children in the Trobriand archipelago
begin to form a small juvenile community within
the community. They roam about in bands, play on
distant beaches or in secluded parts of the jungle,
join with other small communities of children from
neighbouring villages, and in all this, though they
obey the commands of their child-leaders, they are
42 SEX AND REPRESSION
almost completely independent of the elders'
authority. The parents never try to keep them back,
to interfere with them in any way or to bind them
to any routine. At first, of course, the family still
retains a considerable hold over the child, but the
process of emancipation progresses gradually and
constantly in an untrammelled, natural manner.
In this there is a great difference between European
conditions, where the child often passes from the
intimacy of the family to the cold discipline of the
school or other preliminary training, and the Melanesian
state of affairs where the process of emancipation
is gradual, free and pleasailt.
And now what about the father at this stage ?
In our society — here again excluding certain modern
phases of family life in Britain and America —
he still represents the principle of authority within
the family. Outside, at school, in the workshop,
at the preliminary manual labour which the child
of peasants is often set to do, it is either the
father in person or his substitute who wields the
power. In the higher classes at this stage, the
very important process of conscious formation of
paternal authority and of the father ideal takes
place. The child begins now to comprehend
what it had guessed and felt before — the
father's established authority as the head of the
family, and his economic influence. The ideal of his
THE FORMATION OF A COMPLEX 43
infallibility, wisdom, justice, and might is usually
in varying degrees and in different ways inculcated
in the child by the mother or the nurse in reUgious
and moral teaching. Now the role of an ideal is never
an easy one, and to maintain it in the intimacy of
daily life is a very difficult performance indeed,
especially for one whose bad tempers and follies are
not repressed by any discipline. Thus no sooner is
the father ideal formed than it begins to decompose.
The child feels at first only a vague malaise at his
father's bad temper or weakness, a fear of his wrath,
a dim feeling of injustice, perhaps some shame when
the father has a really bad outburst. Soon the typical
father-sentiment is formed, full of contradictory
emotions, a mixture of reverence, contempt, affection
and dislike, tenderness and fear. It is at this period
of childhood that the social influence due to patriarchal
institutions makes itself felt in the child's attitude
towards the male parent. Between the boy and his
father the rivalries of successor and superseded, and
the mutual jealousies described in the previous section,
crystallize more distinctly and make the negative
elements of the father-to-son relation more pre-
dominant than in the case of father-to-daughter.
Among the lower classes, the process of the idealiza-
tion of the father is cruder but not less important.
As I have already said, the father in a typical peasant
household is openly a tyrant. The mother acquiesces
44 SEX AND REPRESSION
in his supremacy and imparts the attitude to her
children, who reverence and at the same time fear
the strong and brutal force embodied in their father.
Here also a sentiment composed of ambivalent emotion
is formed, with a distinct preference of the father
for his female children.
What is the father's role in Melanesia ? Little need
be said about it at this stage. He continues to
befriend the children, to help them, to teach them
what they like and as much as they like. Children,
it is true, are less interested in him at this stage and
prefer, on the whole, their small comrades. But the
father is always there as a helpful adviser, half play-
mate, half protector.
Yet at this period the principle of tribal law and
authority, the submission to constraint and to the
prohibition of certain desirable things enters the life
of a young girl or boy. But this law and constraint
are represented by quite another person than the
father, by the mother's brother, the male head of the
family in a matriarchal society. He it is who actually
wields the potestas and who indeed makes ample
use of it.
His authority, though closely parallel to that of
the father among ourselves, is not exactly identical
with it. First of all his influence is introduced into
the child's life much later than that of the European
father. Then again, he never enters the intimacy
THE FORMATION OF A COMPLEX 45
of family life, but lives in another hut and often in a
different village, for, since marriage is patrilocal in the
Trobriands, his sister and her children have their abode
in the village of the husband and father. Thus his
power is exercised from a distance and it cannot
become oppressive in those small matters which are
most irksome. He brings into the life of the child,
whether boy or girl, two elements : first of all, that
of duty, prohibition and constraint : secondly,
especially into the life of the boy, the elements of
ambition, pride and social values, half of that, in fact,
which makes life worth living for the Trobriander.
The constraint comes in, in so far as he begins
to direct the boy's occupations, to require certain of
his services and to teach him some of the tribal laws
and prohibitions. Many of these have already been
inculcated into the boy by the parents, but the kada
(mother's brother) is always held up to him as the
real authority behind the rules.
A boy of six will be solicited by his mother's brother
to come on an expedition, to begin some work in the
gardens, to assist in the carrying of crops. In carrying
out these activities, in his maternal uncle's village
and together with other members of his clan, the boy
learns that he is contributing to the hutura of his
clan ; he begins to feel that this is his own village
and own people ; to learn the traditions, myths and
legends of his clan. The child at this stage also
46 SEX AND REPRESSION
frequently co-operates with his father, and it is
interesting to note the difference in the attitude
he has toward the two elders. The father still
remains his intimate ; he likes to work with him,
assist him and learn from him ; but he reahzes more
and more that such co-operation is based on goodwill
and not on law, and that the pleasure derived from it
must be its own reward, but that the glory of it goes
to a clan of strangers. The child also sees his mother
receiving orders from her brother, accepting favours
from him, treating him with the greatest reverence,
crouching before him like a commoner to a chief.
He gradually begins to understand that he is his
maternal uncle's successor, and that he will also be
a master over his sisters, from whom at this time he
is already separated by a social taboo forbidding
any intimacy.
The maternal uncle is, like the father among us,
idealized to the boy, held up to him as the person
who should be pleased, and who must be made the
model to be imitated in the future. Thus we see that
most of the elements, though not all, which make
the father's r61e so difficult in our society, are vested
among the Melanesians in the mother's brother.
He has the power, he is idealized, to him the children
and the mother are subjected, while the father is
entirely reUeved of all these odious prerogatives and
characteristics. But the mother's brother introduces
THE FORMATION OF A COMPLEX 47
the child to certain new elements which make life
bigger, more interesting, and of greater appeal —
social ambition, traditional glory, pride in his lineage
and kinship, promises of future wealth, power, and
social status.
It must be realized that at the time when our
European child starts to find its way in our
complex social relations, the Melanesian girl or boy
also begins to grasp the principle of kinship which
is the main foundation of the social order. These
principles cut across the intimacy of family life and
rearrange for the child the social world which up
to now consisted for him of the extended circles
of family, further family, neighbours and village
community. The child now learns that he has to
distinguish above and across these groups two main
categories. The one consists of his real kinsmen,
his veyola. To these belong in the first place his
mother, his brothers and sisters, his maternal
uncle and all their kinsmen. These are people who
are of the same substance or the ' same body ' as
himself. The men he has to obey, to co-operate
with and to assist in work, war and personal quarrels.
The women of his clan and of his kinship are strictly
tabooed sexually for him. The other social category
consists of the stran^gers or ' outsiders ', tomakava.
By this name are called all those people who are not
related by matrilineal ties, or who do not belong to
48 SEX AND REPRESSION
the same clan. But this group comprises also the
father and his relations, male and female, and the
women whom he may marry or with whom he may
have love affairs. Now these people, and especially
the father, stand to him in a very close personal
relation which, however, is entirely ignored by law
and moraUty. Thus we have on the one side the
consciousness of identity and kinship associated with
social ambitions and pride, but also with constraint
and sexual prohibition ; and on the other, in the
relation to the father and his relatives, free friendship
and natural sentiment as well as sexual liberty, but
no personal identity or traditional bonds.
VII
THE SEXUALITY OF LATER CHILDHOOD
TT TE pass now to the problem of sexual life in the
third period — the later childhood, as we might
call it, covering the stage of free play and movement,
which lasts from about five or six till puberty. I
kept the discussion of sex separate from that of the
social influences when dealing with the previous
period of child life, and I shall do the same here, so
as to bring out clearly the respective contributions
of organism and society.
In modern Europe, according to Freud, there sets
in at this age a very curious phenomenon : the
regression of sexuaUty, a period of latency, a lull
in the development of sexual functions and impulses.
What makes this latency period especially important
in the Freudian scheme of neuroses is the amnesia
which is associated with it, the curtain of complete
oblivion which falls at this period and which obliterates
the reminiscences of infantile sexuahty. Remarkably
enough, this important and interesting contention
of Freud's is not endorsed by other students. For
instance, Moll, in his memoir on infantile sexuality
49 B
50 SEX AND REPRESSION
(a very thorough and competent contribution)/ makes
no mention of any lull in sexual development. On the
contrary, his account implies a steady and gradual
increase of sexuality in the child, the curve rising
in a continuous manner without any kink. It is
remarkable to 'find that Freud himself at times appears
to vacillate. Thus of all the periods of childhood
this one has no clear and explicit chapter devoted
to it and in one or two places Freud even withdraws
his contention about its existence.^ Yet, if I may
affirm on the basis of material derived from personal
knowledge of well-educated schoolboys, the latency
period invariably sets in at about the sixth year
and lasts from two to four years. During this time
interest in indecencies flags, the lurid yet alluring
colours which they had fade away, and they are
repressed and forgotten while new things arise to
take up the interest and energy.
How are we to explain the divergency in Freud's
own views as weU as the ignoring of the facts by other
students of sex ?
It is clear that we do not deal here with a
* A. Moll, Das Sexualleben des Kindes, 1908.
• The latency period is frequently mentioned, for instance, in
Drei Abhandlungen, 5th edition, pp. 40, 44, 64 ; Vorlesungen, 1922,
p. 374. But there is no special treatment of it in any of these books.
Again, we read, " Die Latenzzeit kann auch entfallen. Sie braucht
keine Unterbrechung der Sexualbetatigung, der Sexualinteressen
mit sich zu bringen," Vorlesungen, loc. cit.
THE FORMATION OF A COMPLEX 51
phenomenon deeply rooted in man's organic nature,
but with one largely if not wholly determined by
social factors. If we turn to a comparative survey
of the various layers of society, we perceive without
difficulty that among the lower classes, especially
among peasants, the latency period is much less
pronounced. In order to see matters clearly, let us
cast back to the previous period of infantile pre-
genital sexuaUty and see how the two link up. We
saw in Chapter V that in the lower as well as in the
higher strata there exists at an early age this strong
interest in the 'indecent'. Among peasant children,
however, it appears somewhat later and has a shghtly
different character. Let us compare once more the
sources of 'anal-eroticism', as it is called by Freud,
among the children of the lower and higher classes.^
In the nursery of the weU-to-do baby, the natural
functions, the interest in excretion, are at first
encouraged, and then suddenly stopped. The nurse
or mother, who up to a certain point tries to stimulate
the performance, praises the prompt execution and
shows the results, discovers at a certain moment that
the child takes too much interest in it and begins
to play in a manner that to the grown-up appears
unclean, though to the child it is perfectly natural.
^ I would not now use the ugly neologism ' anal-eroticism ',
but as long as a term is defined there is no harm in borrowing it
from a dctrine which is being discussed.
52 SEX AND REPRESSION
Then the nursery authority steps in, slaps the child,
makes it an offence, and the interest is violently
repressed. The child grows up, the reticences, frowns,
and artificialities begin to surround the natural
functions with clandestine interest and mysterious
attraction.
Those who remember from their own childhood
how strongly such a repressive atmosphere of
hints and sous-entendus is felt and how well its
meaning is understood by the child, recognize that
the category of ' indecent ' is created by elders.
From observations of children, moreover, as well
as from memory, it is easy to ascertain how quickly
and how soon the children catch up artificial attitudes
of elders, becoming little prigs, moralists, and snobs.
Among peasants, conditions are quite different. The
children are instructed in sexual matters at an early
age : they cannot help seeing sexual performances
of their parents and other relatives ; they listen to
quarrels in which whole lists of sexual obscenities
and technicalities are recited. They have to deal with
domestic animals, whose propagation in all its details
is a matter of great concern to the whole household
and is freely and minutely discussed. Since they
are deeply steeped in things natural, they feel less
incUned to amuse themselves by doing in a clandestine
manner that which in many ways they can do and
enjoy openly. The children of the working classes
THE FORMATION OF A COMPLEX 53
stand perhaps midway between the two extremes.
Hardly in contact with animals, they receive, on the
other hand, an even greater amount of bedroom
demonstration and public-house instruction.
What is the result of these essential differences
between well-to-do and proletarian children ? First
of all, the ' indecency ' which among bourgeois children
is fostered by the repression of the natural curiosities is
much less pronounced in the lower classes, and comes
up only later where indecency is already associated
with ideas of genital sexuality. In the higher classes,
when the curiosity about indecencies has played
itself out, and with the leaving of the nursery new
interests in life crop up, the period of latency now
sets in and these new interests absorb the child,
while the absence of knowledge which is usual among
children of the educated prevents the genital interest
setting in so early.
In the lower classes this knowledge and early
curiosity in genital matters are present at the same
time and establish a continuity, a steady development
from the early period to that of full sexual puberty.
The nature of social influences collaborates with these
facts to produce a much greater breach of continuity
in the life of a well-to-do child. While his whole
life up to the age of six v;as devoted to amusement,
he has now suddenly to learn and to do school-work.
The peasant child had already previously been helping
54 SEX AND REPRESSION
with the cooking or looking after the younger children,
or running after the geese and sheep. At this time,
there is no breach of continuity in his Ufe.
Thus, while the early childish interest in the indecent
awakens earUer and in another form in the peasant
and proletarian child, it is less clandestine, less
associated with guilt, hence less immoral, less * anal-
erotic ' and more attached to sex. It passes more
easily and with more continuity into early sexual
play, and the period of latency is almost completely
absent or, at any rate, much less pronounced. This
explains why psycho-analysis, which deals with neurotic
well-to-do people, has led to the discovery of this period,
while the general medical observations of Dr. Moll did
not detect it.
But if there could be any doubt about the facts
of this difference between the classes and about its
cause, such doubt should disappear when we turn
to Melanesia. Here certainly the facts are different
from those found among our educated classes. As
we saw in Chapter V, the early sexual indecencies,
clandestine games and interests are absent. In fact,
it might be said that for these children the categories
of decent-indecent, pure-impure, do not exist. The
same reasons which make this distinction weaker
and less important among our peasants than among
our bourgeois act even more strongly and directly
among the Melanesians. In Melanesia there is no
THE FORMATION OF A COMPLEX 55
taboo on sex in general ; there is no putting of any
veils on natural functions, certainly not in the case of
a child. When we consider that these children
run about naked, that their excretory functions
are treated openly and naturally, that there is no
general taboo on bodily parts or on nakedness in
general ; when we further consider that small children
at the age of three and four are beginning to be aware
of the existence of such a thing as genital sexuality,
and of the fact that this will be their pleasure quite
soon just as other infantile plays will be — ^we can see
that social factors rather than biological explain the
difference between the two societies.
The stage which I am now describing in Melanesia —
that which corresponds to our latency period — is the
stage of infantile independence, where small boys
and girls play together in a sort of juvenile republic.
Now, one of the main interests of these children
consists of sexual pastijnes. At an early age children
are initiated by each other, or sometimes by a slightly
older companion, into the practices of sex. Naturally
at this stage they are unable to carry out the act
properly, but they content themselves with all sorts
of games in which they are left quite at liberty by their
elders, and thus they can satisfy their curiosity and
their sensuality directly and without disguise.
There can be no doubt that the dominating interest
of such games is what Freud would call 'genital',
56 SEX AND REPRESSION
that they are largely determined by the desire to
imitate the acts and interests of elder children and
elders, and that this period is one which is almost
completely absent from the life of better-class children
in Europe, and which exists only to a small degree
among peasants and proletarians. When speaking
of these amusements of the children, the natives will
frequently allude to them as ' copulation amusement '
{mwaygini kwayta). Or else it is said that they
are playing at marriage.
It must not be imagined that all games are sexual.
Many do not lend themselves at all to it. But there
are some particular pastimes of small children in which
sex plays the predominant part. Melanesian children
are fond of ' playing husband and wife.' A boy
and girl build a little shelter and call it their home ;
there they pretend to assume the functions of husband
and wife, and amongst those of course the most
important one of sexual intercourse. At other times,
a group of children will go for a picnic where the
entertainment consists of eating, fighting, and making
love. Or they will carry out a mimic ceremonial
trade exchange, ending up with sexual activities.
Crude sensual pleasure alone does not seem to satisfy
them ; in such more elaborate games it must be
blended with some imaginative and romantic interest.
A very important point about this infantile sexuality
is the attitude of the elder generation towards it.
THE FORMATION OF A COMPLEX 57
As I have said, the parents do not look upon it as in
the least reprehensible. Generally they take it
entirely for granted. The most they will do is to
speak jestingly about it to one another, discussing
the love tragedies and comedies of the child world.
Never would they dream of interfering or frowning
disapproval, provided the children show a due amount
of discretion, that is, do not perform their amorous
games in the house, but go away somewhere apart
in the bush.
But above all the children are left entirely to them-
selves in their love affairs. Not only is there no
parental interference, but rarely, if ever, does it come
about that a man or a woman take a perverse sexual
interest in children, and certainly they would never
be seen to mix themselves up in the games in this
role. Violation of children is imknown, and a
person who played sexually with a child would be
thought ridiculous and disgusting.
An extremely important feature in the sexual
relations of children is the brother and sister taboo,
already mentioned. From an early age, when the girl
first puts on her grass petticoat, brothers and sisters
of the same mother must be separated from each
other, in obedience to the strict taboo which enjoins
that there shall be no intimate relations between them.
Even earlier, when they first can move about and walk,
they play in different groups. Later on they never
58 SEX AND REPRESSION
consort together socially on a free footing, and above
all there must never be the sUghtest suspicion of an
interest of one of them in the love affairs of the other.
Although there is comparative freedom in pla5dng
and language between children, not even quite a small
boy would associate sex with his sisters, still less make
any sexual allusion or joke in their presence. This
continues right through Hfe, and it is the highest degree
of bad form to speak to a brother about his sister's
love affairs, or vice versa. The imposition of this
taboo leads to an early breaking up of family hfe,
since the boys and girls, in order to avoid each other,
must leave the parental home and go elsewhere.
With all this, we can perceive the enormous difference
which obtains in the juvenile sexuality at this
stage of later childhood between ourselves and the
Melanesians. While amongst ourselves, in the educated
classes, there is at this time a break of sexuality
and a period of latency with amnesia, in Melanesia
the extremely early beginning of genital interest
leads to a type of sexuaUty entirely unknown among
us. From this time, the sexuality of the Melanesians
will continuously though gradually develop, till it
reaches puberty. On the condition that one taboo is
respected in the strictest and most complete manner,
society gives complete free play to juvenile sexuahty.
VIII
PUBERTY
A T an age varjdng with climate and race and
stretching from about the ninth to the fifteenth
year, the child enters upon the age of puberty. For
puberty is not a moment or a turning point but a more
or less prolonged period of development during which
the sexual apparatus, the whole system of internal
secretions and the organism in general are entirely
recast. We cannot consider puberty as a conditio sine
qua non of sexual interest or even of sexual activities,
since non-nubile girls can copulate and immature boys
are known to have erections and to practise immissio
penis. But undoubtedly the age of puberty must be
regarded as the most important landmark in the sexual
history of the individual.
Sex is, moreover, so intimately bound up at this stage
with the other aspects of life that in this chapter we
shall treat sexual and social matters together and not
divide them as we did in the case of the two previous
stages. In comparing here the Trobrianders of
Melanesia with our own society, it is important to
note that these savages have no initiation rites at
puberty. While this will remove one item of extreme
59
6o SEX AND REPRESSION
importance from our discussion, it will allow us on
the other hand to draw the comparison between
patriliny and matriliny more clearly and closely,
since in most other savage societies initiation
ceremonies completely mask or modify this period.
In our own society, we have to speak separately
of the boy and of the girl, for at this point the two
part company completely in sexual matters. In
a man's life, puberty means the acquisition of full
mental powers as well as bodily maturity and the
final formation of the sexual characters. With his
new manliness his whole relation to life in general
changes as deeply as his relation to sexual matters
and to his position in the family. Beginning with this
last, we can observe an extremely interesting
phenomenon which greatly affects his attitude to his
mother, sister, or other female relatives. The typical
adolescent bo}'' of our civiHzed communities begins
to show at the time of puberty an extreme embarrass-
ment towards his mother, affects scorn and a certain
brutality towards his sisters and is ashamed before
his comrades of all his female relatives. Who of us
does not remember the pangs of ineffable shame
when, jauntily going along with our school fellows,
we met suddenly our mother, our aunt, our sister,
or even our girl cousin and were obliged to greet
her. There was a feeling of intense guilt, of being
caught in flagrante delicto. Some boys tried to ignore
THE FORMATION OF A COMPLEX 6i
the embarrassing encounter, others more brave blushed
crimson and saluted, but everyone felt that it was a
shadow on his social position, an outrage on his
manliness and independence. Without entering into
the psychology of this phenomenon, we can see that
the shame and confusion felt here is of the same type
as that associated with any breach of good manners.
This newly acquired manliness affects deeply the
boy's attitude towards the world, his whole Weltan-
schauung. He begins to have his independent opinions,
his personality and his own honour, to maintain his
position towards authority and intellectual leadership.
This is a new stage in the relation between father
and son, another reckoning up and a new testing
of the father ideal. At this point it succumbs if the
father is found out to be a fool or a ' bounder ', to be
a hypocrite or an ' old fogey '. He is usually disposed
of for life, and in any case loses the chance of effectively
influencing the boy even if in later life the two should
come together again. If on the other hand the father
can stand the extremely severe scrutiny of this epoch
there is a great chance of his surviving as an ideal
for life. The reverse is also true, of course, for the
father as well keenly examines his son at this epoch,
and is equally critical as to whether the boy comes up
to his own ideal of what his future successor should be.
The new attitude towards sex, the recrystallization at
puberty, exerts a great influence on the boy's attitude
62 SEX AND REPRESSION
not only to his father, but to his mother as well.
The educated boy only now fully realizes the biological
nature of the bond between his parents and himself.
If he deeply loves and worships his mother, as is
usually the case, and if he can continue to ideaUze
his father, then the idea of his bodily origin from his
parent's sexual intercourse, though at first making
a rift in his mental world, can be dealt with. If on
the other hand he scorns and hates his father, be it
unavowedly as so often happens, the idea brings
about a permanent defilement of the mother and
a besmirching of things most dear to him.
The new manhood influences above all the boy's
sexual outlook. Mentally he is ready for knowledge,
physiologically ready for applying it in Hfe. Usually
he receives his first lessons in sex at this time, and in
some form or other starts sexual activities, not so
often, probably, in the normal, regular manner, but
frequently through masturbation or nocturnal
pollutions. This epoch is in many respects the
dividing of the roads for the boy. Either the
newly awakened sex impulse, appeaUng to a
strong temperament and to easy morals, absorbs
him completely, carries him off his feet once for
ever in a wave of over-mastering sensuality ; or
else other interests and moraUty are strong enough
to stave it off partially or even completely. As
long as he preserves an ideal of chastity and is able
THE FORMATION OF A COMPLEX 63
to fight for it, the leverage, is there for the lifting
of the sexual impulses to a higher level. In this,
of course, the temptations are largely determined
by the social setting and the mode of life of the boy.
The racial characteristics of a commimity, its code of
morals and its cultural values establish great differences
within European civilization. In certain classes of
some countries, it is usual for the boy to succumb
to the disintegrating forces of easy sexuahty. In
others, he can take his chance. In others, again,
society relieves him of a great deal of responsibility
by la5dng down rules of stem morality.
In his relations to persons of the other sex, there
appears at first something parallel to his attitude
towards mother and sister ; a certain embarrassment,
and polarity of attraction and repulsion. The woman
who, he feels, can exercise a deep influence on him alarms
him and fills him with suspicion. He senses in her a
danger to his awakening independence and manliness.
At this stage also the new fusion of tenderness with
sexuaUty which comes about towards the end of
puberty mixes up infantile memories of maternal
tenderness with the new elements of sexuaUty.
Imagination and especially dream fantasies bring
about horrible confusion and play strange tricks
on the boy's mind.^
^ This conception is more fully elaborated below. Part IV,
Chapter IX.
64 SEX AND REPRESSION
All this refers more especially to the boy belonging
to the higher, well-to-do classes. If we compare the
peasant or proletarian youth with him, we see that
the essential elements are the same, though there is
perhaps less individual variation and the general
picture is more sober.
Thus there is also a period of affective crudeness
towards mother and sister which is especially notice-
able in a young peasant. The quarrels with the
father crop up as a rule with an increased violence
now that the boy realizes his own forces and his own
position as a successor, now that he feels a new greed
for possession and a new ambition for influence.
Often a regular fight for supremacy begins at this time.
In sexual matters there is not as violent a crisis and
this reacts less directly on the parental relation.
But the main outlines are the same.
The girl of the educated classes goes through a
crisis at her first menstruation which, while it
encroaches on liberty and compUcates hfe, adds to
its mysterious attraction and is usually eagerly awaited.
But puberty is less of a turning point socially to a girl ;
she continues to live at home or to carry on her
education at a boarding school, but all her occupations
and her training are in harmony with ordinary family
life — not taking the modern, professional girl into
account. Her aim in life is to await marriage. One
important element in her relation to the family is the
THE FORMATION OF A COMPLEX 65
rivalry between mother and daughter which often sets
in at this time. How often it makes its appearance
in a decided, undisguised form ^ is hard to say, but
there can be no doubt that it introduces a distorted
element into the typical relations of the ordinary
family. At this time, also, and not earlier, there
enters a special tenderness into the relations between
father and daughter, which not infrequently becomes
correlated with the maternal rivalry. This is the
configuration of the Electra complex; it is therefore
of an entirely different nature from the Oedipus
complex. Putting on one side the greater hysterical
tendency of women, for here we are concerned with
the ground work of normality, the Electra complex
is less frequent and has less social importance as well
as a smaller influence on Western culture. On the
other hand, its influence makes itself more frequently
felt and the father-daughter incest seems to be
incomparably more frequent in real occurrence than
that between mother and son, for various reasons
of a biological and sociological nature. Since, however,
our interest in this discussion is mainly in the cultural
and social influence of the complexes, we cannot
follow the parallel between the Oedipus and Electra
complexes in detail. Nor can we enter into a com-
parison between the higher classes, where the
^ Such as we find it so powerfully described for instance in the
very instructive novel of Maupassant, Fort comme la Mort.
r
66 SEX AND REPRESSION
repressions are stronger, where there is more hysteria
but fewer cases of actual incest occur, and the lower
classes, where, since the girl's sex interest is frequently
engaged earlier and more normally, she is less liable
to hysterical distortions, but suffers more frequently
from persecution by the father.^
Let us now turn to the Trobriand Islands. Puberty
begins there earlier than with us, but at the same
time, when it sets in boys and girls have already
begun their sexual activities. In the social life of the
individual^ puberty does not constitute a sharp
turning point as in those savage communities where
initiation ceremonies exist. Gradually, as he passes
to manhood, the boy begins to take a more active
part in economic pursuits and tribal occupations,
he is considered a young man (ulatile) , and by the end
of puberty he is a full member of the tribe, ready to
marry and carry on all his duties as well as to enjoy
his privileges. The girl, who at the beginning of
puberty acquires more freedom and independence
from her family, has also to do more work, amuse
herself more intensely, and carry on such duties.
^ Among peasants, the attempts of father on daughter are very
frequent. This seems especially to be the case among the Latin
races. I have been told that in Rumania the occurrence of this
type of incest is very common among peasants, and so it seems to
be in Italy. In the Canary Islands, I know myself of a few cases of
father and daughter committing incest, not in a clandestine manner,
but living openly in a shameless menage and rearing their children.
THE FORMATION OF A COMPLEX 67
ceremonial, economic, and legal, as are entailed by
full womanhood.
But the most important change, and the one which
interests us most, is the partial break-up of the family
at the time when the adolescent boys and girls cease
to be permanent inmates of the parental home. For
brothers and sisters, whose avoidance has begun
long before in childhood, must now keep an extremely
strict taboo, so that any possibility of contact while
engaged in sexual pursuits must be eliminated. This
danger is obviated by a special institution, the
bukumatula. This name is given to special houses
inhabited by groups of adolescent boys and girls.
A boy as he reaches puberty will join such a house,
which is owned by some mature youth or young
widower and tenanted by a number of youths, from
three to six, who are there joined by their sweethearts.^
Thus the parental home is drained completely of its
adolescent males, though until the boy's marriage
he will always come back for food, and will also
continue to work for his household to some extent.
A girl, on the rare nights of chastity when she is not
engaged in one bukumatula or another, may return
to sleep at home.
What is the attitude towards mother, father,
^ For a detailed description and analysis of this remarkable
institution, as close a mimicry of group -marriage as we have on
record, compare the author's forthcoming Sexual Life of Savages.
68 SEX AND REPRESSION
sister or brother into which the sentiments of the
Melanesian boy and girl crystalUze at this important
epoch ? As with a modern European boy and girl,
we see that at this period there is only a final cast,
a consolidation of what has been in gradual formation
during the previous stages of life. The mother,
from whom the child has been weaned — in the widest
sense of the word — remains still the pivotal point
of all kinship and relationship for the rest of life.
The boy's status in society, his duties and privileges,
are determined with regard to her and her relatives.
If no one else is there to provide for her, he will have to
do it, while her house will always be his second
home. Affection and attachment, prescribed by social
obligations, remain also deeply founded in real senti-
ment, and when an adult man dies or suffers mishap,
his mother will be the one to sorrow and her waihng
will last longest and be most sincere. Yet there is
little of the personal friendship, the mutual confidences
and intimacy which is so characteristic of the mother-
to-son relationship in our society. The detachment
from the mother, carried out as we have seen at every
stage more easily and more thoroughly than with us,
with fewer premature wrenches and violent
suppressions, is achieved in a more complete and
harmonious manner.
The father at this time suffers a temporary eclipse.
The boy, who as a child was fairly independent and
THE FORMATION OF A COMPLEX 69
became the member of the small, juvenile republic,
gains now on the one hand the additional freedom of
the hukumatula, while on the other he becomes much
more restricted by his various duties towards his
kada (maternal uncle). He has less time and less
interest left for the father. Later on, when friction
with the maternal uncle makes its appearance, he
turns, as a rule, to his father once more, and their
life friendship then becomes settled. At this stage,
however, when the adolescent has to learn his duties,
to be instructed in traditions and to study his magic,
his arts and crafts, his interest in his mother's brother,
who is his teacher and tutor, is greatest and their
relations are at their best.^
There is one more important difference between
the Melanesian boy's feeling for his parents and that
of the educated boy in our own society. With us,
when at puberty and with social initiation the new
fiery vision opens before the youth, its glare throws
a strange shadow on his previous warm feelings for
mother and father. His own sexuality estranges
him from his progenitors, embarrasses their relations
and creates deep complications. Not so in the
^ The relation between these three, the young man, his father and
his mother's brother, are in reality somewhat more complicated
than I have been able to show here, and present an interesting picture
of the play and clash of the incompatible principles of kinship and
authority. This subject will be discussed in a forthcoming book
on kinship. Compare also Crime and Custom, 1926.
70 SEX AND REPRESSION
matrilineal society. The absence of the early
indecency period and of the first struggles against
parental authority ; the gradual and open taking-up
of sex ever since it first began to stir in the young
blood ; above all the attitude of benevolent onlookers
which the parents take towards the sexuality of
their young ; the fact of the mother's withdrawing
completely but gradually from the boy's passionate
feeUngs ; the father smiling his approval — all this
brings about the fact that the intensification of
sexuality at puberty exercises no direct influence
upon the relation to the parents.
One relation, that between brother and sister,
is, however, deeply affected by every increase of
sexuahty — especially at puberty. This taboo, which
extends to all free association and excludes the motive
of sex completely from the relations of the two, affects
the sexual outlook of both in general. For in the first
place it must be kept in mind that this taboo is the
great sexual barrier in a man's life, beyond which it
is illicit to trespass, and that it constitutes also
the most important general moral rule. The pro-
hibition, moreover, which starts in childhood with
the separation of brothers and sisters and of which
this separation always remains the main point, extends
also to all other females of the same clan. Thus the
sexual world is for the boy divided into two moieties :
one of these, embracing the women of his own clan,
THE FORMATION OF A COMPLEX 71
is prohibited to him ; the other, to which women
of the remaining three clans belong, is lawful.
Let us compare now the brother-sister relation in
Melanesia and Europe. With us, the intimacy of
childhood gradually cools off and changes into a
somewhat constrained relation, in which the sister
is naturally but not completely divided from her
brother by social, psychological and biological factors.
In Melanesia, as soon as any intimacy in play or in
childish confidences might spring up, the strict taboo
sets in. The sister remains a mysterious being,
always near yet never intimate, divided by the
invisible yet all powerful wall of traditional command
which gradually changes into a moral and personal
imperative. The sister remains the only spot on the
sexual horizon permanently hidden. Any natural
impulses of infantile tenderness are as systematically
repressed from the outset as other natural impulses
are in our children, and the sister becomes thus
' indecent ' as an object of thought, interest and
feeling, just as the forbidden things do for our children.
Later on, as the personal experiences in sexuaHty
develop, the veil of reserve separating the two thickens.
Though they have constantly to avoid each other,
yet, owing to the fact that he is the provider of her
household, they must constantly keep one another
in thought and attention. Such artificial and
premature repression must have its results. The
72 SEX AND REPRESSION
psychologists of the Freudian school could easily
foretell them.-
In all this I have spoken almost exclusively from
the point of view of the boy. What is the configura-
tion of the Melanesian girl's attitude to her family
as it crystallizes at puberty ? Roughly speaking,
her attitude does not differ so much from that of
her European counterpart as is the case with the
boy. Just because of the brother and sister taboo,
the Trobriand matriarchy touches the girl less than
the boy. For, since her brother is strictly forbidden
to take any interest in her sexual affairs, including
her marriage, and her mother's brother has also to
keep aloof from these matters, it is, strangely enough,
her father who is her guardian as regards matrimonial
arrangements. So that between father and daughter
not quite an identical, but a very similar relation exists
as with us. For among ourselves the friction between
the female child and her father is normally small,
and thus the relation approaches nearer to that
found in the Trobriands between father and child.
There, on the other hand, the intimacy between a
grown-up man and an adolescent girl, who, be it
remembered, is not considered his kinswoman, is
fraught with some temptation. This is not lessened
but increased by the fact that though the daughter
is not actually tabooed by the laws of exogamy,
yet sexual intercourse between the two is considered
THE FORMATION OF A COMPLEX 73
in the highest degree reprehensible, though it is never
given the name of suvasova, which means breach
of exogamy. The reason for this prohibition between
father and daughter is, of course, simply that it is
wrong to have sexual intercourse with the daughter
of the woman with whom you co-habit. We shall
not be astonished when later, as we trace the influence
of the typical attitudes between members of the
family, we shall find that father-daughter incest
happens in reahty, though it hardly could be called
an obsession, nor has it any echo in folk-lore.
With regard to her mother, the general course of
the relation is more natural than that in Europe,
though not essentially different. One point of
difference there is : namely, that the exodus of the
girl at puberty from the parental home and her
numerous outside sex interests normally prevent
the development of mother-daughter rivalries and
jealousies, though they do not always preclude the
occurrence of father-daughter incest. Thus, with the
exception of her attitude to the brother, broadly
speaking, sentiments similar to those in Europe are
to be found in a Melanesian girl.
IX
THE COMPLEX OF MOTHER-RIGHT
T T 7E have been comparing the two civilizations, the
European and the Melanesian, and we have
seen that there exist deep differences, some of the
forces by which society moulds man's biological nature
being essentially dissimilar. Though in each there
is a certain latitude given to sexual freedom, and a
certain amount of interference with and regulation of
the sex instinct, yet in each the incidence of the
taboo and the play of sexual liberty within its
prescribed bounds are entirely different. There is
also a quite dissimilar distribution of authority within
the family, and correlated with it a different mode
of counting kinship. We have followed in both
societies the growth of the average boy or girl
under these divergent tribal laws and customs. We
have found that at almost every step there are great
differences due to the interplay between biological
impulse and social rule which sometimes harmonize,
sometimes conflict, sometimes lead to a short bliss,
sometimes to an inequilibrium fraught, however,
with possibilities for a future development. At the
final stage of the child's life-history, after it has
reached maturity, we have seen its feelings crystallize
74
THE FORMATION OF A COMPLEX 75
into a system of sentiments towards the mother,
father, brother, sister, and in the Trobriands, the
maternal uncle, a system which is typical of each
society, and which, in order to adapt ourselves to
psycho-analytic terminology, we called the 'Family
Complex' or the 'nuclear complex'.
Now allow me to restate briefly the main features
of these two ' complexes '. The Oedipus complex, the
system of attitudes typical of our patriarchal society,
is formed in early infancy, partly during the transition
between the first and second stages of childhood,
partly in the course of the latter. So that, towards
its end, when the boy is about five or six years old,
his attitudes are well formed, though perhaps not
finally settled. And these attitudes comprise already
a number of elements of hate and suppressed desire.
In this, I think, our results do not differ to any extent
from those of psycho-analysis.^
In the matrilineal society at that stage, though
the child has developed very definite sentiments
towards its father and mother, nothing suppressed,
nothing negative, no frustrated desire forms a part of
them. Whence arises this difference ? As we saw, the
social arrangements of the Trobriand matriliny are in
almost complete harmony with the biological course of
^ I have come to realize since the above was written that no
orthodox or semi-orthodox psycho-analyst would accept my state-
ment of the ' complex ', or of any aspect of the doctrine.
76 SEX AND REPRESSION
development, while the institution of father -right found
in our society crosses and represses a number of natural
impulses and inclinations. To trace it more in detail,
there is the passionate attachment to the mother,
the bodily desire to cling close to her, which in
patriarchal institutions is in one way or another
broken or interfered with ; the influence of our
morality, which condemns sexuality in children;
the brutality of the father, especially in the lower
strata, the atmosphere of his exclusive right to mother
and child acting subtly but strongly in the higher
strata, the fear felt by the wife of displeasing her
husband — all these influences force apart parents and
children. Even where the rivalry between father
and child for the mother's personal attention is reduced
to a minimum, or to naught, there comes, in the second
period, a distinct clash of social interests between
father and child. The child is an encumbrance
and an obstacle to the parental freedom, a reminder
of age and decUne and, if it is a son, often the menace
of a future social rivalry. Thus, over and above
the clash of sensuality, there is ample room for
social friction between father and child. I say
advisedly 'child' and not 'boy', for, according
to our results, the sex difference between the children
does not play any great part at this stage, nor has a
closer relation between father and daughter as yet
made its appearance.
THE FORMATION OF A COMPLEX ^^
All these forces and influences are absent from
the matrilineal society of the Trobriands. First of
all — and that has, hien entendu, nothing to do with
matriliny — there is no condemnation of sex or of
sensuality as such, above all, no moral horror at the
idea of infantile sexuality. The sensuous clinging
of the child to his mother is allowed to take its natural
course till it plays itself out and is diverted by other
bodily interests. The attitude of the father to the
child during these two early periods is that of a near
friend and helper. At the time when our father makes
himself pleasant at best by his entire absence from
the nursery, the Trobriand father is first a nurse
and then a companion.
The development of pre-sexual life at this stage
also differs in Europe and Melanesia ; the repressions
of the nursery among us, especially in the higher
classes, develop a tendency towards clandestine
inquisitions into indecent things, especially excretory
functions and organs. Among the savages we find
no such period. Now this infantile pre-genital
indecency establishes distinctions between the decent-
indecent, the pure-impure, and the indecent, parent-
proof compartment reinforces and gives additional
depth to the taboo which is suddenly cast over certain
relations to the mother, that is to the premature
banishment from her bed and bodily embraces.
So that here also the complications of our society
78 SEX AND REPRESSION
are not shared by the children in the Trobriands.
At the next stage of sexuality we find a no less relevant
difference. In Europe there is a latency period
more or less pronounced, which implies a breach of
continuity in the sexual development and, according
to Freud, serves to reinforce many of our repressions
and the general amnesia, and to create many dangers
in the normal development of sex. On the other hand,
it also represents the triumph of other cultural and
social interests over sexuahty. Among the savages
at this stage, sex in an early genital form — a form
almost unknown among ourselves — establishes itself
foremost among the child's interests, never to be
dislodged again. This, while in many respects it is
culturally destructive, helps the gradual and
harmonious weaning of the child from the family
influences.
With this we have entered already into the second
half of the child's development, for the period of
sexual latency in our society belongs to this part.
When we consider these two later stages which form
the second half of the development, we find another
profound difference. With us during this early period
of puberty, the Oedipus complex, the attitudes of the
boy towards his parents, only soUdify and crystallize.
In Melanesia, on the other hand, it is mainly
during this second epoch, in fact almost exclusively
then, that any complex is formed. For only at this
THE FORMATION OF A COMPLEX 79
period is the child submitted to the system of repressions
and taboos which begin to mould his nature. To
these forces he responds, partly by adaptation, partly
by developing more or less repressed antagonisms
and desires, for human nature is not only malleable
but also elastic.
The repressing and moulding forces in Melanesia
are twofold — the submission to matriarchal tribal
law, and the prohibitions of exogamy. The first is
brought about by the influence of the mother's brother,
who, in appeahng to the child's sense of honour,
pride and ambition, comes to stand to him in a relation
in many respects analogous to that of the father among
us. On the other hand, both the efforts which he
demands and the livalry between successor and
succeeded introduce the negative elements of jealousy
and resentment. Thus an 'ambivalent' attitude is
formed in which veneration assumes the acknowledged
dominant place, while a repressed hatred manifests
itself only indirectly.
The second taboo, the prohibition of incest, surrounds
the sister, and to a lesser degree other female relatives
on the maternal side, as well as clanswomen, with a veil
of sexual mystery. Of all this class of women, the sister
is the representative to whom the taboo applies most
stringently. We noted that this severing taboo,
entering the boy's life in infancy, cuts short the
incipient tenderness towards his sister which is the
8o SEX AND REPRESSION
natural impulse of a child. This taboo also, since it
makes even an accidental contact in sexual
matters a crime, causes the thought of the
sister to be always present, as well as consistently
repressed.
Comparing the two systems of family attitudes
briefly, we see that in a patriarchal society, the infantile
rivalries and the later social functions introduce into
the attitude of father and son, besides mutual attach-
ment, also a certain amount of resentment and dislike.
Petween mother and son, on the other hand, the
premature separation in infancy leaves a deep,
unsatisfied craving which, later on, when sexual
interests come in, is mixed up in memory with the
new bodily longings, and assumes often an erotic
character which comes up in dreams and other
fantasies. In the Trobriands there is no friction
between father and son, and all the infantile craving
of the child for its mother is allowed gradually to
spend itself in a natural, spontaneous manner. The
ambivalent attitude of veneration and dislike is felt
between a man and his mother's brother, while the
repressed sexual attitude of incestuous temptation
can be formed only towards his sister. Applying to
each society a terse, though somewhat crude formula,
we might say that in the Oedipus complex there is
the repressed desire to kill the father and marry the
mother, while in the matrilineal society of the
THE FORMATION OF A COMPLEX 8i
Trobriands the wish is to marry the sister and to
kill the maternal uncle.
With this, we have summarized the results of our
detailed inquiry, and given an answer to the first
problem set out at the beginning, that is, we have
studied the variation of the nuclear complex with
the constitution of the family, and we have shown
in what manner the complex depends upon some of
the features of family life and sexual morals.
We are indebted to psycho-analysis for the discovery
that there exists a typical configuration of sentiments
in our society, and for a partial explanation, mainly
concerned with sex, as to why such a complex must
exist. In the foregoing pages we were able to give
an outline of the nuclear complex of another society, a
matriUneal one, where it has never been studied before.
We found that this complex differs essentially from the
patriarchal one, and we have shown why it must
differ and what social forces bring it about. We have
drawn our comparison on the broadest basis, and,
without neglecting sexual factors, we have also system-
atically drawn in the other elements. The result
is important, for, so far, it has never been suspected
that another type of nuclear complex might be in
existence. By my analysis, I have established that
Freud's theories not only roughly correspond to human
psychology, but that they follow closely the modifica-
tion in human nature brought about by various
82 SEX AND REPRESSION
constitutions of society. In other words, I have
established a deep correlation between the type of
society and the nuclear complex found there. While
this is in a sense a confirmation of the main tenet of
Freudian psychology, it might compel us to modify
certain of its features, or rather to make some of its
formulae more elastic. To put it concretely, it appears
necessary to draw in more systematically the correla-
tion between biological and social influences ; not
to assume the universal existence of the Oedipus
complex, but in studying every type of civilization,
to establish the special complex which pertains to it.
PART II
THE MIRROR OF TRADITION
I
COMPLEX AND MYTH IN MOTHER-RIGHT
TT now rerpains to proceed to the study of the second
problem posed in the first part of this volume ; that
is to investigate whether the matriHneal complex,
so entirely different in its genesis and its character
from the Oedipus complex, exercises also a different
influence on tradition and social organization ; and to
show that in the social life, as well as in the folk-lore, of
these natives their specific repressions manifest them-
selves unmistakably. Whenever the passions, kept
normally within traditional bounds by rigid taboos,
customs and legal penalties, break through in crime,
perversion, aberration, or in one of those dramatic
occurrences which shake from time to time the hum-
drum life of a savage community — then these passions
reveal the matriarchal hatred of the maternal uncle
or the incestuous wishes towards the sister. The
folk-lore of these Melanesians also mirrors the
matrilineal complex. The examination of myth,
fairy tales and legend, as well as of magic, will show
83
84 SEX AND REPRESSION
that the repressed hatred of the maternal uncle,
ordinarily masked by conventional reverence and
solidarity, breaks through in those narratives con-
structed on the model of the day -dream and dictated
by repressed longings.
Especially interesting is the magic of love of these
natives and the mythology connected with it. All
sexual attraction, all power of seduction is believed
to reside in the magic of love. This magic again the
natives regard as founded in a dramatic occurrence
of the past, narrated in a strange tragic myth of
brother and sister incest. Thus the position established
by the description of social relations within the family,
and by an analysis of kinship, can also be independently
demonstrated by the study of the culture of these
Melanesian natives.
II
DISEASE AND PERVERSION
nnHE evidence adduced in this part of the essay is
not quite homogeneous. While on some points
I have had full information, I shall have to confess
my ignorance or only incomplete knowledge in others,
and there I shaU indicate the problem rather than
solve it. This is due partly to my lack of expert
knowledge of mental disease, partly to my having
found it impossible to psycho-analyze the natives by
the orthodox technique; partly to an unavoidable
unevenness in the material, especially that which
I collected among other tribes where I resided for a
much shorter time and worked under less favourable
conditions than in the Trobriands,
I shall start with the weakest items in my repertoire.
Here comes first the question of neurosis and mental
disease. We have seen in the comparative account of
the child's development among ourselves and in the
Trobriands that the matrilineal complex is formed
later in the life of a child, that it is formed outside
the intimacy of the family circle, that it entails fewer
shocks, if any, that it is due mainly to the play of
rivalry, while its erotic thwartings do not go to the
85
86 SEX AND REPRESSION
roots of infantile sexuality. Since this is so, the
Freudian theory of neurosis would lead us to
expect a much smaller prevalence of those neuroses
(ilbertragungsneurosen) due to the traumas of child-
hood. It is a great pity that a competent alienist
has not been able to examine the Trobrianders under
the same conditions as myself, for I think he could
throw some interesting sidelights upon the assumptions
of psycho-analysis.
When studying the Trobrianders, it would be futile
for an ethnographer to compare them with Europeans,
for with us there are innumerable other factors which
complicate the picture and contribute to the formation
of mental disease. But some thirty miles south of the
Trobriands there are the Amphlett Islands, inhabited
by people essentially similar in race, custom, and
language, but who differ, however, very much in social
organization, have strict sexual morals, that is, regard
pre-nuptial sexual intercourse with disapproval and
have no institutions to support sexual license,
while their family life is much more closely knit.
Though matrilineal, they have a much more developed
patriarchal authority, and this, combined with the
sexual repressiveness, establishes a picture of child-
hood more similar to our own.^
1 For a description of some customs and features of the culture
of the natives of the Amphlett Island, see the author's Argonauts
of the Western Pacific, chap. xi.
THE MIRROR OF TRADITION 87
Now even with my own limited knowledge of the
subject, I received quite a different impression of the
neurotic dispositions of these natives. In the
Trobriands, though I knew scores of natives intimately
and had a nodding acquaintance with many more, I
could not name a single man or woman who was
hysterical or even neurasthenic. Nervous tics, com-
pulsory actions or obsessive ideas were not to be
found. In the system of native pathology, based, of
course, on belief in black magic, but reasonably true to
the symptoms of disease, there are two categories of
mental disorder — nagowa, which corresponds to
cretinism, idiocy, and is also given to people who have
a defect of speech ; and gwayluwa, which corresponds
roughly to mania, and comprises those who from time
to time break out into acts of violence and deranged
behaviour. The natives of the Trobriands know well
and recognize that in the neighbouring islands of the
Amphletts and d'Entrecasteaux there are other types
of black magic which can produce effects on the mind
different from those known to themselves, of which
the symptoms are according to their accounts com-
pulsory actions, nervous tics and various forms of
obsession. And during my few months' stay in the
Amphletts, my first and strongest impression was
that this was a community of neurasthenics. Coming
from the open, gay, hearty and accessible Trobrianders,
it was astonishing to find oneself among a community
88 SEX AND REPRESSION
of people distrustful of the newcomer, impatient in
work, arrogant in their claims, though easily cowed
and extremely nervous when tackled more energetic-
ally. The women ran away as I landed in their villages
and kept in hiding the whole of my stay, with the
exception of a few old hags. Apart from this general
picture,, I at once found a number of people affected
with nervousness whom I could not use as informants,
because they would either lie in some sort of fear,
or else become excited and offended over any more
detailed questioning. It is characteristic that in the
Trobriands even the spiritualistic mediums are poseurs
rather than abnormal people. And while in the
Trobriands black magic is practised in a ' scientific '
manner by men, that is by methods which present small
claim to the supernatural, in the islands of the south
there are ' flying wizards ' who practise the magic
which in other parts belongs only to semi-fabulous
witches, and who make at first sight a quite abnormal
mpression.
In another community among whom I served my
ethnographic apprenticeship, and whom I therefore
did not study with the same methods or come to know
as intimately as I did the Trobrianders, the conditions
are even more repressive than in the Amphlett Islands.
The Mailu, inhabiting a portion of the south coast of
New Guinea, are patriUneal, have a pronounced paternal
authority in the family, and a fairly strict code of
THE MIRROR OF TRADITION 89
repressive sexual morals. ^ Among these natives, I had
noted a number of people whom I had classed as
neurasthenics, and therefore useless as ethnographic
informants.
But aU these tentative remarks, though they are not
sheer guesses, are intended only to raise the problem,
and to indicate what the solution would most probably
be. The problem would therefore be : to study a
number of matrilineal and patriarchal communities
of the same level of culture, to register the variation
of sexual repression and of the family constitution,
and to note the correlation between the amount of
sexual and family repression and the prevalence of
hysteria and compulsion neurosis. The conditions in
Melanesia, where side by side we find communities
living under entirely different conditions, are like a
naturally arranged experiment for this purpose.
Another point which might be interpreted in favour of
the Freudian solution of this problem is the correlation
of sexual perversions with sexual repression. Freud has
shown that there is a deep connection between the course
of infantile sexuality and the occurrence of perversion
in later life. On the basis of his theory, an entirely
^ Compare the writer's monograph on " The Natives of Mailu "
in the Proceedings of the Royal Society of Australia, vol. 39, 1915,
No information on mental disease is contained there. 'I had hoped
to return to the district and the essay was published cis a preliminary
account in which I did not include all I knew and had noted, thinking
of republishing it in a fuller form.
90 SEX AND REPRESSION
lax community like that of the Trobrianders, who do
not interfere with the free development of infantile
sexuality, should show a minimum of perversions.
This is fully confirmed in the Trobriands. Homo-
sexuality was known to exist in other tribes and
regarded as a filthy and ridiculous practice. It cropped
up in the Trobriands only with the influence of white
man, more especially of white man's morality. The
boys and girls on a Mission Station, penned in separate
and strictly isolated houses, cooped up together, had
to help themselves out as best they could, since that
which every Trobriander looks upon as his due and
right was denied to them. According to very careful
inquiries made of non-missionary as well as missionary
natives, homosexuality is the rule among those
upon whom white man's morality has been forced in
such an irrational and unscientific manner. At any
rate, there were a few cases in which ' evil doers '
caught in flagrante delicto, were ignominiously banished
from the face of God back into the villages, where one
of them tried to continue it, but had to give up under
the pressure of the native morals, expressed in scorn
and derision. I have also reason to suppose that
perversions are much more prevalent in the Amphlett
and d'Entrecasteaux archipelago in the south, but
again I have to regret that I was not able to study this
important subject in detail.
Ill
DREAMS AND DEEDS
XTOW we have to study how the integral sentiment
of the matrihneal family in the Trobriands
expresses itself in the culture and social organization
of the natives. If we pushed this problem too deep it
would indeed lead us to a minute examination from this
point of view of practically every manifestation of their
tribal life. We shall have to make a selection and pick
out the most relevant domains of fact. These can be
divided into two categories : (i) the free fantasies, and
(2) the data of folk-lore. To the first class belong those
products of individual imagination such as dreams,
day-dreams, personal desires and ideals which, coming
from the individual's own life, are shaped by the
endo-psychic forces of his personality. In this class
can be reckoned not only the manifestations of fantasies
in thought and dream, but also in deed. For a crime
Or a sin or an act which outrages pubhc opinion
and decency is committed when the repressive forces
of law and moraUty are broken by the repressed
passions. In such deeds we can measure both the
strength of the ideal and the depth of the passion.
We shall turn now to this first class of dreams and
91
92 SEX AND REPRESSION
deeds in which the individual shakes off temporarily
the shackles of custom and reveals the repressed
elements and the conflict with the repressing forces.
Dreams and day-dreams are not an easy subject for,
study among the Melanesians of the Trobriand Islands.
It is a remarkable and characteristic feature of these
natives, in which they seem to differ from other
savages, that they apparently dream little, have little
interest in their dreams, seldom relate them spon-
taneously, do not regard the ordinary dream as having
any prophetic or other importance, and have no code
of symbolic explanation whatever. When I tackled
the subject directly, as I often did, and asked my
informants whether they had dreamt, and, if so, what
their dreams had been, the answer was usually negative,
with rare exceptions, to which we will return. Is this
absence of dreams, or rather of interest in dreams, due
to the fact that we are dealing with a non-repressed
society, a society among whom sex as such is in no way
restricted? Is it so because their ' complex ' is weak,
appears late, and has few infantile elements ? This
rarity of free dreams and the absence of strong effect,
hence absence of remembrance, point to the same
conclusion as the absence of neurosis, that is, to the
correctness in broad outline of the Freudian theory.
For this theory affirms that the main cause of dreams
is unsatisfied sexual appetite, and especially such
sexual or quasi-sexual impulses as are repressed
THE MIRROR OF TRADITION 93
violently in infancy. To this question one could only
obtain a satisfactory answer by collecting rich com-
parative material among two communities of similar
culture and mode of living but with different repressions.
I have used so far the expression ' free dreams ', for
there is a class of dreams which it is difficult to range,
whether with the free or with the fixed fantasies, since
they run on lines prescribed by tradition and could be
called ' official dreams '. Such, for instance, are dreams
in which a man leading an enterprise or carrying out
some task is supposed to dream under certain circum-
stances about the object of his enterprise. The leaders
of fishing excursions dream about the weather, about
the place where the shoals may appear, about the
best date for the expedition, and they give their orders
and instructions accordingly. Those in charge of the
overseas expeditions called Kula are often supposed
to have dreams about the success of their ceremonial
trading. Above all the magicians have dreams associ-
ated with the performance of their magic. There is
also another form of typical or traditional dream
associated with magic, that, namely, which comes
about as the direct result of a spell or of a rite. Thus, in
the ceremonial overseas trading there is a certain spell
which acts directly on the mind of the partner, induces
in him a dream, and this dream makes the partner
desire the exchange. Most love magic is supposed
to produce a dream which awakens the amorous wish.
94 SEX AND REPRESSION
Thus these natives, remarkably enough, reverse the
Freudian theory of, dreams, for to them the dream is
the cause of the wish,^ In reahty, this class of traditional
dreams is very much within the lines of the Freudian
theory. For they are constructed as a projection on
to the victim of the magician's own desire. The victim
of love magic feels in her dream an itching, a craving
which is the same as the state of mind of the performer
of the magic. The Kula partner under the influence of
magic is supposed to dream of glorious scenes of
exchange which form the very vision dominating the
wishes of the performer.
Nor are such dreams merely spoken of and only
supposed to exist. Very frequently the magician him-
self would come and tell me that he had dreamt about
a good yield in fishing, and would organize an expedition
on the strength of it. Or a garden wizard would speak
of a dream he had had about a long drought, and there-
fore order certain things to be done. During the
annual ceremonial feast in honour of dead ancestors I
had on two occasions opportunities of noting dreams
of natives. In both cases the dream referred to the
proceedings, and in one the dreamer claimed to have
dreamt that he had had a conversation with the spirits,
who were not satisfied with things. Another class of
^ Cf. also my Argonauts of the Western Pacific, chapter on magic
and detailed descriptions of the rites and spells in the course of
the narrative.
THE MIRROR OF TRADITION 95
typical dream is concerned with the birth of babies.
In these the future mother has a sort of dream annuncia-
tion from one of her dead relatives.^
Now one of the typical or official dreams is the sexual
dream, which interests us here more especially. A man
will dream that a woman visits him at night ; in
dream he will have congress with her, and he will
awake finding the discharge of semen on the mat.
This he will conceal from his wife, but he will
try to follow up the dream actively in real life and
initiate an intrigue with the woman. For this dream
means that she who visited him had performed love
magic and that she desires him.
About such dreams I had a number of personal
confidences, followed by the story of the subsequent
efforts of the man at establishing an intrigue with his
dream visitor.
Now, naturally, as soon as I was told by the natives
about their erotic dreams, I was at once keenly on the
scent of incestuous dreams. To the question : " Do
you ever dream of your mother in this way ? " the
answer would be a calm, unshocked negation. " The
mother is forbidden — only a tonagowa (imbecile) would
dream such a thing. She is an old woman. No such
thing would happen." But whenever the question
would be put about the sister, the answer would be quite
^ Cf, ' Baloma ' — article in the Journal of the R. Anthrop. Inst.,
1916.
96 SEX AND REPRESSION
different, with a strong affective reaction. Of course I
knew enough never to ask such a question directly of
a man, and never to discuss it in company. But even
asking in the form of whether ' other people ' could
ever have such dreams, the reaction would be that of
indignation and anger. Sometimes there would be no
answer at all ; after an embarrassed pause another
subject would be taken up by the informant. Some,
again, would deny it seriously, others vehemently and
angrily. But, working out the question bit by bit with
my best informants, the truth at last appeared, and I
found that the real state of opinion is different. It is
actually well known that ' other people ' have such
dreams — " a man is sometimes sad, ashamed, and ill-
tempered. Why ? Because he has dreamt that he had
connection with his sister." " This made me feel
ashamed," such a man would say. I found that this is,
in fact, one of the typical dreams known to exist,
occurring frequently, and one which haunts and
disturbs the dreamer. That this is so, we will find
confirmed by other data, especially in myth and legend.
Again, the brother-sister incest is the most repre-
hensible form of breach of the rules of exogamy —
which institution makes it illicit to have connection with
any woman of the same clan. But though the brother-
sister incest is regarded with the utmost horror, a
breach of clan exogamy is a thing both smart and
desirable, owing to the piquant difficulties in carrying
THE MIRROR OF TRADITION 97
it out. In accordance with this,, dreams about clan
incest are very frequent. Thus, comparing the different
types of incestuous dreams, there is every reason to
assume that the mother hardly ever appears in them
and, if she does, these dreams leave no deep impression ;
that the more distant female relatives are dreamt of
frequently, and that the impression left is pleasant ;
while incestuous dreams about the sister occur and
leave a deep and painful memory. This is what might
have been expected, for, as we saw when following the
development of their sexuality, there is no temptation
in the case of the mother, a violent and strongly
repressed one towards the sister, and a spicy, not very
repressed prohibition about the clans woman.
Brother and sister inces.t is regarded with such
horror by the natives that at first an observer, even well
acquainted with their Ufe, would confidently affirm
that it would never occur, though a Freudian might
have his suspicions. And these, on closer search, would
be found fully justified. Incest between brother and
sister existed even in olden days, and there are certain
family scandals told especially about the ruhng clan of
the Malasi. Nowadays, when the ancient morals and
institutions break down under the influence of spurious
Christian morality and the white man's so-called law
and order is introduced, the passions repressed by
tribal tradition break through even more violently
and openly. I have three or four cases on record in
98 SEX AND REPRESSION
which public opinion definitely, though in whispered
undertones, accused a brother of incestuous relations
with his sister. One case, however, stands out, for it
was a lasting intrigue famous for its effrontery, for the
notorious character of the hero and heroine, and for
the scandalous stories spun around it.
Mokadayu, of Okopukopu, was a famous singer.
Like all of his profession, he was no less renowned for
his success with ladies. " For," say the natives,
" the throat is a long passage like the wila (vagina),
and the two attract each other." " A man who has
a beautiful voice will like women very much and they
will like him." Many stories are told of how he slept
with all the wives of the chief in Olivilevi, how he
seduced this and that married woman. For a time,
Mokadayu had a brilliant and very lucrative career
as a spiritualistic medium, extraordinary phenomena
happening in his hut, especially dematerializations of
various valuable objects thus transported to the spirit
land. But he was unmasked, and it was proved that
the dematerialized objects had merely remained in his
own possession.
Then there came about the dramatic incident of his
incestuous love with his sister. She was a very beautiful
girl, and, being a Trobriander, she had, of course, many
lovers. Suddenly she withdrew all her favours and
became chaste. The youth of the village, who confided
to each other their banishment from her favours.
THE MIRROR OF TRADITION 99
decided to find out what was the matter. It soon
appeared that, whoever might be the privileged rival,
the scene must be laid in her parental house. One
evening when both parents were away, a hole was made
in the thatch and through it the discarded lovers saw
a sight which shocked them deeply ; brother and sister
were caught in flagrante delicto. A dreadful scandal
broke out in the village, which, in olden days, would
certainly have end^ed in the suicide of the guilty pair.
Under the present conditions they were able to brave
it out and lived in incest for several months till she
married and left the village.
Besides the actual brother and sister incest, there is,
as I have said, a breach of exogamous rules which is
called suvasova. A woman of the same clan is for-
bidden to a man under the penalty of shame and an
eruption of boils all over the body. Against this second
ailment there is a magic, which, as many of my
informants told me with a self-satisfied smirk, is
absolutely efficacious. The moral shame of such
incidents is in reality small, and as with many other
rules of official morality, he who breaks it is a smart
fellow. A young man who is a read Don Juan, and who
has a good conceit of himself, will scorn the unmarried
girls, and try always to have an intrigue with a married
woman, especially a chief's wife, or else commit acts
of suvasova. The expression ' suvasova yoku ',
" Oh, thou exogamy breaker ! " sounds something
100 SEX AND REPRESSION
like, " Oh, you gay dog ! " and is a facetious com-
pliment.
To complete the picture, the negative evidence may
be stated here that not one single case of mother-son
incest could be found, not even a suspicion of it, though
the loudness and stringency of the taboo is by no means
so great as in the brother-sister incest. In the summary
given above of the typical family sentiments among the
Trobrianders, I have stated that the relations between
father and daughter are the only ones built up on the
same pattern as in a patriarchal society. As could be
expected therefore, father-daughter incest is of by no
means rare occurrence. Two or three cases in which
there seem to be no doubt whatever are on record.
One of them concerned a girl, who, besides her relations
with her father, was the sweetheart of a local boy then
in my service. He wanted to marry her, and appealed
to me for financial and moral support in this enterprise ;
I therefore had full details of the incest, which left me
in no doubt whatever about the relationship and its
long duration.
So far we have spoken about the sexual taboo and
the repressed wish to break it, which finds expression
in dreams, in acts of crime and passion. There is,
however, another relation fraught with repressed
criminal desires, that of a man towards his matriarch,
the brother of his mother. With regard to dreams,
there is one interesting fact to be noted here : the
THE MIRROR OF TRADITION loi
belief, namely, that in prophetic dreams of death it
will always be a veyola (real kinsman), usually the
sister's son, who will foredream his uncle's death.
Another important fact belonging to the sphere of
action and not of dreams is connected with witchcraft.
A man who has acquired the black magic of disease
must choose his first victim from among his near
maternal relatives. Very often a man is said to choose
his own mother. So that when anyone is known to be
learning sorcery, his real kinsmen, that means his
maternal relatives, are always frightened and on the
look out for personal danger.
In the chronicles of actual crime, there are also
several cases to be registered, bearing on our
problem. One of them happened in the village of
Osapola, half an hour away from where I lived at that
time, and I knew the actors well. There were three
brothers, the eldest blind. The youngest one used
always to take the betel nut before it properly ripened
and deprive the blind man of his share. The bhnd man
one day got in a dreadful fury and, seizing an axe,
somehow managed to wound the youngest brother.
The middle one then took a spear and killed the bhnd
one. He was sentenced to twelve months' imprison-
ment by the white resident magistrate. The natives
regarded this as an outrageous injustice. The killing
of one brother by another is a purely internal matter,
certainly a dreadful crime and an awful tragedy,
102 SEX AND REPRESSION
but one with which the outer world is in no way con-
cerned, and it can only stand by and show its horror and
pity. There are other cases of violent quarrels, fights,
and one or two more murders within the matrilineal
family, which I have on record.
Of parricide, on the other hand, there is not one single
case to be cited. Yet to the natives, as I have said,
parricide would be no special tragedy, and would
be merely a matter to be settled with the father's
own clan.
Apart from the dramatic events, the crimes and
tragedies which shake the tribal order to its very
foundations, there are the small events which indicate
merely the boiling of the passions under the apparently
firm and quiet surface. For, as we saw, society builds
up its traditional norms and ideals, and sets up
trammels and barriers to safeguard them. Yet these
very trammels provoke certain emotional reactions.
Nothing surprised me so much in the course of my
sociological researches as the gradual perception of an
undercurrent of desire and inclination running counter
to the trend of convention, law and morals. Mother-
right, the principle that unity of kinship exists only
in the mother line, and that this unity of kinship should
claim all affection, as well as all duties and loyalties,
is the dictate of tradition. But in reality friendship and
affection to the father, community of personal interest
and desires with him, combined with the wish to shake
THE MIRROR OF TRADITION 103
off the exogamous trammels of the clan — these are the
live forces which flow from personal inclination and
the experiences of individual life. And these forces
contribute much to fan ever-present sparks of enmity
between brothers, and between the mother's brother
and the nephew. So that in the real feelings of the
individual, we have, so to speak, a sociological negative
of the traditional principle of matriliny.^
^ This point has been elaborated by the writer in Crime and
Custom, 1926.
IV
OBSCENITY AND MYTH
TT TE now proceed to the discussion of folk-lore in
relation to the typical sentiments of the matri-
lineal family, and with this we enter the best cultivated
plot on the boundary of psycho-analysis and anthro-
pology. It has long been recognized that for one reason
or another the stories related seriously about ancestral
times and the narratives told for amusement correspond
to the desires of those among whom they are current.
The school of Freud maintain, moreover, that folk-
lore is especially concerned with the satisfaction of
repressed wishes by means of fairy tales and legends ;
and that this is the case also \vith proverbs, typical
jokes and sayings and stereotyped modes of abuse.
Let us begin with these last. Their relation to the
unconscious must not be interpreted in the sense that
they satisfy the repressed cravings of the person abused,
or even of the abuser. For instance, the expression
widely current among oriental races and many savages,
' eat excrement,' as well as in a slightly modified form
among the Latins, satisfies directly the wish of neither.
Indirectly it is only meant to debase and disgust the
person thus addressed. Every form of abuse or bad
104
THE MIRROR OF TRADITION 105
language contains certain propositions fraught with
strong emotional possibilities. Some bring into play
emotions of disgust and shame ; others again draw
attention to, or impute, certain actions which are
considered abominable in a given society, and thus
wound the feelings of the listener. Here belongs
blasphemy, which in European culture reaches its
zenith of perfection and complexity in the innumerable
variations of ' Me cago en Dios ! ' pullulating wherever
the sonorous Spanish is spoken. Here, also, belong
all the various abuses by reference to social position,
despised or degraded occupations, criminal habits,
and the like, all of them very interesting sociologically,
for they indicate what is considered the lowest depth
of degradation in that culture.
The incestuous type of swearing, in which the person
addressed is invited to have connection with a forbidden
relative, usually the mother, is in Europe the speciahty
of the Slavonic nations, among whom the Russians
easily take the lead, with the numerous combinations
of ' Yob twayu mat ' (' Have connection viith thy
mother'). This type of swearing interests us most,
because of its subject, and because it plays an important
part in the Trobriands. The natives there have three
incestuous expressions : ' Kwoy inani' — ' Cohabit with
thy mother ' ; ' Kwoy lumuta ' — ' cohabit with thy
sister ' ; and ' Kwoy um kwava ' — ' cohabit with thy
wife.' The combination of the three sayings is curious
io6 SEX AND REPRESSION
in itself, for we see, side by side, the most lawful and
the most illicit types of intercourse used for the same
purpose of offending and hurting. The gradation of
intensity is still more remarkable. For while the
invitation to maternal incest is but a mild term used
in chaff or as a joke, as we might say, ' Oh, go to
Jericho ', the mention of sister incest in abuse is a
most serious offence, and one used only when real
anger is aroused. But the worst insult, one which I
have known to be seriously used at the most twice,
and once, indeed, it was among the causes of the
incident of fratricide described above, is the imperative
to have connection with the wife. This expression
is so bad that I learnt of its existence only after a long
sojourn in the Trobriands, and no native would
pronounce it but in whispers, or consent to make any
jokes about that incongruous mode of abuse.
What is the psychology of this gradation ? It is
obvious that it stands in no distinct relation to the
enormity or unpleasantness of the act. The maternal
incest is absolutely and completely out of the question,
yet it is the mildest abuse. Nor can the criminality
of the action be the reason for the various strengths of
the swearing, for the least criminal, in fact the lawful
connection, is the most offensive when imputed. The
real cause is the plausibility and the reality of the act,
and the feeUng of shame, anger, and social degradation
at the barriers of etiquette being pulled down and the
THE MIRROR OF TRADITION 107
naked reality brought to light. For the sexual intimacy
between husband and wife is masked by a most rigid
etiquette, not so strict of course as that between
brother and sister, but directly aiming at the elimina-
tion of any suggestive modes of behaviour. Sexual
jokes and indecencies must not be pronounced in the
company of the two consorts. And to drag out the
personal, direct sexuality of the relation in coarse
language is a mortal offence to the sensitiveness of the
Trobrianders. This psychology is extremely interesting,
just because it discloses that one of the main forces of
abuse lies in the relation between the reality and
plausibility of a desire or action and its conventional
repressions.
The relation between the abuse by mother and by
sister incest is made clear by the same psychology.
Its strength is measured mainly by the likehhood of
reality corresponding to the imputation. The idea of
mother incest is as repugnant to the native as sister
incest, probably even more. But just because, as we
saw, the whole development of the relationship and of
sexual life makes incestuous temptations of the mother
almost absent, while the taboo against the sister is
imposed with great brutality and kept up with rigid
strength, the real inclination to break the strong taboo
is much more actual. Hence this abuse wounds to the
quick.
There is nothing to be said about proverbs in the
io8 SEX AND REPRESSION
Trobriands, for they do not exist. As to the typical
sayings and other linguistic uses, I shall mention here
the important fact of the word luguta, my sister, being
used in magic as a word which signifies incompatibility
and mutual repulsion.
We pass now to myth and legend, that is, to the stories
told with a serious purpose in explanation of things,
institutions, and customs. To make the survey of this
very extensive and rich material clear yet rapid, we
shall classify these stories into three categories :
(i) Myths of the origin of man, and of the general
order of society, and especially totemic divisions and
social ranks ; (2) Myths of cultural change and achieve-
ments which contain stories about heroic deeds, about
the establishment of customs, cultural features and
social institutions ; (3) Myths associated with definite
forms of magic. ^
The matrilineal character of the culture meets us at
once in the first class, that is, in the myths about the
origins of man, of the social order, especially chieftain-
ship and totemic divisions, and of the various clans
and sub-clans. These myths, which are numerous, for
every locality has its own legends or variations, form
a sort of connected cycle. They all agree that human
beijUgs have emerged from underground through holes
in the earth. Every sub-clan has its own place of
^ Cf. the chapter on Mythology in Argonauts of the Western Pacific,
especially pp. 304 sqq.
THE MIRROR OF TRADITION 109
emergence, and the events which happened on this
momentous occasion determined sometimes the
privileges or disabilities of the sub-clan. What interests
us most in them is that the first ancestral groups whose
appearance is mentioned in the myth consist always
of a woman, sometimes accompanied by her brother,
sometimes by the totemic animal, but never by a
husband. In some of the myths the mode of propagating
of the first ancestress is explicitly described. She starts
the line of her descendants by imprudent exposure to
the rain or, lying in a grotto, is pierced by the dripping
of the stalactites ; or bathing she is bitten by a fish.
She is ' opened up ' in this way, and a spirit child
enters her womb and she becomes pregnant.^ Thus
instead of the creative force of a father, the mjrths
reveal the spontaneous procreative powers of the
ancestral mother.
Nor is there any other role in which the father
appears. In fact, he is never mentioned, and does not
exist in any part of the mythological world. Most of
^ Freudians will be interested in the psychology of symbolism
underlying these myths. It must be noted that the natives have no
idea whatever of the fertilizing influence of the male semen, but they
know that a virgin cannot conceive, and that to become a mother a
woman has to be ' opened up ' as they express it. This in the every-
day life of the village is done at an early age by the appropriate organ.
In the myth of the primeval ancestress, where the husband or any
sexually eligible male companion is excluded, some natural object
is selected, such as a fish or a stalactite. Cf. for further material
on this subject my article in Psyche, Oct., 1923, reprinted as The
Father in Primitive Psychology, 1927.
no SEX AND REPRESSION
these local myths have come down in very rudimentary
form, some containing only one incident or an affirma-
tion of right and privilege. Those of them which
contain a conflict or a dramatic incident, elements
essential in ungarbled myth, depict invariably a
matriUneal family and the drama happening within it.
There is a quarrel between two brothers which makes
them separate, each taking his sister. Or, again, in
another myth, two sisters set out, disagree, separate
and found two different communities.
In a myth which might perhaps be classed in this
group, and which accounts for the loss of immortahty,
or, to put it more correctly, of perpetual youth by
human beings, it is the quarrel between grandmother
and granddaughter which brings about the catastrophe.
Matrihny — in the fact that descent is reckoned by the
female — mother-right — in the great importance of the
part played by women, the matriarchal configuration
of kinship, in the dissensions of brothers — in short, the
pattern of the matrihneal family, is evident in the
structure of myths of this category. There is not a
single myth of origins in which a husband or a father
plays any part, or even makes his appearance. That the
matrihneal nature of the mythological drama is closely
associated with the matrihneal repressions within the
family should need no further argument to convince
a psycho-analyst.
Let us now turn to the second class of myths, those
THE MIRROR OF TRADITION iii
referring to certain big cultural achievements brought
about by heroic deeds and important adventures. This
class of myth is less rudimentary, consists of long cycles,
and develops pronouncedly dramatic incidents. The
most important cycle of this category is the myth of
Tudava, a hero bom of a virgin who was pierced by the
action of stalactite water. The deeds of this hero are
celebrated in a number of myths, which differ slightly
according to the district in which they are found, and
which ascribe to him the introduction of agriculture
and the institution of a number of customs and moral
rules, though his own moral character is very weakly
developed. The main deed of this hero, however, the
one known all over the district, and forming the bedrock
of all the myths, is the slaying of an ogre. The story
runs as follows : —
Humanity led a happy existence in the Trobriand
Archipelago. Suddenly a dreadful ogre called
Dokonikan made his appearance in the eastern
part of the islands. He fed on human flesh and
gradually consumed one community after another.
At the north-western end of the island in the village of
Laba'i there lived at that time a family consisting of
a sister and her brothers. When Dokonikan ranged
nearer and nearer to Laba'i the family decided to fly.
The sister, however, at that moment wounded her foot
and was unable to move. She was therefore abandoned
by her brothers, who left her with her little son in a
112 SEX AND REPRESSION
grotto on the beach of Laba'i, and sailed away in
a canoe to the south-west. The boy was brought up
by his mother, who taught him first the choice of proper
wood for a strong spear, then instructed him in the
Kwoygapani magic which steals away a man's under-
standing. The hero sallied forth, and after having
bewitched Dokonikan with the Kwoygapani magic,
killed him and cut off his head. After that he and his
mother prepared a taro pudding, in which they hid
and baked the head of the ogre. With this gruesome
dish Tudava sailed away in search of his mother's
brother. When he found him he gave him the pudding,
in which the uncle with horror and dismay found the
head of Dokonikan. Seized with fear and remorse, the
mother's brother offered his nephew all sorts of gifts
in atonement for having abandoned him and his mother
to the ogre. The hero refused ever5rthing, and was only
appeased after he had received his uncle's daughter in
marriage. After that he set out again and performed
a number of cultural deeds, which do not interest us
further in this context.
In this myth there are two conflicts which set the
drama in motion : first the cannibalistic appetite of
the ogre, and second the abandonment of mother and
son by the maternal uncle. The second is a typical
matrilineal drama, and corresponds distinctly to the
natural tendency, repressed by tribal morals and
custom, as we have found it in our analysis of the
THE MIRROR OF TRADITION 113
matrilineal family in the Trobriands. For the mother's
brother is the appointed guardian of her and her family.
Yet this is a duty which both weighs heavily upon him,
and is not always gratefully and pleasantly received by
his wards. Thus it is characteristic that the opening
of the most important heroic drama in mythology
should be associated with a capital sin of the
matriarch's neglect of his duty.
But this second matriarchal conflict is not altogether
independent of the first. When Dokonikan is killed
his head is presented in a dish of wood to the maternal
uncle. If it were only to frighten him by the sight of
the monster, there would be no point in disguising the
head in the taro pudding. Moreover, since Dokonikan
was the general enemy of humanity, the sight of his
head should have filled the uncle with joy. The whole
setting of this incident and the emotion which underlies
it, receive meaning only if we assume that there is some
sort of association or connivance between the ogre
and the uncle. In that case, to give one cannibal's
head to be eaten by the other is just the right sort of
punishment, and the story contains then in reality one
villain and one conflict distributed over two stages and
duplicated into two persons. Thus we see that the
legend of Tudava contains a typical matrilineal drama
which forms its core, and which is brought to a logical
conclusion. I shall remain satisfied, therefore, with
having pointed out those features which are
114 SEX AND REPRESSION
indisputable, and are clearly contained in the facts
themselves, and I shall not enter in detail into further
interpretations of this myth, which would necessitate
certain historical and mythological hypotheses. But
I wish to suggest that the figure of Dokonikan is not
altogether explained by his association with the
matriarch, that he may be a figure handed from a
patriarchal culture into a; matriarchal one, in which
case he might represent the father and husband. If
this be so, the present legend would be extremely
interesting in showing how the prevalent cast of a
culture moulds and transforms persons and situations
to fit them into its own sociological context.
Another incident in this myth which I shall only
indicate here, is the marriage at the end of the story
of the hero to his maternal cross-cousin. This, in the
present kinship system of the natives, is considered
distinctly an improper thing, though not actually
incestuous.
Passing to another legendary cycle, we have the story
of two brothers who quarrel over a garden plot — as so
often happens in real life — and in this quarrel the
elder kills the younger. The myth does not relate any
compunction for this act. It describes, instead, in
detail the culinary anti-climax of the drama ; the elder
brother digs a hole in the ground, brings stones, leaves
and firewood, and, as if he had just killed a pig or hauled
out a big fish, he proceeds to bake his brother in an
THE MIRROR OF TRADITION 115
earthen oven. Then he hawks the baked flesh about
from one village to another, rebaking it from time to
time when his olfactory sense indicates the necessity
of such a procedure. Those communities which decline
his offer remain non-cannibalistic ; those which accept
become flesh-eaters ever afterwards. Thus here
cannibaUsm is traced to a fratricidal act, and to
preference or dislike for a food thus criminally and
sinfully obtained. Needless to say, this is the myth of
the non-cannibalistic tribes only. The same difference
between cannibalism and its absence is explained
by the man-eating natives of Dobu and the other
cannibalistic districts of the d'Entrecasteaux Islands
by a story in which cannibalism is certainly not branded
as anything unpleasant. This story also, however, con-
sists in a difference, if not in an actual quarrel between
two brothers and two sisters.^ What mainly interests
us in these myths is the matrilineal imprint which
they possess in the quarrel between elder and younger
brother.
The myth about the origins of fire, which also
contains a brief mention of the origins of sun and moon,
describes dissension between two sisters. It may be
added that fire in this myth is described as originating
in a woman's sexual organs.
* These myths have already been given in Argonauts of the
Western Pacific. Chapter on ' Mythology ', pp. 321-331-332.
ii6 SEX AND REPRESSION
The reader accustomed to psycho-analytic inter-
pretations of myth and to psychological and
anthropological writings on the subject in general, will
find all my remarks singularly simple and un-
sophisticated. All that is said here is clearly written
on the surface of the myth, and I have hardly attempted
any complicated or symbolic interpretation. This,
however, I refrained from doing on purpose. For the
thesis here developed that in a matriarchal society myth
will contain conflicts of a specifically matrilineal nature
is better served if supported only by unquestionable
argiunents. Moreover, if I am right, and if our
sociological point of view brings us really one step
nearer towards the correct interpretation of myth,
then it is clear that we need not rely so much on
roundabout or symbolic reinterpretations of facts,
but can confidently let the facts speak for themselves.
It will be obvious to any attentive reader that many of
the situations which we understand as direct results
of the matrilineal complex could, by artificial and
symbolic rehandling, be made to correspond to a
patriarchal outlook. The conflict between mother's
brother and nephew, who should be natural protectors
and always keep common cause, but who often in
reality regard each other as one ogre might another,
the fight and cannibaUstic violence between two
brothers, who in tribal law form one body, all this
corresponds roughly to analogous conflicts within a
THE MIRROR OF TRADITION 117
patriarchal family. And it is just the difference in the
actors, in the cast of the play, which distinguishes the
matriarchal from the patriarchal myth. It is the
sociological point of view of the tragedy which differs.
The foundations of the psycho-analytic explanations of
myth we have in no way shaken. We have merely
corrected the sociology of this interpretation. That this
correction, however, is of extreme importance, and even
bears upon fundamental psychological problems, has,
I trust, been made sufficiently clear.
Let us pass now to the third class of myth, that
which we find at the basis of cultural achievement
and magic. Magic plays an extremely important
part in everything which these natives do. When-
ever they approach any subject which is of vital
importance to them and in which they cannot rely
solely on their own forces, they summon magic
to their aid. To master wind and weather, to ward
off dangers in saihng, to secure success in love,
ceremonial trading or dancing, the natives perform
magic. Black magic and magic of health play a very
great role in their social life, and in the important
economic activities and enterprises, such as gardening,
fishing, and the construction of canoes, magic enters
as an intrinsic and important element. Now between
magic and myth there exists an intimate connexion.
Most of the super-normal power displayed by the heroes
in myth is due to their knowledge of magic. Present
ii8 SEX AND REPRESSION
humanity differs from the great mythical heroes
of the past in that nowadays the most effective
tj^es of magic have been lost. Could the strong spells
and the powerful rites be recovered, men could fly
through the air, rejuvenate and thus retain their life
for ever, kill people and bring them to life again, be
always beautiful, successful, loved and praised.
But it is not only myth which draws its power from
magic. Magic is also dependent upon myth. Almost
every type of spell and rite has its mythological
foundation. The natives tell a story of the past which
explains how this magic came into man's possession,
and which serves as a warrant of its efficiency. In
this lies perhaps the main sociological influence of
myth. For myth Hves in magic, and since magic shapes
and maintains many social institutions, myth exercises
its influence upon them.
Let us now pass to a few concrete examples of such
myths of magic. It will be best to discuss the question*
of one detailed case first, and for this I shall choose the
myth of the flying canoe already published in extenso.^
This myth is narrated in connexion with the ship-
building magic used by the natives. A long story is
told about a time when there existed magic which,
performed during the construction of a canoe, could
make it fly through the air. The hero of this story, the
man who was the last — and as it seems also the first —
^ op. ciL, pp. 421 sqq.
THE MIRROR OF TRADITION 119
to perform it, is depicted in his role of ship-builder and
magician. We are told how under his direction a canoe
is built ; how, on an overseas expedition to the south,
it outruns all others, flying through the air while they
have to sail ; how its owner obtains an overwhelming
success in the expedition. This is the happy beginning
of the story. Now comes the tragedy. All the men in
the community are jealous and fuU of hatred against
the hero. Another incident occurs. He is in possession
also of a successful garden magic, and of one by which
he can also damage his neighbours. In a general
drought his garden alone survives. Then all the
men of his community determine that he must die.
The younger brother of the hero had received from him
the canoe magic and the garden magic. So no one
thought that by IdUing the elder brother they would
also lose the magic. The criminal deed is performed,
and it is done not by any strangers, but by the younger
brother of the hero. In one of the versions he and the
hero's maternal nephews kiU him in a joint attack. In
another version again, the story proceeds to tell how,
after he has killed his elder brother, he then proceeds
to organize the mortuary festivities for him. The point
of the story remains in the fact that after the deed was
done, and the younger brother tried to apply the
magic to a canoe, he found out with dismay that he was
not in possession of the full magic, but only of its weaker
part. Thus humanity lost the flying magic for ever.
120 SEX AND REPRESSION
In this myth the matriHneal complex comes power-
fully to the fore. The hero, whose duty it is according
to tribal law to share the magic with his younger
brother and maternal nephew, cheats them, to put it
in plain terms, by pretending that he has handed them
over all the spells and rites while in reality he only gave
up an insignificant fraction. The younger man, on the
other hand, whose duty it would be to protect his
brother, to avenge his death, to share all his interests,
we find at the head of the conspiracy, red-handed
with fratricidal murder.
If we compare this mythical situation with the
sociological reality we find a strange correspondence.
It is the duty of every man to hand over to his maternal
nephew or younger brother the hereditary possessions
of the family, such as family myth, family magic and
family songs ; as well as the titles to certain material
possessions and economic rites. The handing over of
magic has obviously to be done during the life-time of
the elder man. The cession of property rights and
privileges is also frequently done before his death. It
is interesting that such lawful acquisition by a man of
the goods which are due to him by inheritance from his
maternal uncle or elder brother has always to be done
against a type of payment called pokala, which
frequently is very substantial indeed. It is still more
important to note that when a father gives certain
properties to his son he always does it for nothing, out
THE MIRROR OF TRADITION 121
of sheer affection. In actual life, the mythological
swindle of the younger by the elder brother is also
very often paralleled. There is always a feeling of
uncertainty, always a mutual suspicion between the two
people who in tribal law should be at one in common
interests and reciprocal duties as well as in affection.
Ever so often w^hen obtaining magic from a man, I
became aware that he was himself doubtful whether he
had not been cheated out of some of it in receiving it
from his uncle or elder brother. Such a doubt was
never in the mind of a man who had received his
magic as a gift from the father. Survepng the people
now in possession of important systems of magic, I
find also that more than half of the outstanding
younger magicians have obtained their powers by
paternal gift and not by maternal inheritance.
Thus in real life, as well as in myth, we see that the
situation corresponds to a complex, to a repressed
sentiment, and is at cross variance with tribal law and
conventional tribal ideals. According to law and morals,
two brothers or a maternal uncle and his nephew are
friends, allies, and have all feelings and interests in
common. In real life to a certain degree and quite
openly in myth, they are enemies, cheat each other,
murder each other, and suspicion and hostihty obtain
rather than love and union.
One more feature in the canoe m3rth deserves our
attention : in an epilogue to the myth we are told that
122 SEX AND REPRESSION
the three sisters of the hero are angry with the younger
brother because he has killed the elder one without
learning the magic. They had already learnt it,
however, and, though, being women, they could not
build or sail flying canoes, they were able to fly
through the air as flying witches. After the crime had
been committed they flew away, each of them settling
in a different district. In this episode we see the
characteristic matrihneal position of woman, who learns
magic first before man has acquired it. The sisters also
appear as moral guardians of the clan, but their wrath
is directed not against the crime, but against the
mutilation of clan property. Had the younger brother
known the magic before kiUing the elder, the three
sisters would have lived on happily with him for ever
after.
Another fragmentary myth already published
deserves our attention,^ the myth about the origins
of salvage magic, in cases of shipwreck. There were two
brothers, the elder a man, the younger a dog. One day
the senior goes on a fishing expedition, but he refuses
to take the younger one with him. The dog, who has
acquired the magic of safe swimming from the mother,
follows the elder one, diving under water. In the fishing
the dog is more successful. In retahation for the ill-
treatment received from the elder brother, the dog
changes his clan and bequeaths the magic to his adopted
1 op. cit., pp. 262-264.
THE MIRROR OF TRADITION 123
kinsmen. The drama of this myth consists first of all
in the favouring by the mother of the second son, a
distinctly matrilineal feature, in that the mother here
distributes her favours directly, and does not need to
cheat the father hke her better-known colleague in
the Bible, the mother of Esau and Jacob. There is also
the typical matriUneal quarrel, the wronging of the
younger brother by the elder, and retaliation.
One more important story has to be given here :
the legend about the origin of love magic, which forms
the most telling piece of evidence with regard to the
influence of the matriUneal complex. Among these
amorous people the arts of seduction, of pleasing, of
impressing the other sex, lead to the display of beauty,
of prowess, and of artistic abihties. The fame of a good
dancer, of a good singer, of a warrior, has its sexual
side, and though ambition has a powerful sway for
its own sake, some of it is always sacrificed on the altar
of love. But above aU the other means of seduction the
prosaic and crude art of magic is extensively used, and
it commands the supreme respect of the natives. The
tribal Don Juan will boast about his magic rather than
any personal qualities. The less successful swain will
sigh for magic : " If I only knew the real Kayroiwo "
is the burden of the broken heart. The natives will
point to old, ugly, and crippled men who yet have
been always successful in love by means of their magic.
This magic is not simple. There is a series of acts,
124 SEX AND REPRESSION
each consisting of a special formula and its rite, which
have to be carried out one after the other in order to
exercise an increasing charm upon the desired lover.
It may be added at once that the magic is carried out
by girls to capture an admirer as well as by youths to
subdue a sweetheart.
The initial formula is associated with the ritual bathe
in the sea. A formula is uttered over the spongy leaves
which are used by the natives as a bathing towel to
dry and rub the skin. The bather rubs his skin with the
bewitched leaves, then throws them into the waves;
As the leaves heave up and down so shall the inside of
the beloved one be moved by passion. Sometimes this
formula is sufficient ; if not, the spurned lover will
resort to a stronger one. The second formula is chanted
over betel-nut, which the lover then chews and spits
out in the direction of his beloved. If even this should
prove unavailing, a third formula, stronger than the
two preceding ones, is recited over some dainty, such
as betel-nut or tobacco, and the morsel is given to the
desired one to eat, chew, or smoke. An even more
drastic measure is to utter the magic into the open
palms and attempt to press them against the bosom of
the beloved.
The last and most powerful method might, with-
out pushing the simile too far, be described as
psycho-analytic. In fact, long before Freud had dis-
covered the predominantly erotic nature of dreams.
THE MIRROR OF TRADITION 125
similar theories were in vogue among the brown-skinned
savages of north-west Melanesia. According to their
view, certain forms of magic can produce dreams. The
wish engendered in such dreams penetrates into
waking life and thus the dream- wish becomes realized.
This is Freudianism turned upside-down ; but which
theory is correct and which is erroneous I shall not
try definitely to settle. As regards love magic, there is
a method of brewing certain aromatic herbs in coconut
oil and uttering a formula over them, which gives them
a powerful dream-inducing property. If the magic-
maker be successful in making the smeU of this brew
enter the nostrils of his beloved, she will be sure to
dream of him. In this dream she may have visions and
undergo experiences which she will inevitably attempt
to translate into deeds in actual life.
Among the several forms of love magic that of the
sulumwoya is by far the most important . A great potency
is ascribed to it, and it commands a considerable
price if a native wants to purchase the formula and the
rite, or if he wants it to be performed on his behalf.
This magic is locaUzed in two centres. One of them lies
on the eastern shore of the main island. A fine beach
of clean coral sand overlooks the open sea towards the
west, where beyond the white breakers on the fringing
reef there may be seen on a clear day silhouettes of
distant raised coral rocks. Among them is the island
of Iwa, the second centre of love magic. The spot on
126 SEX AND REPRESSION
the main island, which is the bathing and boating beach
of the village of Kumilabwaga, is to the natives almost
like a holy shrine of love. There, in the white limestone
beyond the fringe of luxuriant vegetation is the
grotto where the primeval tragedy was consummated ;
there on both sides of the grotto are the two springs
which still possess the power of inspiring love by ritual.
A beautiful myth of magic and love connects these
two spots facing each other across the sea. One of the
most interesting aspects of this myth is that it accounts
for the existence of love-magic by what to the natives
is a horrible and tragic event, an act of incest between
brother and sister. In this the story shows some affinity
to the legends of Tristan and Isolde, Lancelot and
Guinevere, Sigmund and Sigelinde, as well as to a
number of similar tales in savage communities.
There hved in the village of Kumilabwaga a woman
of the Malasi clan who had a son and a daughter. One
day while the mother was cutting out her fibre-petticoat,
the son, made some magic over herbs. This he did to
gain the love of a certain woman. He placed some of the
pungent kwayawaga leaves and some of the sweet-
scented sulumwoya (mint) into clarified coconut oil
and boiled the mixture, reciting the spell over it. Then
he poured it into a receptacle made of toughened
banana-leaves and placed it in the thatch. He then
went to the sea to bathe. His sister in the meantime
had made ready to go to the water hole to fill the
THE MIRROR OF TRADITION 127
coconut bottles with water. As she passed under
the spot where the magical oil had been put,
she brushed against the receptacle with her hair
and some of the oil dropped down over her. She
brushed it off with her fingers, and then sniffed at
them. When she returned with the water she asked her
mother, " Where is the man, where is my brother ? "
This according to native moral ideas was a dreadful
thing to do, for no girl should inquire about her brother,
nor should she speak of him as a man. The mother
guessed what had happened. She said to herself :
" Alas, my children have lost their minds."
The sister ran after her brother. She found him on
the beach where he was bathing. He was without his
pubic leaf. She loosened her fibre skirt and naked she
tried to approach him. Horrified by this dreadful sight
the man ran away along the beach tiU he was barred by
the precipitous rock which on the north cuts off the
Bokaraywata beach. He turned and ran back to the
other rock which stands up steep and inaccessible at
the southern end. Thus they ran three times along the
beach under the shade of the big overhanging trees till
the man, exhausted and overcome, allowed his sister
to catch hold of him, and the two fell down, embracing
in the shallow water of the caressing waves. Then,
ashamed and remorseful, but with the fire of their love
not quenched, they went to the grotto of Bokaraywata
where they remained without food, without drink, and
128 SEX AND REPRESSION
without sleep. There also they died, clasped in one
another's arms, and through their linked bodies there
grew the sweet-smelling plant of the native mint
(sulumwoya).
A man in the island of Iwa dreamt the kirisala, the
magical dream of this tragic event. He saw the vision
before him. He woke, and said : " The two are dead
in the grotto of Bokaraywata and the sulumwoya is
growing out of their bodies. I must go." He took his
canoe ; he sailed across the sea between his island and
that of Kitava. Then from Kitava he went to the main
island, till he alighted on the tragic beach. There he
saw the reef-heron hovering over the grotto. He went
in and he saw the sulumwoya plant growing out of the
lovers' chests. He then went to the village. The mother
avowed the shame which had fallen on her family.
She gave him the magical formula, which he learned
by heart. He took part of the spell over to Iwa and left
part of it in Kumilabwaga. At the grotto he plucked
off some of the mint, and took it with him. He returned
to Iwa, to his island. He said : " I have brought here the
tip of the magic ; its roots remain in Kumilabwaga.
There it will stay, connected with the bathing passage
of Kadiusawasa and with the water of Bokaraywata.
In one spring the men must bathe, in the other the
women." The man of Iwa then imposed the taboos of
the magic, he prescribed exactly the ritual and he
stipulated that a substantial payment should be made
THE MIRROR OF TRADITION 129
to the people of Iwa and Kumilabwaga, when they
allowed others to use their magic or to use their sacred
spots. There is also a traditional miracle or at least an
augury to those who perform the magic on the beach.
In the myth this is represented as laid down by the man
of Iwa ; when the magic is performed and good results
can be foreseen two small fish will be seen playing
together in the shallow water of the beach.
I have but summarized here this last part of the
myth, for its literal form contains sociological claims
which are wearisome and degenerate into boastings ;
the account of the miraculous element usually leads into
reminiscences from the immediate past ; the ritual
details develop into technicalities and the Ust of taboos
into prescriptive homilies. But to the native narrator
this last part of practical, pragmatic, and often of
personal interest, is perhaps more important than the
rest, and the anthropologist has more to learn from it
than from the preceding dramatic tale. The sociological
claims are contained in the myth, since the magic to
which it refers is personal property. It has to be handed
over from a fully entitled possessor to one who lawfully
acquires it from him. All the force of magic consists
in correct tradition. The fact of direct filiation by which
the present ofhciator is linked to the original source is
of paramount relevance. In certain magical formulae
the names of all its wielders are enumerated. In all
rites and spells the conviction that they are absolutely
130 SEX AND REPRESSION
in conformity with the original pattern is essential.
And myth figures as the ultimate source, as the last
pattern of this retrogressive series. It is again the
charter of magical succession, the starting-point of the
pedigree.
In connection with this a few words must be said
about the social setting of magic and myth. Some forms
of magic are not localized. Here belong sorcery, love
magic, beauty niagic, and the magic of Kula. In
these forms fihation is none the less important, although
it is not filiation by kinship. Other forms of magic are
associated with a given territory, with the local
industries of a community, with certain paramount and
exclusive claims, vested in a chief and in his capital
village. All garden magic belongs here — the magic
which must be born of the soil, on which it can only
thus be efficacious. Here belongs the magic of the
shark and other fishing of a local character. Here also
belong certain forms of canoe magic, that of the red
sheU used for ornaments, and, above all, waygigi, the
supreme magic of rain and sunshine, the exclusive
privilege of the paramount chiefs of Omarakana.
In these types of local magic the esoteric power of
words is as much chained to the locality as the group
who inhabit the village and wield the magic. The
magic thus is not merely local but exclusive and
hereditary in a matrilineal kinship group. In these cases
the m5rth of magic must be placed side by side with the
THE MIRROR OF TRADITION 131
myth of local origins as an essentially sociological
force welding the group together, supplying its quota
to the sentiment of unity, endowing the group with a
common cultural value.
The other element conspicuous in the end of the
above story and present also in most other magic -
myths is the enumeration of portents, auguries, and
miracles. It might be said that as the local myth
establishes the claims of the group by precedent, so the
magical myth vindicates them by miracle. Magic is
based upon the belief in a specific power, residing always
in man, derived always from tradition.^ The efficiency
of this power is vouched for by the myth, but it has
to be confirmed also by the only thing which man ever
accepts as final proof, namely practical results. " By
their fruits ye shall know them." Primitive man is not
less eager than the modem man of science to confirm
his convictions by empirical fact. The empiricism of
faith, whether savage or civilized, consists in miracles.
And living behef will always generate miracles. There
is no civilized religion without its saints and devils,
without its illuminations and tokens, without the spirit
of God descending upon the community of the faithful.
There is no new-fangled creed, no new religion, whether
it be a form of Spiritism, Theosophy, or Christian
Science, which cannot prove its legitimacy by the solid
^ op. cit., chapters on " Magic " and " Power of Words in Magic ",
cf. also Ogden and Richards' The Meaning of Meaning, chap. ii.
132 SEX AND REPRESSION
fact of 5lipematural manifestation. The savage has
also his thaumatology, and in the Trobriands, where
magic dominates all supernaturalism, it is a
thaumatology of magic. Round each form of magic
there is a continuous trickle of small miracles, at times
swelling into bigger, more conspicuously supernatural
proofs, then again, running in a smaller stream, but
never absent.
In love magic, for instance, from the continuous
boasting about its success, through certain remarkable
cases in which very ugly men arouse the passion of
famous beauties, it has reached the climax of its
miracle -worldng power in the recent notorious case of
incest mentioned above. This crime is often accounted
for by an accident similar to that which befell the
mythical lovers, the brother and sister of Kumilabwaga.
Myth thus forms the background of all present-day
miracles ; it remains their pattern and standard. I
might quote from other stories a similar relation
between the original miracle narrated by myth and its
repetition in the current miracles of living faith. The
readers of The Argonauts of the Western Pacific will
remember how the mythology of ceremonial trading
casts its shadow on modem custom and practice. In
the magic of rain and weather, of gardening and of
fishing, there is a strong tendency to see the original
miracle repeated in an attenuated form in outstanding
miraculous confirmations of magical power.
THE MIRROR OF TRADITION 133
Finally, the element of prescriptive injunction, the
laying down of ritual, taboos, and social regulations
crops up towards the end of most mythical narratives.
When the myth of a certain magic is told by a wielder
of the magic, he naturally will state his own functions
as the outcome of the story. He beUeves himself to be
at one with the original founder of the magic. In the
love myth, as we have seen, the locaUty in which the
primeval tragedy happened, with its grotto, its beach,
and its springs, becomes an important shrine infused
with the power of magic. To the local people, who no
longer have the exclusive monopoly of magic, certain
prerogatives still associated with the spot are of the
greatest value. That part of the ritual which still
remains bound to the locality naturally occupies their
attention. In the magic of rain and sunshine of
Omarakana, which is one of the comer-stones of the
chief's power, the myth revolves round one or two local
features which also figure in present day ritual.
All sexual attraction, all power of seduction, is
believed to reside in the magic of love.
In the fishing of shark and of the kalala, specific
elements of the locality figure also. But even in these
stories which do not wed magic to locality, long
prescriptions of ritual are either told as an integral
part of the narrative or else are put in the mouth of one
of the dramatis personae. The prescriptive character
of myth shows its essentially pragmatic function, its
134 SEX AND REPRESSION
close association with ritual, with belief, with living
culture. Myth has often been described by writers of
psycho-analysis as " the secular dream of the race ".
This formula, even as a rough approximation, is
incorrect in view of the practical and pragmatic nature
of myth just established. It has been necessary barely
to touch upon this subject here, for it is treated more
fully in another place. ^
In this work I trace the influence of a matri-
lineal complex upon one culture only, studied
by myself at first-hand in intensive field work. But
the results obtained have a much wider application.
For myths of incest between brother and sister are of
frequent occurrence among matriUneal peoples,
especially in the Pacific, and hatred and rivalry between
elder and younger brother, or between nephew and
maternal uncle, is a characteristic feature of the world's
folk-lore.
^ " Myth in Primitive Psychology," Psyche Miniatures, 1926.
PART III
PSYCHO-ANALYSIS AND ANTHROPOLOGY
I
THE RIFT BETWEEN PSYCHO-ANALYSIS AND
SOCIAL SCIENCE.
nPHE psycho-analytic theory of the (Edipus complex
was first framed without any reference to the
sociological or cultural setting. This was only natural,
for psycho-analysis started as a technique of treatment
based on clinical observation. It was subsequently
expanded into a general account of neuroses ; then
into a theory of psychological processes in general ;
finally it became a system by which most phenomena
in body and mind, in society and culture were to be
explained. Such claims are obviously too ambitious,
but even their partial realization could have been
possible only through intelligent and whole-hearted
co-operation between experts in psycho-analysis
and the various other specialists. These latter might
have become acquainted with psycho-analytical
principles and been led by these into new avenues
of research. In turn, they might have placed their
special knowledge and their methods at the disposal
of psycho-analysts.
135
136 SEX AND REPRESSION
Unfortunately the new doctrine was not accorded
a benevolent and intelligent reception : on the contrary
most specialists either ignored or combated psycho-
analysis. As a consequence we find a somewhat
rigid and esoteric seclusion on the psycho-analytic
side and ignorance of what is without doubt an
important contribution to psychology on the other.
This book is an attempt at a collaboration between
anthropology and psycho-analysis. Several similar
attempts have also been made from the psycho-analytic
side, as an example of which I shall take an interesting
article by Dr. Ernest Jones. ^ This is of special moment,
since it is a criticism of the first part of this book,
which appeared as two preliminary articles in 1924.2
Dr. Jones's essay will serve as a typical illustration
of certain differences in the method of approach of
anthropologists and of psycho-analysts to the problems
of primitive society ; it is especially suited for this
since the author, in his interpretation of mother-right
among the Melanesians, his understanding of the
complexity of their legal system and of their kinship
organization, reveals his grasp of difficult anthropo-
logical questions.
It will be convenient here to give a short summary
of the views expressed by Dr. Jones. The purpose of
> " Mother-Right and the Sexual Ignorance of Savages," Inter-
national Journal of Psycho-Analysis, vol. vi, part 2, 1925, pp. 109-30.
* " Psycho-Analysis and Anthropology," Psyche, vol. iv.
PSYCHO-ANALYSIS & ANTHROPOLOGY 137
his essay is to give a psycho-analytic explanation
of the institution of mother-right and of the ignorance
of paternity which obtains among certain primitive
peoples. According to the psycho-analyst these two
phenomena are not to be taken merely at their face
value. Thus savages, when propounding their views
on procreation, display symbolism of such an accurate
kind " as to indicate at least an unconscious knowledge
of the truth ". And this repressed cognizance of the
facts of paternity stands in the closest relationship to
the features of the mother-right, since each is actuated
by the same motive — the wish to deflect the hatred
felt by the growing boy towards his father.
In support of this hypothesis Dr. Jones draws
to a considerable extent upon the material from the
Trobriand Islands, but differs from my conclusions,
notably in regard to the central theme — the deter-
mination of the form of the nuclear family complex
by the social structure of the particular culture
observed. Dr. Jones adheres to Freud's theory of the
(Edipus complex as a fundamental — in fact primordial —
phenomenon. He is of the opinion that of the two
elements which compose it, love for the mother and
hatred against the father, the latter is by far the most
important in leading to repression. From this an
avenue of escape is sought by simply denying the act
of birth from the father, " repudiation of the father's
part in coitus and procreation, and consequently
138 SEX AND REPRESSION
softening and deflection of the hatred against him "
(p. 122). But the father is not yet disposed of. The
" attitudes of awe, dread, respect and suppressed
hostihty which are inseparable from the idea of the
father imago ", springing from " the obsessional
ambivalence of savages ", have still to be dealt with,
so the maternal uncle is chosen, so to speak, as the
scapegoat on whom can be heaped all the sins of the
older male in authority, while the father can continue
a friendly and pleasant existence within the household.
Thus we have a " decomposition of the primal father
into a kind and lenient actual father on the one hand
and a stern and moral uncle on the other " (p. 125). In
other words the combination of mother-right and
ignorance protects both father and son from their
maternal rivalry and hostility. For Dr. Jones, then,
the (Edipus complex is fundamental ; and " the
matrilineal system with its avunculate complex arose,
... as a mode of defence against the primordial
(Edipus tendencies " (p. 128).
AU these views will strike the readers of the first
two parts of this book as not altogether unfamiliar,
and sound in all the essentials.
I am not prepared to endorse unconditionally Dr.
Jones's main contention that both mother-right and
ignorance of paternity have come into being " to
deflect the hatred towards his father felt by the
growing boy " (p. 120). I think this statement requires
PSYCHO-ANALYSIS & ANTHROPOLOGY 139
a fuller testing in the various anthropological provinces.
But this view seems to me to be perfectly well in
harmony with aU the facts which I have discovered
in Melanesia, and with any other kinship systems
with which I am acquainted through Uterature.
Should Dr. Jones's hypothesis become established by
subsequent research, as I think and hope it will be,
the value of my own contributions will obviously
be very much enhanced. For instead of having drawn
attention to a mere accidental constellation, I should
have had the good fortune to discover phenomena
of universal evolutionary and genetic importance.
In a way it seems to me that Dr. Jones's hypothesis
is a daring and original extension of my own con-
clusions, that in mother-right the family complex
must be different from the (Edipus complex ; that in
the matrilineal conditions the hate is removed from
the father and placed upon the maternal uncle ; that
any incestuous temptations are directed towards the
sister rather than towards the mother.
Dr. Jones takes, however, not only a more compre-
hensive point of view, in which I am prepared to
follow him ; he places, besides, a certain causal
or metaphysical stress in that he regards the complex
as the cause, and the whole sociological structure as
the effect. In Dr. Jones's essay, as in most psycho-
analytic interpretations of folk-lore, custom and institu-
tions, the universal occurrence of the (Edipus complex
140 SEX AND REPRESSION
is being assumed, as if it existed independently of the
type of culture, of the social organization and of the
concomitant ideas. Wherever we find in folk-lore
hatred between two males, one of them is interpreted
as s5nTibolizing the father, the other the son, irrespec-
tive of whether in that society there are any oppor-
tunities for a father and son to conflict. Again, all
repressed or illicit passion which we find so often
in mythological tragedies is due to the incestuous
love between mother and son, even though such
temptations could be shown to have been eliminated by
the type of organization prevalent in that community.
Consequently Dr. Jones in the article quoted above
maintains that while my results may be correct " on
the purely descriptive plane ", the correlation between
sociology and psychology on which I insist is
"extremely doubtful" (p. 127). And again that "if
attention is concentrated on the sociological aspects
of the data " my view might " appear a very ingenuous
and perhaps even plausible suggestion ", but that it
was only my " imperfect attention to the genetic
aspects of the problem " which " has led to a lack of . . .
a dimensional perspective, i.e. a sense of value based
on intimate knowledge of the unconscious" (p. 128).
Dr. Jones arrives at the conclusion, somewhat crushing
to me, " that the opposite of Malinowski's conception
is nearer the truth " (ibid).
The radical discrepancy between psycho-analytical
PSYCHO-ANALYSIS & ANTHROPOLOGY 141
doctrine and empirical anthropology or sociology
implied in these quotations does not seem to me to
exist. I should not like to see psycho-analysis divorced
from the empirical science of culture, nor the descriptive
work in anthropology deprived of the assistance of
psycho-analytical theory. I cannot myself plead
guilty of overemphasizing the sociological elements
either. I have tried to introduce these factors into
the formula of the nuclear complex, but I have in no
way minimized the importance of biological, psycho-
logical, or unconscious factors.
II
A " REPRESSED COMPLEX "
iy yf Y main contention is concisely and adequately
summed up by Dr. Jones himself as " the view
that the nuclear family complex varies according to the
particular family structure existing in any community.
According to him (i.e. to Malinowski) a matrilineal
family system arises, for unknown social and economic
reasons, and then the repressed nuclear complex
consists of brother and sister attraction, with nephew
and uncle hatred ; when this system is replaced by a
patrilineal one, the nuclear complex becomes the
familiar CEdipus one" (pp. 127 and 128). All this is
a perfectly correct interpretation of my views, though
Dr. Jones has gone beyond the scope of my previously
published conclusions. As a field-worker I have
remained throughout my essay on the " purely descrip-
tive plane", but in this Part I shall presently take the
opportunity of setting forth my genetic views.
As has been already mentioned, the crux of the
difficulty lies in the fact that to Dr. Jones and other
psycho-analysts the (Edipus complex is something
absolute, the primordial source, in his own words the
Ions el origo of everything. To me on the other hand
142
PSYCHO-ANALYSIS & ANTHROPOLOGY 143
the nuclear family complex is a functional formation
dependent upon the structure and upon the culture
of a society. It is necessarily determined by the manner
in which sexual restrictions are moulded in a community
and by the manner in which authority is apportioned.
I cannot conceive of the complex as the first cause of
everything, as the unique source of culture, of organiza-
tion and belief ; as the metaphysical entity, creative,
but not created, prior to all things and not caused by
anything else.
Let me quote some more significant passages from
Dr. Jones's article in order to indicate the obscurities
and contradictions to which I have alluded. They
illustrate the type of argument which we meet in the
orthodox psycho-analytic discussions of savage
custom.
Even where they admittedly cannot be found in actual
existence, as in the matrilineal societies of Melanesia,
the " primordial (Edipus tendencies " are still lurking
behind : " The forbidden and unconsciously loved
sister is only a substitute for the mother, as the uncle
plainly is for the father" (p. 128). In other words the
(Edipus complex is merely screened by another one,
or painted over by the other complex, in slightly
different colours. As a matter of fact. Dr. Jones
uses an even stronger terminology and speaks about
the " repression of the complex " and about " the
various complicated devices whereby this repression
144 SEX AND REPRESSION
is brought about and maintained" (p. 120). And here
comes the first obscurity. I have always understood that
a complex is an actual configuration of attitudes and
sentiments partly overt, partly repressed, but actually
existing in the unconscious. Such a complex can always
be empirically reached by the practical methods of
psycho-analysis, by the study of mythology, folk-lore
and other cultural manifestations of the unconscious.
If, however, as Dr. Jones seems fully to admit, the
attitudes typical of the (Edipus complex cannot be
found either in the conscious or unconscious ; if, as
has been proved, there are no traces of it either in
Trobriand folk-lore or in dreams and visions, or in any
other symptoms ; if in all these manifestations we
find instead the other complex — where is then the
repressed (Edipus complex to be found ? Is there a
sub-unconscious below the actual unconscious and
what does the concept of a repressed repression mean ?
Surely all this goes beyond the ordinary psycho-analytic
doctrine and leads us into some unknown fields; ; I
suspect moreover that they are the fields of meta-
physics !
Let us turn to the devices by which the repression
of the complex is brought about. According to Dr.
Jones they consist in a tendency to divorce relation-
ship and social kinship in the various customary
denials of actual birth, in the enactment of a ritual
birth, in the affectation of ignorance of paternity
PSYCHO-ANALYSIS & ANTHROPOLOGY 145
and so on. I would like to state here at once that in
this I am very much in agreement with Dr. Jones's
point of view, though I might differ in certain details.
Thus I am not quite sure whether I would speak of
a " tendentious denial of physical paternity " since
I am firmly convinced that the ignorance of these
complicated physiological processes is as natural and
direct as is the ignorance of the processes of digestion,
secretion, of the gradual bodily decay, in short, of
all that happens in the human body. I do not know
why we should assume that people on a very low level
of culture have received their early revelation about
certain aspects of embrj^ology while in all other aspects
of natural science they know next to nothing a$ to the
causal connections of phenomena. That, however,
the divorce or at least the partial autonomy of
biological and social relations under culture is
of the greatest importance in primitive society
I shall try to demonstrate presently at some
length.
In the matter of ignorance of paternity, however,
there seems to me a slight discrepancy in Dr. Jones's
views. In one place we are told " there is the closest
collateral relationship between ignorance about paternal
procreation on the one hand and the institution of
mother-right on the other. My view is that both these
phenomena are brought about by the same motive ;
in what chronological relation they stand to each other
146 SEX AND REPRESSION
is another question altogether, which will be considered
later. The motive, according to this view, in both
cases is to deflect the hatred towards his father felt by
the growing boy " (p. 120). The point is crucial and yet
Dr. Jones does not himself feel quite certain about it.
For in another place he tells us that there is no " reason
to suppose that the savage ignorance, or rather
repression, of the facts of paternal procreation is a
necessary accompaniment of mother-right, though
it is evident that it must be a valuable support to the
motives discussed above which led to the instituting
of mother-right " (p. 130). The relation between the
two sentences quoted is not quite clear, and while the
latter is not quite correct the former would be more
lucid if we were told what the author means by the
" closest collateral relationship ". Does that mean
that both ignorance and mother-right are necessary
effects of the principal cause, i.e., the (Edipus complex,
or are they both loosely connected with it ? If so what
are the conditions under which the necessity to mask
the (Edipus complex leads to mother-right and
ignorance, and what are the conditions in which it
does not lead to these effects ? Without such concrete
data Dr. Jones's theory is not much more than a vague
suggestion.
Having examined the devices, let us have a look
at the " primordial cause ". This, as we know, is the
(Edipus complex conceived in an absolute and
PSYCHO-ANALYSIS & ANTHROPOLOGY 147
genetically transcendental manner. Going beyond
Dr. Jones's essay to the anthropological contributions
of psycho-analysts in general, we learn how the CEdipus
complex is supposed to have originally come into
being. It originated by the famous totemic crime
in the primeval horde.
Ill
"THE PRIMORDIAL CAUSE OF CULTURE"
T^REUD'S theory of the dramatic beginnings of
totemism and taboo, of exogamy and sacrifice, is
of great importance in all psycho-analytic writings
on anthropology. It cannot be passed over in any essay
like the present one, which tries to bring psycho-
analytic views into line with anthropological findings.
We shall therefore take this opportunity of entering
into a detailed critical analysis of the theory.
In his book on Totem and Taboo Freud shows how
the OEdipus complex can serve to explain totemism
and the avoidance of the mother-in-law, ancestor
worship and the prohibitions of incest, the identifica-
tion of man with his totemic animal and the idea of
the God Father.* In fact the (Edipus complex, as we
know, has to be regarded by psycho-analysts as the
source of culture, as having occurred before the
beginnings of culture, and in his book Freud gives us
precisely the hypothesis describing how it actually
came into being.
In this Freud takes the cue from two illustrious
predecessors, Darwin and Robertson Smith. From
^ S. Freud, Totem and Taboo, New York, 1918. The quotations
in the text refer to the American Edition .
148
PSYCHO-ANALYSIS & ANTHROPOLOGY 149
Darwin he borrows the idea of " primal horde " or as it
was renamed by Atkinson " the Cyclopean family ".
According to this view the earUest form of family
or social life consisted of small groups led and dominated
by a mature male who kept in subjection a number of
females and children. From another great student,
Robertson Smith, Freud received the suggestion
about the importance of the totemic sacrament.
Robertson Smith considers that the earliest act of
religion consisted of a common meal in which the
totemic animal was ceremonially eaten by the members
of the clan. In later development sacrifice, the almost
universal and certainly the most important rehgious act,
emerged from the totemic meal. The taboo forbidding
the eating of totemic species at ordinary times
constitutes the negative side of the ritual communion.
To these two hypotheses Freud added one of his own :
the identification of man with the totem is a trait of
the mentality common to children, primitives and
neurotics, based upon the tendency to identify the
father with some unpleasant animal.
In this context we are primarily interested in the
sociological side of the theory and I shaU quote in
full the passage of Darwin's upon which is built Freud's
theory. Says Darwin : " We may indeed conclude
from what we know of the jealousy of all male
quadrupeds, armed, as many of them are, with special
weapons for battling with their rivals, that promiscuous
150 SEX AND REPRESSION
intercourse in a state of nature is extremely improbable.
... If we therefore look back far enough into the
stream of time and judging from the social habits
of man as he now exists, the most probable view is
that he originally lived in small communities, each with
a single wife, or if powerful with several, whom he
jealously defended against all other men. Or he may
not have been a social animal and yet have lived with
several wives, like the gorilla ; for all the natives agree
that only the adult male is seen in a band ; when the
young male grows up a contest takes place for mastery
and the strongest, by killing and driving out the others,
establishes himself as the head of the community
(Dr. Savage in the Boston Journal of Natural History,
vol. V, 1845-47). The younger males thus being
driven out and wandering about would also, when at
last successful in finding a partner, prevent too close
inbreeding within the limits of the same family." *
I may at once point out that in this passage Darwin
speaks about man and gorillas indiscriminately.
Nor is there any reason why we as anthropologists
should blame him for this confusion — the least our
science can do is to deprive us of any vanities with
regard to our anthropoid brethren ! But if philo-
sophically the difference between a man and a monkey
is insignificant, the distinction between family as we
* S. Freud, Totem and Taboo, 1918, pp. 207-208, quoted from
Darwin, " The Descent of Man," vol. ii, chapter 20, pp. 603-604.
PSYCHO-ANALYSIS & ANTHROPOLOGY 151
find it among the anthropoid apes and the organized
human family is of extreme importance for the
sociologist. He has to discriminate clearly between
animal life in the state of nature and human life under
culture. To Darwin, who was developing a biological
argument against the hypothesis of promiscuity,
the distinction was irrelevant. Had he been dealing
with the origins of culture, had he tried to define the
moment of its birth, the line of distinction between
nature and culture would have been all-important.
Freud who, as we shall see, actually does attempt to
grasp and to render the " great event with which
culture began ", fails completely in his task in that
he loses sight of this line of division and places culture
in conditions in which, ex hypothesi, it cannot exist.
Darwin speaks, moreover, only about the wives of
the leader of the herd, and not of any other females.
He also states that the excommunicated young males
succeed finally in finding a partner and do not trouble
any more about their parental family. On both these
points Freud substantially modifies the Darwinian
hypothesis.
Let me quote the words of the master of psycho-
analysis in full so as to substantiate my criticism.
Says Freud : " The Darwinian conception of the primal
horde does not, of course, allow for the beginnings of
totemism. There is only a violent, jealous father
who keeps all the females for himself and drives away
152 SEX AND REPRESSION
the growing sons " (p. 233). As we see, the old male is
made to keep all the females for himself while the
expelled sons remain somewhere in the neighbour-
hood, banded together, in order to be ready for the
hypothetical event. And indeed a crime is conjured
up before our eyes as bloodcurdling as it is hypothetical,
yet of the greatest importance in the history of Psycho-
analysis, if not of Humanity ! For according to Freud
it is destined to give birth to all future civilization.
It is " the great event with which culture began and
which ever since has not let mankind come to rest " ;
it is the " deed that was in the beginning " ; it is the
" memorable, criminal act with which . . . began
social organization, moral restrictions and religion "
(pp. 234, 239, 265). Let us hear the story of this
primordial cause of all culture.
" One day the expelled brothers joined forces,
slew and ate the father, and thus put an end to the
father horde. Together they dared and accomplished
what would have remained impossible for them singly.
Perhaps some advance in culture, like the use of a new
weapon, had given them the feeling of superiority.
Of course these cannibalistic savages ate their victim.
This violent primal father had surely been the envied
and feared model for each of the brothers. Now they
accomplished their identification with him by devouring
him and each acquired a part of his strength. The
totem feast, which is perhaps mankind's first celebra-
PSYCHO-ANALYSIS & ANTHROPOLOGY 153
tion, would be the repetition and commemoration
of this memorable . . . act . . . " (p. 234).
This is the original act of human culture and yet
in the middle of the description the author
speaks about " some advance in culture ", about
" the use of a new weapon ", and thus equips his
pre-cultural animals with a substantial store of
cultural goods and implements. No material culture
is imaginable without the concomitant existence of
organization, morality, and religion. As I shall
show presently, this is not a mere quibble but it goes
to the very heart of the matter. We shall see that the
theory of Freud and Jones tries to explain the origins
of culture by a process which implies the previous
existence of culture and hence involves a circular
argument. A criticism of this position will in fact
naturally lead us right into the analysis of cultural
process and of its foundations in biology.
IV
THE CONSEQUENCES OF THE PARRICIDE
T3 EFORE we pass a detailed criticism on this theory,
however, let us patiently hear all that Freud
has to tell us in this matter — it is always worth while
listening to him. "... the group of brothers banded
together were dominated by the same contradictory
feelings towards the father which we can demonstrate
as the content of ambivalence of the father complex
in all our children and in neurotics. They hated their
father who stood so powerfully in the way of their
sexual demands and their desire for power, but they
also loved and admired him. After they had satisfied
their hate by his removal and had carried out their
wish for identification with him, the suppressed tender
impulses had to assert themselves. This took place
in the form of remorse, a sense of guilt was formed
which coincided here with the remorse generally felt.
The dead now became stronger than the living had
been, even as we observe it to-day in the destinies
of men. What the father's presence had formerly
prevented they themselves now prohibited in the
psychic situation of ' subsequent obedience ' which we
know so weU from psycho-analysis. They undid their
154
PSYCHO-ANALYSIS & ANTHROPOLOGY 155
deed by declaring that the killing of the father
substitute, the totem, was not allowed, and renounced
the fruits of their deed by denying themselves the
liberated women. Thus they created the two funda-
mental taboos of totemism out of the sense of guilt
of the son, and for this very reason these had to
correspond with the two repressed wishes of the
(Edipus complex. Whoever disobeyed became guilty
of the two only crimes which troubled primitive
society" (pp. 235-236).
We see thus the parricidal sons immediately after
the act of murder engaged in laying down laws and
religious taboos, instituting forms of social organiza-
tion, in brief moulding cultural forms which will be
handed on far down the history of mankind. And
here again we are faced by the dilemma : did the
raw material of culture exist already — in which case
the " great event " could not have created culture
as it is supposed by Freud to have done, or was culture
at the time of the deed not yet in existence — in which
case the sons could not have instituted sacraments,
established laws and handed on customs.
Freud does not completely ignore this point, though
he hardly seems to have recognized its crucial
importance. He anticipates the question as to the
possibilities of a lasting influence of the primeval
crime and of its enduring action across successive
generations of man. To meet any possible objections
156 SEX AND REPRESSION
Freud summons to his aid another hypothesis : " . . . it
can hardly have escaped anyone that we base every-
thing upon the assumption of a psyche of the mass
in which psychic processes occur as in the psychic
hfe of the individual " (p. 259). But this assumption
of a collective soul is not sufficient. We have to
endow this comprehensive entity also with an almost
unhmited memory. "... we let the sense of guilt
for a deed survive for thousands of years, remaining
effective in generations which could not have known
anything of this deed. We allow an emotional process
such as might have arisen among generations of sons
that had been ill-treated by their fathers, to continue
to new generations which had escaped such treatment
by the very removal of the father " (p. 259).
Freud is somewhat uneasy about the validity of
this assumption but an argumentum ad hominem is
ready at hand. Freud assures us that however daring
his hypothesis " . . . we ourselves do not have to
carry the whole responsibility for such daring "
(p. 260). Not only that : the writer lays down a
universal rule for anthropologists and sociologists.
" Without the assumption of a mass psyche, or a
continuity in the emotional life of mankind which
permits us to disregard the interruptions of psychic
acts through the transgression of individuals, social
psychology could not exist at all. If psychic processes
of one generation did not continue in the next, if each
PSYCHO-ANALYSIS & ANTHROPOLOGY 157
had to acquire its attitude towards life afresh, there
would be no progress in this field and almost no
development " (p. 260). And here we touch on a very
important point : the methodological necessity of the
figment of a collective soul. As a point of fact
no competent anthropologist now makes any such
assumption of " mass psyche ", of the inheritance of
acquired " psychic dispositions ", or of any " psychic
continuity" transcending the limits of the individual
soul.^ On the other hand anthropologists can clearly
indicate what the medium is in which the experiences
of each generation are deposited and stored up for
successive generations. This medium is that body
of material objects, traditions, and stereotyped mental
processes which we call culture. It is super-individual
but not psychological. It is moulded by man and
moulds him in turn. It is the only medium in
which man can express any creative impulse and
thus add his share to the common stock of
^ All the anthropological authorities, for instance, upon whom
Freud bases his work, Lang, Crawley, Marett, never once in their
analysis of custom, belief, and institution have employed such or a
similar concept. Frazer above all rules this conception consciously
and methodically out of his work (personal communication).
Durkheim, who verges upon this metaphysical fallacy, has been
criticized on this point by most modem anthropologists. Leading
sociologists such as Hobhouse, Westermarck, Dewey, and social
anthropologists such as Lowie, Kroeber, Boas, have consistently
avoided the introduction of " the collective sensorium ". For
a searching and destructive criticism of certain attempts at a
sociological use of " mass psyche " compare M. Ginsberg, " The
Psychology of Society " (1921).
158 SEX AND REPRESSION
human values. It is the only reservoir from which
the individual can draw when he wants to utilize
the experiences of others for his personal benefit.
A fuller analysis of culture to which we shall presently
pass will reveal to us the mechanism by which it is
created, maintained, and transmitted. This analysis
will also show us that the complex is the natural
by-product of the coming into existence of culture.
It will be obvious to any reader of Dr. Jones's
article that he fully adopts Freud's hypothesis about
the origins of human civilization. From the passages
previously quoted it is clear that to him the (Edipus
complex is the origin of everything. Hence it must
be a pre-cultural formation. Dr. Jones even more
explicitly commits himself to Freud's theory in the
following passages : " Far from being led by considera-
tion of the subject, as Malinowski was, to abandon or
revise Freud's conception of the ' primal horde '
(Atkinson's ' cyclopean family '), it seems to me,
on the contrary, that this conception furnishes the
most satisfactory explanation of the complicated
problems which we have been discussing " (p. 130). Dr.
Jones also is in full agreement with the racial memory
of the original crime, for he speaks about the
" inheritance of impulses dating from the primal
horde " (p. 121).
V
THE ORIGINAL PARRICIDE ANALYZED
T ET us examine now point by point the hypotheses
of Freud and Jones. The hypothesis of the
"primeval horde "has in itself nothing objectionable
to the anthropologist. We know that the earliest form
of human and pre-human kinship was the family
based on marriage with one or more females. In
accepting the Darwinian view of kinship, psycho-
analysis has discarded the hypotheses of primitive
promiscuity, group marriage and sexual communism,
and in this it has the full support of competent
anthropologists. But as we have seen, Darwin made
no exphcit distinction between the animal and the
human status, and Freud in his reconstruction of
Darwin's argument obliterated whatever distinction was
implied in the great naturalist's account. We have to
enquire therefore into the constitution of the family
at the anthropoid end of the human level of develop-
ment. We have to ask the question : What are the
bonds of union within the family, before it became
human and after ? What is the difference between
animal and human kinship ; between the anthropoid
family in the state of nature and the earliest type of
human family under conditions of culture ?
The pre-human anthropoid family was united by
159
i6o SEX AND REPRESSION
instinctive or innate bonds, modified by individual
experience but not influenced by tradition, for animals
have no language, no laws, no institutions. In the state
of nature the male and female mate, driven by the
selective sexual impulse operating at the time of rut
and at that time only. After the impregnation of
the female, a new impulse leads to the establishment
of common life, the male acting as protector and
guarding over the process of pregnancy. With the
act of birth, the maternal impulses of suckling, tending,
and caring for the offspring appear in the female,
while the male responds to the new situation by
providing food, keeping watch, and if need be engaging
in dangerous combats in the defence of the family.
Considering the protracted growth and slow ripening
of the individual among the anthropoid apes, it is
indispensable for the species that parental love should
arise in both male and female and last for some time
after birth until the new individual is ready to look
after himself. As soon as he is mature there is no
biological need to keep the family together. As we
shall see, this need arises in culture, where for the sake
of co-operation the members of the family must remain
united ; while for the sake of handing on tradition
the new generation must remain in contact with the
previous one. But in the pre-human Cyclopean family
as soon as the male or female children became
independent they would naturally leave the horde.
PSYCHO-ANALYSIS & ANTHROPOLOGY i6i
This is what we find empirically in every simian
species. This subserves the interests of the species
and has therefore to be assumed on general principles.
It also tallies with all which we can infer from our
general knowledge of animal instincts. We find also
in most higher mammals that the old male leaves
the herd as soon as he is past full vigour and thus
makes room for a younger guardian. This is service-
able for a species, for as with man temper in animals
does not improve with age, and an old leader is
less useful and more liable to create conflict. In all
this we see that the working of instincts in the
condition of nature leaves no room for special complica-
tions, inner conflicts, suspended emotions or tragical
events.
Family life in the highest animal species is thus
cemented and governed by innate emotional attitudes.
Where the biological need arises there also appear
the appropriate mental responses. When the need
ceases the emotional attitude disappears. If we
define instinct as a pattern of behaviour in direct
response to a situation, a response accompanied by
pleasurable feelings — then we can say that animal
family life is determined by a chain of linked instincts :
courtship, mating, common life, tenderness towards
infants and mutual help of the parents. Each of these
links follows the other, releasing it completely, for
it is characteristic of such concatenations of instinctive
i62 SEX AND REPRESSION
responses that each new situation requires a new type
of behaviour and a new emotional attitude. Psycho-
logically it is very important to realize that each new
response replaces and obliterates the old emotional
attitude ; that no traces of the previous emotion
are carried over into the new one. While governed
by a new instinct the animal is no more in the throes
of a previous one. Remorse, mental conflict,
ambivalent emotion — these are cultural, that is human,
and not animal responses. The working of instincts,
the unrolling of instinctive sequences, may be more or
less successful, accompanied by more or less friction,
but it does not leave any room for " endopsychic
tragedies ".
What is the importance of all this in respect to the
hypothesis of primeval crime ? I have pointed out
repeatedly that the Great Tragedy has been placed
by Freud at the threshold of culture and as its
inaugural act. Putting aside the several direct quota-
tions from Freud and Jones — and these could be easily
multiplied — it is important to realize that this is an
assumption indispensable to their theories : all their
hypotheses would collapse if we do not make culture
begin with the Totemic Parricide. To the psycho-
analyst the (Edipus complex is, as we know, the
foundation of all culture. This must mean to them
not only that the complex governs all cultural
phenomena but also that it preceded them all
PSYCHO-ANALYSIS & ANTHROPOLOGY 163
temporarily. The complex is the fons et origo out of
which there has grown the totemic order, the first
elements of law, the beginnings of ritual, the institution
of mother-right, everything in fact which to the general
anthropologist and to the psycho-analyst counts as
the first elements of culture. Dr. Jones objects,
moreover, to my attempt at tracing any cultural
causes of the (Edipus complex just because this complex
antedates all culture. But it is obvious that if the
complex has preceded all cultural phenomena, then
a fortiori the totemic crime, which is the cause of
the complex, must be placed still further back.
After having thus established that the event must
have happened before culture, we are faced with the
other alternative of our dilemma : could that totemic
crime have happened in the state of nature ? Could
it have left traces in tradition and culture, which
ex hypothesi did not exist at that time ? As indicated
above, we would have to assume that by one act
of collective parricide the Ape had attained culture
and become Man. Or again, that by the same act
they acquired the so-called racial memory, a new
super-animal endowment.
Let us analyze this now in more detail. In the
family life of a pre-human anthropoid species each
link in the chain of instincts is released as soon as
it ceases to be serviceable. Past instinctive attitudes
leave no active traces, and neither conflict nor complex
i64 SEX AND REPRESSION
attitudes are possible. These assertions should, I
submit, be further tested by the student of animal
psychology, but they embody all that we know about
the subject. If this be so, however, we have to challenge
the premises of Freud's Cyclopean h5^otheses. Why
should the father have to expel the sons if they
naturally and instinctively are inclined to leave the
the family as soon as they have no more need of
parental protection ? Why should they lack females,
if from other groups, as well as from their own, adult
children of the other sex have also to come out ?
Why should the young males remain hanging around
the parental horde, why should they hate the father
and desire his death ? As we know they are glad to
be free and they have no wish to return to the parental
horde. Why should they finally even attempt or
accomplish the cumbersome and unpleasant act of
killing the old male, while by merely waiting for his
retirement they might gain a free access to the horde
should they so desire ?
Each of these questions challenges one of the un-
warranted assumptions implied in Freud's h5^othesis.
Freud in fact burdens his Cyclopean family with a
number of tendencies, habits, and mental attitudes
which would constitute a lethal endowment for any
animal species. It is clear that such a view is untenable
on biological grounds. We cannot assume the
existence in the state of nature of an anthropoid
PSYCHO-ANALYSIS & ANTHROPOLOGY 165
species in which the most important business of
propagation is regulated by a system of instincts
hostile to every interest of the species. It is
easy to perceive that the primeval horde has been
equipped with all the bias, maladjustments and ill-
tempers of a middle-class European family, and then
let loose in a prehistoric jungle to run riot in a most
attractive but fantastic hypothesis.
Let us 5aeld, however, to the temptation of Freud's
inspiring speculations and admit for the sake of the
argument that the primeval crime had been committed.
Even then we are faced by insurmountable difficulties
in accepting the consequences. As we saw, we are
asked to beUeve that the totemic crime produces
remorse which is expressed in the sacrament of endo-
cannibalistic totemic feast, and in the institution
of sexual taboo. This impUes that the parricidal
sons had a conscience. But conscience is a most
unnatural mental trait imposed upon man by culture.
It also impUes that they had the possibilities of
legislating, of establishing moral values, religious
ceremonies and social bonds. All of which again it is
impossible to assume or imagine, for the simple reason
that ex hypothesi the events are happening in
pre-cultural milieu, and culture, we must remember,
cannot be created in one moment and by one act.
The actual transition from the state of nature into that
of culture was not done by one leap, it was not a rapid
i66 SEX AND REPRESSION
process, certainly not a sharp transition. We have
to imagine the early developments of the first elements
of culture — speech, tradition, material inventions,
conceptual thought — as a very laborious and very slow
process achieved in a cumulative manner by infinitely
many, infinitely small steps integrated over enormous
stretches of time. This process we cannot try to
reconstruct in detail, but we can state the relevant
factors of the change, we can analyze the situation of
early human culture and indicate within certain limits
the mechanism by which it came about.
To sum up our critical analysis : we have found that
the totemic crime must have been placed at the very
origins of culture ; that it must be made the first cause
of culture if it is to have any sense at all. This means
that we have to assume the crime and its consequences
as happening still in the state of nature, but such an
assumption involves us in a number of contradictions.
We find that there is in reality a complete absence
of motive for a parricidal crime, since the working of
instincts is in animal conditions well adjusted to the
situation ; since it leads to conflicts but not to repressed
mental states ; since concretely the sons have no reason
for hefting their father after they have left the horde.
In the second place we have seen that in the state of
nature there is also a complete absence of any means
by which the consequences of the totemic crime could
have been fixed into the cultural institutions. There
PSYCHO-ANALYSIS & ANTHROPOLOGY 167
is a complete absence of any cultural medium in
which ritual, laws, and morals could have been
embodied.
Both objections could be summarized in the verdict
that it is impossible to assume origins of culture
as one creative act by which culture, fully armed,
springs into being out of one crime, cataclysm or
rebellion.
In our criticism we have concentrated our attention
on what appears to be the most fundamental
objection to Freud's hypothesis, an objection
connected with the very nature of culture and of
cultural process. Several other objections of detail
could be registered against this hypothesis but they
have been already set forth in an excellent article
of Professor Kroeber's in which the anthropological
as well as the psycho-analytical inconsistencies of the
hypothesis are lucidly and convincingly listed.^
There is, however, one more capital difficulty in which
psycho-analysis involves itself by its speculations on
totemic origins. If the real cause of the CEdipus
complex and of culture into the bargain is to be
sought in that traumatic act of birth by parricide ;
if the complex merely survived in the " race memory
of mankind " — then the complex ought obviously
to wear out with time. On Freud's theory the CEdipus
^ " Totem and Taboo, an Ethnologic Psychoanalysis," American
Anthropologist, 1920, pp. 48 seqq.
i68 SEX AND REPRESSION
complex should have been a dreadful reality at first,
a haunting memory later, but in the highest culture
it should tend to disappear.
This corrollary seems inescapable, but there is no
need of driving it home dialectically, for Dr. Jones gives
it a full and lucid expression in his article. According
to him patriarchy, the social organization of the highest
cultures, marks indeed the happy solution of all the
difficulties due to the primeval crime.
" The patriarchal system, as we know it, betokens
acknowledging the supremacy of the father and yet
the ability to accept this even with affection, without
having recourse to a system either of mother-right or
of complicated taboos. It means the taming of man,
the gradual assimilation of the (Edipus complex.
At last man could face his real father and live with
him. Well might Freud say that the recognition of
the father's place in the family signified the most
important progress in cultural development." ^
Thus Dr. Jones, and on his authority Freud himself,
has drawn the inevitable consequence. They admit
that within their scheme patriarchal culture — the one
most distant from the original course of the complex —
is also the one where the gradual assimilation of the
" (Edipus complex " has been achieved. This fits
perfectly well into the scheme of Totem and Taboo.
But how does it fit into the general scheme of
^ Jones, loc cit., p. 130.
PSYCHO-ANALYSIS & ANTHROPOLOGY 169
psycho-analysis and how does it bear the hght of
anthropology ?
As to the first question, was not the existence of the
(Edipus complex discovered in one of our modem
patriarchal societies ? Is this complex not day by day
being re-discovered in the countless individual psycho-
analyses carried on all over the modem patriarchal
world ? A psycho-analyst should no doubt be the last
to answer these questions in the negative. The (Edipus
complex does not seem to have been so well " assimi-
lated " after all. Even if it be admitted that a great
deal of exaggeration exists in psycho-analytic findings
we have ordinary sociological observation to vindicate
the claim of psycho-analysis on this point. But the
psycho-analyst cannot have it both ways. He cannot
try to cure most ills of the individual mind and of
society by dragging their family maladjustments out
of the sub-conscious, while at the same time he cheer-
fully assures us that " the supremacy of the father
is fully acknowledged in our society " and that it is
accepted " even with affection ". Indeed, extreme
patriarchal institutions in which patria potestas is
carried to its bitter end are the very soil for typical
family maladjustments. The psycho-analysts have
been busy proving that to us from Shakespeare and
the Bible, from Roman history and from Greek
mythology. Did not the very eponjmious hero
of the complex — if such an extension of the term be
170 SEX AND REPRESSION
allowed — live in a society pronouncedly patriarchal ?
And was not his tragedy based on the father's jealousy
and superstitious fear — motives which, by the way, are
typically sociological ? Could the myth or the tragedy
unfold before us with the same powerful and fatal
effect, unless we felt the puppets moved by a
patriarchal destiny ?
Most modem neuroses, the dreams of patients, the
myths of Indo-Germanic peoples, our literatures and
our patriarchal creeds have been interpreted in terms
of the CEpidus complex — i.e. under the assumption
that in pronounced father-right the son never recognizes
" the father's place in the family "; that he does not
like to " face his real father "; that he is unable to
" live with him " in peace. Surely psycho-analysis
as theory and as practice stands and falls with the
truth of the contention that our modem culture
suffers from the maladjustments covered by the term
(Edipus complex.
What has anthropology to say about the optimistic
view expressed in the passage quoted above ? If
the patriarchal regime means the happy solution of
the (Edipus complex, the stage when man could face
his father, and so on — then where on earth does the
complex exist in an unassimilated form ? That it is
" deflected " under mother-right has been proved
in the first two parts of this book and it has been
independently re-vindicated by Dr. Jones himself.
PSYCHO-ANALYSIS & ANTHROPOLOGY 171
Whether the CEdipus complex in its full splendour does
exist in a culture never studied empirically from this
point of view is an idle question. The object of the
present work has been partly to stimulate field workers
to further research. What such an empirical study
might or might not reveal I for one shall not try to fore-
tell. But it seems to me that to deny the problem, to
cover it up with an obviously inadequate assumption,
and to obliterate as much as has been already done
towards its solution, is not to render a service either
to anthropology or to psycho-analysis.
I have pointed out a series of contradictions and
obscurities in the psycho-analytic approach to this
question, taking Dr. Jones's interesting contribution
as my main text. Such inconsistencies are : the idea
of a " repressed complex " ; the assertion that
mother-right and ignorance of paternity are corre-
lated and yet independent ; the view that patriarchy
is a happy solution of the (Edipus complex as
well as its cause. All these discrepancies centre in
my opinion round the doctrine that the (Edipus
complex is the vera causa of social and cultural
phenomena instead of being the result ; that it originated
in the primeval crime ; that it continued in racial
memory as a system of inherited, collective tendencies.
I would like to indicate just one more point. Taken
as a real historical fact, that is one which has to be
placed in space and time and concrete circumstance,
172 SEX AND REPRESSION
how is the primitive parricide to be imagined ? Have
we to assume that once upon a time, in one super-
horde, at one spot, one crime had been committed ?
That this crime then created culture and that this
culture spread all over the world by primeval diffusion,
changing apes into men wherever it reached ? This
assumption falls to the ground as soon as formulated.
The alternative is equally difficult to imagine : it is
a sort of epidemic of minor parricides occurring all
over the world, each horde going on with its Cyclopean
tyranny and then breaking into crime and thus into
culture. The more we look at the hypothesis concretely,
the more we try to elaborate it, the less do we feel
inclined to treat it as anything but a " Just-so story ",
as Professor Kroeber has called it, an appellation not
resented by Freud himself.^
* Compare Freud's Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego,
Sign. Freud, 1922, p. 90. The name of Professor Kroeber is mis-
spelled into " Kroeger " right through all the successive editions.
One might inquire what is the psycho-analytic cause of this lapse
on the principle developed in The Psych '^pathology of Everyday Life,
that no mistake is without its motive. It is almost unpardonable
that this misprint of the name of a leading American scholar has
been carried over into the American translation of Freud's book !
VI
COMPLEX OR SENTIMENT?
T HAVE, up to now, used the word " complex " to
denote the typical attitudes towards members
of the family. I have even retrimmed it into a new
expression, the Nuclear Family Complex, which is
intended to be a generalization, applicable to various
cultures, of the term CEdipus complex, whose applica-
bility, I maintain, is restricted to the Aryan, patriarchal
society. But, in the interests of scientific nomenclature,
I shall have to sacrifice this new compound, Nuclear
Family Complex, for not only is it advisable never to
introduce new terms, but it is always a laudable act
to expurgate science of any terminological intruder,
if it can be proved that it is jumping the claim of
one already established. I believe that the word
" complex " carries with it certain implications
which make it altogether unsuitable, except as a
scientific colloquialism — what the Germans call Schlag-
wort. At the least we must make clear what we
mean by it.
The word " complex " dates from a certain phase
of psycho-analysis when this was still in close associa-
tion with therapy, when it was in fact not much more
than a method of treating neurosis. " Complex "
173
174 SEX AND REPRESSION
meant the pathogenous, repressed emotional attitude
of the patient. But it has now become questionable
whether in general psychology one can sever and isolate
the repressed part of a man's attitude towards a
person, and treat it separately from the non-repressed
elements. In our study, we have found that the various
emotions which constitute the attitude towards a-
person are so closely connected and intertwined that
they form a closely knit organic insoluble system.
Thus, in relation to the father, the feelings which make
up veneration and idealization are essentially bound
up with the dislike, hatred or scorn which are their
reflections. These negative feelings are in fact partly
reactions to an over-strained exaltation of the father,
shadows cast into the unconscious by the too glaring
idealization of the non-ideal father. To sever the
shadow from the part which is in the " foreconscious "
and that which is in the unconscious is impossible;
they are indissolubly connected. The psycho-analyst
in his consultation room can perhaps neglect the open,
obvious elements of the attitude which contribute
nothing further to the malady ; he can isolate the
repressed oijes and make of them an entity, calling it
a complex. But as soon as he leaves his neurotic
patients and enters the lecture room with a general
psychological theory, he might as well realize that
complexes do not exist, that certainly they do not lead
an independent existence in the unconscious and that
PSYCHO-ANALYSIS & ANTHROPOLOGY 175
they are only part of an organic whole, of which
the essential constituents are not repressed at all.
As a sociologist I am not here concerned with the
pathological results, but with their normal, ordinary
foundations. And, although it was better to leave
this theoretical analysis till now, when we can sub-
stantiate it by fact, yet throughout our account of
family influences, I have clearly indicated the " fore-
conscious " as well as the unconscious elements.
Psycho-analysis has the great merit of having shown
that the typical sentiments towards father and mother
include negative as well as positive elements ; that
they have a repressed portion, as well as one above the
surface of consciousness. But this must not make us
forget that both portions are equally important.
Since we see that the conception of an isolated
repressed attitude is useless in sociology, we must try
to gain a clear vision of how we can generalize it
and with what psychological doctrines we should link
up our conception of what we had hitherto called
" nuclear family complex ", and which includes besides
" unconscious " also overt elements. I have indicated
clearly that certain new tendencies of modern
psychology have a special affinity to psycho-analysis.
I meant, of course, the very important advance of
knowledge about our emotional life, inaugurated by
Mr. A. F. Shand in his theory of sentiments and
developed later by Stout, Westermarck, McDougall,
176 SEX AND REPRESSION
and a few others. Mr. Shand was the first to reahze
that emotiorts cannot be treated as loose elements,
unconnected and unorganized, floating in our mental
medium to make now and then an isolated and
accidental appearance. His theory, as well as all
the newer work on emotions, is based on the principle
first enunciated by himself : . namely, that our
emotional life is definitely co-ordinated with the
environment ; that a number of things and persons
claim our emotional responses. Round each
person or object the emotions are organized into a
definite system — the love or hate or devotion we
feel for a parent, a country or a life-pursuit. Such
a system of organized emotions Mr. Shand calls a
sentiment. The ties which bind us to the various
members of our family, patriotism, ideals of truth,
righteousness, devotion to science — all these are
sentiments. And the life of every man is dominated by
a limited number of these sentiments. The theory of
sentiments was first outlined by Mr. Shand in one or two
short essays which must be regarded as epoch-making,
and which later were expanded into a large volume.^
In his book, Mr. Shand assumes an innate predisposition
for a few systems such as love and hate, into each of
which there enter a number of emotions. Every
emotion again is to Mr. Shand a complex type of
* " Character and the Emotions ", in Mind, new series, vol. i, and
The Foundations of Character, 1st edn., 1917.
PSYCHO-ANALYSIS & ANTHROPOLOGY 177
mental response to a definite type of situation, so that
every emotion has at its command a number of
instinctive reactions. Mr. Shand's theory of senti-
ments will always remain of paramount importance
for the sociologist, since social bonds as well as cultural
values are sentiments standardized under the influence
of tradition and culture. In the study of family life,
as it develops in two different civilizations, we have
given a concrete application of the Shandian principles,
the theory of sentiments with reference to a definite
social problem. We have seen how the child's attitude
towards the most important items in his environment is
gradually formed, and we have examined the influences
which contribute towards its formation. The correction
and addition which psycho-analysis has allowed us to
make to Mr. Shand's theory is the consideration of the
repressed elements of a sentiment. But these repressed
elements cannot be isolated into a water-tight con-
partment, and they cannot as a " complex " be regarded
as something different and distinguishable from the
" sentiment ". We see, therefore, that the theory
to which we must attach our results in order to put them
on a sound theoretical basis is Shand's theory of the
sentiments, and that instead of speaking of a " nuclear
complex " we should have to speak of the family
sentiments, of kinship ties, typical of a given society.
The attitudes or sentiments towards father, mother,
sister and brother do not grow up isolated, detached
178 SEX AND REPRESSION
from one another. The organic, indissoluble unity
of the family welds also the psychological sentiments
towards its members into one connected system. This
is shown very clearly by our results. Thus the
expression " nuclear family complex " is equivalent
to the conception of a correlated system of sentiments,
or, shortly, of a configuration of sentiments, typical
in a patriarchal or a matriarchal society.
PART IV
INSTINCT AND CULTURE
I
THE TRANSITION FROM NATURE TO CULTURE
TN the foregoing part of this book, in which we have
been mainly concerned with the discussion of
certain psycho-analytic views, our results have been
mainly critical : we have tried to establish the principle
that in a pre-cultural condition there is no medium
in which social institutions, morals, and religion could
be moulded ; that there is no memory mechanism by
which to maintain and to transmit the institutions
after they have been established. The position reached
is perhaps unassailable to those who really under-
stand the crucial fact that culture cannot be created
by one act or in one moment and that institutions,
morals, and religion could not be conjured up, even
by the greatest cataclysm, among animals who have
not yet emerged from the state of nature. But naturally
we are not satisfied merely with denying but also
want to affirm. We do not merely wish to point out
mistakes, but we want to throw light on the actual
process. To this end we have to analyze the
relation between cultural and natural processes.
179
i8o SEX AND REPRESSION
The type of behaviour under culture differs
essentially from animal behaviour in the state of nature.
Man, however simple his culture, disposes of a material
outfit of implements, weapons, domestic chattels ;
he moves within a social milieu which gives him help
and controls him in turn ; he communicates by speech
and thus develops concepts of a rational religious and
magical character. Thus man disposes of a body of
material possessions, lives within a type of social
organization, communicates by language, and is moved
by systems of spiritual values. These are perhaps the
four main headings under which we usually classify
the body of man's cultural achievements. Thus culture
appears to us when we meet it as a fact already accom-
plished. And let us clearly and explicitly recognize
that we never can observe it in statu nascendi. Nor
is it at all profitable to manufacture hypotheses about
the " original events of cultural birth ". What can
we do then in trying to reflect upon the beginnings of
human culture, that is if we want to do it without
having recourse to any extravagant hypotheses or
unwarrantable assumptions ? There is one important
thing to do, namely, to indicate what part various
factors of cultural development have played in the
process ; what they imply in psychological modification
of man's endowment, and in what way non-
psychological elements can influence this endowment.
For the factors of cultural development are intertwined
INSTINCT AND CULTURE i8i
and essentially dependent upon each other, and while
we have no knowledge and no indications about
sequences in development, while in all speculations
about beginnings the element of time entirely escapes
our intellectual control, we can yet study the correlations
of the factors and thus gain a great deal of information.
We have to study these correlations in full cultural
development, but we can trace them back into more and
more primitive forms. If we thus arrive at a fixed
scheme of dependence, if certain lines of correlation
appear in all cultural phenomena, we can say that
any hypothesis which violates these laws must be
considered void. More than this : if the laws of all
cultural process disclose to us the paramount influence
of certain factors, we must assume that these factors
have also been controlling the origins of culture. In
this sense the concept of origins does not imply priority
in time or causal effectiveness, but merely indicates
the universal presence of certain active factors at
all stages of development, hence also at the beginning.
Let us start with the recognition that the main
categories of culture must from the very outset have
been intertwined and simultaneously at work. They
could not have originated one after the other, and they
cannot be placed in any scheme of temporal sequence.
Material culture, for instance, could not have come into
being before man was able to use his implements in
traditional technique which, as we know, implies the
i82 SEX AND REPRESSION
existence of knowledge. Knowledge again and tradition
are impossible without conceptual thought and
language. Language, thought, and material culture are
thus correlated, and must have been so at any stage
of development, hence also at the beginnings of culture.
The material arrangements of living, again, such as
housing, household implements, means of carrying on
daily life, are essential correlates and prerequisites of
social organization. The hearth and the threshold
not only symbolically stand for family life, but are
real social factors in the formation of kinship bonds.
Morals, again, constitute a force without which man
could not battle against his impulses or even go beyond
his instinctive endowment, and that he has to do
constantly under culture even in his simplest technical
activities. It is the changes in instinctive endowment
which interest us most in this context, for here we touch
the question of repressed drives, of modified impulsive
tendencies, that is, the domain of the " unconscious ".
I shall try to show that the neglect to study what
happens to human instincts under culture is responsible
for the fantastic hypothesis advanced to account
for the (Edipus complex. It will be my aim to show that
the beginning of culture implies the repression of
instincts, and that all the essentials of the (Edipus
complex or any other " complex " are necessary by-
products in the process of the gradual formation of
culture.
INSTINCT AND CULTURE 183
To this end I shall try to show that between the
human parent and child under conditions of culture
there must arise incestuous temptations which are not
likely to occur in animal families governed by true
instincts. I shall also estabhsh that these temptations
have to be met and ruthlessly repressed in mankind,
since incest and organized family life are incompatible.
Again, culture implies an education which cannot
be carried on without coercive authority. This
authority in human society is supplied within the
family by the father, and the attitude between father
and son gives rise to suppressed hatred and other
elements of the complex.
II
THE FAMILY AS THE CRADLE OF NASCENT
CULTURE
npHE fundamental change in the mechanism of
instinctive responses has to be studied upon the very
subject matter of our present inquiry : the early forms
of family life and the transition between animal and
human family. Upon the human family are focussed
all psycho-analytic interests and the family is, in the
opinion of an anthropological school to which the
writer belongs, the most important group in primitive
societies.! The following comparison of courtship,
mating, matrimonial relations and parental cares in
^ It is clear that in this statement, as throughout the book, I imply
that the tj^ical form of the human family is based on monogamous
marriage. The wide prevalence of monogamy in all human societies
is also assumed by Dr. Lowie in his Primitive Society (see especially
chapter iii). A very interesting and important contribution to the
problem is to be found in Capt. Pitt-Rivers's Contact of Races
and Clash of Culture, 1927 (see especially chapters viii, sees. 1, 2, 3,
and xi, sec. 1). Capt. Pitt- Rivers urges the biological and socio-
logical importance of polygyny at the lower levels of culture.
Without fully accepting his view, I admit that the problem will
have to be rediscussed from the point of view advanced by him.
I still maintain, however, that the importance of polygyny is to
be found in the role which it plays in differentiating the higher from
the lower classes in a society ; the plurality of wives allows a chief
to obtain economic and political advantages and thus provides a
basis for distinctions of rank.
184
INSTINCT AND CULTURE 185
animal and human societies respectively, will show
in what sense the family must be considered as the cell
of society, as the starting point of all human
organization.
There is one point which must be settled before we
can conveniently proceed with our argument. Very
often it is assumed by anthropologists that humanity
developed from a gregarious simian species and that
man inherited from his animal ancestors the so-called
" herd instincts ". Now this hypothesis is entirely
incompatible with the view here taken that common
sociability develops by extension of the family bonds
and from no other sources. Until it has been shown that
the assumption of pre-cultural gregariousness is entirely
unfounded ; until a radical difference in nature is
shown between human sociability, which is a cultural
achievement, and animal gregariousness, which is an
innate endowment, it is futile to show how social
organization develops out of early kinship groups.
Instead of having to face the " herd instinct " at every
turn of our argument and show its inadequacy then
and there, it is best to deal with this mistaken point of
view from the outset.
It is idle, I believe, to consider the purely zoo-
logical question whether our pre-human ancestors
lived in big herds and were endowed with the
necessary innate tendencies which allow animals to
cb-operate in herds, or whether they lived in single
i86 SEX AND REPRESSION
families. The question we have to answer is whether
any forms of human organization can be derived from
any animal types of herding ; that is whether organized
behaviour can be traced back to any forms of animal
gregariousness or " herd-instinct "
Let us first consider animal gregariousness. It is a
fact that a number of animal species are so constituted
that they have to lead their life in more or less numerous
groups, and that they solve the main problems of their
existence by innate forms of co-operation. Can we say
with regard to such animal species that they possess a
specific ' herd ' or ' gregarious ' instinct ? All competent
definitions of instinct agree that it must mean a
fixed pattern of behaviour, associated with certain
anatomical mechanisms correlated to organic needs
and showing a general uniformity throughout the
species. The various specific methods by which animals
carry on the process of search for food, of nutrition ;
the series of instincts which constitute mating, the
rearing and education of offspring ; the working of the
various locomotive arrangements ; the functioning of
primitive defensive and offensive mechanisms, — these
constitute instincts. In each we can correlate the
instinct with an anatomical apparatus, with a
physiological mechanism and a specific aim in the vast
biological process of individual and racial existence.
Throughout the species each individual will behave
in an identical manner, provided that the conditions
INSTINCT AND CULTURE 187
of its organism and the external circumstances are
present to release the instinct.
What about gregariousness ? It is interesting to
note that we find the division of functions, the
co-ordination of activities, and the general integration
of collective life most pronounced among relatively low
forms of animal life such as the insects, and also,
perhaps, coral colonies. (Compare the writer's article
on " Instincts and Culture " in Niture, July 19, 1924.)
But neither with the social insects nor with gregarious
mammals do we find a specific anatomical outfit
subserving any specific act of " herding ". The
collective behaviour of animals subserves all processes,
it envelops all instincts, but it is not a specific instinct.
It might be called an innate component, a general
modification of all instincts which makes the animals
of the species co-operate in most vital affairs. It is
important to note that in all the collective behaviour
of animals co-operation is governed by innate
adaptations and not by anything which could be called
social organization in the sense in which we apply this
word to humanity. This I have established more fully
in the article mentioned above.
Thus man could not have inherited a gregarious
instinct, which no animal possesses, but only a diffused
' gregariousness '. This would obviously mean that
man has a general tendency to carry out certain
adaptations by collective rather than individual
i88 SEX AND REPRESSION
behaviour, an assumption which would not help us
very much in any concrete anthropological problem.
Yet even the assumption of a tendency towards
gregariousness can be shown to be completely
erroneous. For is there any tendency in man to carry
out all important acts in common ; or even any well-
defined type of activity ' gregariously ' ? He is
capable indeed of developing his powers of co-operation
indefinitely, of harnessing increasing numbers of his
fellow creatures to one cultural task. But whatever
type of activity be considered, man is also capable of
carrying on his work in isolation if the conditions and
the type of culture demand it. In the processes con-
nected with nutrition and the satisfaction of bodily
wants we can find every activity : food gathering,
fishing, agriculture, performed either in groups or
alone, by collective labour as well as by individual
effort. In carrying out the propagation of the race
man is capable of developing collective forms of sexual
competition, of group licence side by side with strictly
individual forms of courtship. The collective tending of
offspring, found at least among insects, has no parallel
in human societies, where we see individual parenthood
devoted to the care of individual children. Again,
while many ceremonies of religion and magic are per-
formed in common, individual initiation rites, solitary
experiences and personal revelation play as great a
part in religion as do collective forms of worship.
INSTINCT AND CULTURE 189
There is no more trace of gregarious tendencies in the
domain of the sacred than in any other type of human
culture.^ Thus scrutiny of cultural activities would
reveal no gregarious tendencies of any sort. As a matter
of fact, the further we go back the more the individual
character predominates, at least in economic work.
It never becomes quite solitary, however, and the
stage of " individual search for food " postulated
by certain economists seems to me to be a fiction :
even at low levels organized activities run always
side by side with individual effort. But there
is no doubt that as culture advances individual
activities gradually disappear from the economic
field and are replaced by collective production on an
enormous scale. We would have then a case of an
' instinct ' increasing with culture, which, as can be
easily seen, is a reductio ad ahsurdum !
Another way of approaching the question of the
so-called ' herd instinct ' would be to examine the
nature of the bonds which unite men into social
groups. These bonds, whether political, legal, linguistic,
or customary are one and all of an acquired character ;
in fact, it can be easily seen that there is no innate
element in them at all. Take the bonds of speech which
unite groups of people at all levels of culture and
* This has been worked out in detail by myself in another
publication, " Magic, Religion and Science " in Science, Religion
and Reality, Collected Essays by Various Authors, edited by
J. Needham, 1925.
igo SEX AND REPRESSION
sharply distinguish them from those with whom
it is impossible to communicate by word of mouth.
Language is an entirely acquired bodily habit. It is
not based on any innate apparatus, it is completely
dependent upon the culture and the tradition of a
tribe, that is upon elements which vary within the same
species, and so cannot be specifically innate. It is
clear, moreover, that no " language instinct " could
have been inherited from our animal ancestors,
who never communicated by a symbolic con-
ventional code.
Whatever form of organized co-operation we take,
we see after a brief scnitiny that it is based on cultural
artefacts and governed by conventional norms. In
the economic activities, man uses tools and proceeds
according to traditional methods. The social bonds
which unite economic co-operative groups are therefore
based upon a completely cultural framework. The same
refers to an organization for purposes of war, of religious
ceremonial, of the enforcement of justice. Nature could
not have endowed human beings with specific responses
towards artefacts, traditional codes, symbolic sounds,
for the simple reason that aU these objects lie outside
the domain of nature. The forms and forces of social
organization are imposed upon a human community
by culture and not by nature. There cannot be any
innate tendency to run a locomotive or to use a machine
gun, simply because these implements cannot have been
INSTINCT AND CULTURE 191
anticipated by the natural conditions under which the
human species has been biologically fashioned.
In all his organized behaviour man is always
governed by those elements which are outside any
natural endowment. Psychologically, human
organization is based upon sentiments, that is complex
built-up attitudes and not innate tendencies.
Technically, human association is always correlated
with artefacts, with tools, implements, weapons,
material contrivances all of which extend beyond man's
natural anatomical equipment. Human sociality is
always a combination, a dove-tailing of legal, political,
and cultural functions. It is not a mere identity of
the emotional impulse, not a similarity of response to
the same stimulus, but an acquired habit dependent
upon the existence of an artificial set of conditions. All
this will become clearer after our subsequent discussion
of the formation of social bonds out of innate
tendencies within the family.
To sum up, we can say that man obviously has to
behave in common and that his organized behaviour
is one of the comer-stones of culture. But while
collective behaviour in animals is due to innate equip-
ment, in man it is always a gradually built-up habit.
Human sociality increases with culture, while if it had
been mere gregarious ness it should decrease or, at least,
remain constant. The fact is that the essential
foundation of culture lies in a deep modification of
192 SEX AND REPRESSION
innate endowment in which most instincts disappear,
and are replaced by plastic though directed tendencies
which can be moulded into cultural responses. The
social integration of these responses is an important
part of the process, but this integration is possible
through the general plasticity of instincts and not
through any specific gregarious tendency !
We may thus conclude that no type of human
organization can be traced back to gregarious
tendencies, still less to a specific ' herd instinct '. We
shall be able to show that the necessary correlate of
this principle is that the family is the only type of
grouping which man takes over from the animal. In
the process of transmission, however, this unit changes
fundamentally with regard to its nature and con-
stitution, though its form remains remarkably unaltered.
The group of parents and children, the permanence of
the maternal tie, the relation of father to his offspring,
show remarkable analogies throughout human culture
and in the world of higher animals. But as the family
passes under the control of cultural elements, the
instincts which have exclusively regulated it among
pre-human apes become transformed into something
which did not exist before man : I mean the cultural
bonds of social organization. We have now to
enquire into this transformation of instinctive responses
into cultural behaviour.
Ill
RUT AND MATING IN ANIMAL AND MAN
T ET us compare the chain of linked instinctive
responses which in animals constitute courtship,
marriage and family with the corresponding human
institutions. Let us, point after point, go over each
link in the love-making and family life of anthropoid
apes and ascertain what in human beings corresponds
to each.
Among apes the courtship begins with a change in
the female organism, determined by physiological
factors and automatically releasing the sexual response
in the male.^ The male then proceeds to court according
to the selective type of wooing which prevails in a
given species. In this all the individuals who are within
the range of influence take part, because they are
irresistibly attracted by the condition of the female.
1 In this context I should like to refer the reader to Havelock
ElUs's Studies in the Psychology of Scat (six vols.). In that work the
biological nature of the regulation of the sexual instinct under
culture is never lost sight of, and the parallel between animal and
human societies is used as an important principle of explanation.
For an interesting comment upon Darwin's Theory of Sexual Selec-
tion, see vol. iii, p. 22 seqq. (1919 ed.). In this volume the reader
will also find a general criticism of the various theories of the sex
impulse. In volume iv. Sexual Selection in man is discussed ;
volume vi deals with the sociological aspect of the problem.
193 o
194 SEX AND REPRESSION
Rut provides opportunities for display on the part of
the males and for selection on the part of the female.
All the factors which define animal behaviour at this
stage are common to all individuals of the species.
They work with such uniformity that for each animal
species one set of data and only one has to be given by
the zoologist, while, on the other hand, they vary
considerably from one species to another, so that for
each species a new description is necessary. But
within the species the variations, whether individual
or otherwise, are so small and irrelevant that the
zoologist ignores them and is fully justified in doing so.
Could an anthropologist provide such a formula
for the mechanism of courtship and mating in the
human species ? Obviously not. It is sufficient to
open any book referring to the sexual life of humanity,
whether it be the classical works of Havelock Ellis,
Westermarck, and Frazer or the excellent descriptions
in Crawley's Mystic Rose, to find that there are
innumerable forms of courtship and marriage, that
seasons of love-making are different, that types of
wooing and winning vary with each culture. To the
zoologist the species is the unit, to the anthropologist
the unit is the culture. In other words, the zoologist
deals with specific instinctive behaviour, the
anthropologist with a culturally fashioned habit-
response.
Let us examine this in greater detail. In the first place
INSTINCT AND CULTURE 195
we see that in man there is no season of rut, which
means that man is ready to make love at any time
and woman to respond to him — a condition which,
as we all know, does not simplify human intercourse.
There is nothing in man which acts with the same sharp
determination as does the onset of ovulation in any
mammalian female. Does this mean, however, that
there is anything approaching indiscriminate mating
in any human society ? We know that even in the
most licentious cultures nothing like ' promiscuity '
exists or could ever have existed. In every human
culture we find, first of all, systems of well-defined
taboos which rigidly separate a number of people of
opposite sexes and exclude whole categories of
potential partners. The most important of these taboos
completely excludes from mating those people who are
normally and naturally in contact, that is, the members
of the same family, parents from children, and brothers
from sisters. As an extension of this, we find in a
number of primitive societies a wider prohibition of
sex intercourse which debars whole groups of people
from any sex relations. This is the law of exogamy.
Next in importance to the taboo of incest is the
prohibition of adultery. While the first serves to guard
the family, the second serves for the protection of
marriage.
But culture does not exercise a merely negative
influence upon the sexual impulse. In each com-
196 SEX AND , REPRESSION
munity we find also inducements to courtship and to
amorous interest besides the prohibitions and
exclusions. The various festive seasons, times of
dancing and personal display, periods when food is
lavishly consumed and stimulants used, are as a rule
also the signal for erotic pursuits. At such seasons large
numbers of men and women congregate and young
men are brought in contact with girls from beyond the
circle of the family and of the local group. Very often
some of the usual restraints are lifted and boys and
girls are allowed to meet unhampered and uncontrolled.
Indeed, such seasons naturally encourage courtship by
means of the stimulants, the artistic pursuits, and the
festive mood.^
Thus the signal for courtship, the release of
the process of mating, is given not by a mere bodily
change but by a combination of cultural influences.
In the last instance these influences obviously act
upon the human body and stimulate innate reactions
in that they provide physical proximity, mental
atmosphere, and appropriate suggestions ; unless the
organism were ready to respond sexually no cultural
influences could make man mate. But, instead of an
automatic physiological mechanism, we have a com-
plicated arrangement into which artificial elements
^ Havelock Ellis has given a wealth of data on the seasonal
mating in animal and man in the essay on Sexual Periodicity,
vol. i (1910 ed.), especially see pp. 122 seqq. Compare also Wester-
marck's History of Human Marriage, vol. i, ch. ii.
INSTINCT AND CULTURE 197
have been largely introduced. Two points, therefore,
must be noted : there is no purely biological release
mechanism in man, but instead there is a combined
psychological and physiological process determined
in its temporal, spatial, and formal nature by cultural
tradition ; associated with it and supplementing it
is a system of cultural taboos which limit considerably
the working of the sexual impulse.
Let us inquire now what is the biological value of
rut for an animal species and what are the consequences
for man of its absence. In all animal species mating
has to be selective, i.e. there must be opportunities
for comparison and for choice with either sex. Both
male and female must have a chance to display his or
her charms, to exercise attractions, to compete for the
chosen one. Colour, voice, physical strength, cunning
and agility in combat — each a symptom of bodily
vigour and organic perfection — determine the choice.
Mating by choice, again, is an indispensable counter-
part of natural selection, for without some arrangement
for selective mating the species would degenerate.
This necessity increases as we ascend the scale of organic
evolution ; in the lowest animals there is not even the
need for pairing. It is clear, therefore, that in the
highest animal, man, the need for selective mating
cannot have disappeared. In fact, the opposite
assumption, that it is most stringent, is more likely to
be true.
igS SEX AND REPRESSION
Rut, however, supplies the animal not only with the
opportunities for selection. It also definitely circum-
scribes and delimits sexual interest. Outside the rutting
season the sexual interest is in abeyance and the com-
petition and strife as well as the overpowering
absorption in sex are eliminated from the ordinary
life of an animal species. Considering the great danger
from outside enemies and the disruptive forces within,
which are associated with courtship, the elimination
of the sex interest from normal times and its
concentration on a definite short period is of great
importance for the survival of animal species.
In the light of all this, what does the absence of
rut in man really signify ? The sexual impulse is not
confined to any season, not conditioned by any bodily
process, and as far as mere physiological forces are
concerned, it is there to affect at any moment the life
of man and woman. It is ready to upset all other
interests at all times ; left to itself it tends constantly
to work upon and loosen all existing bonds. This
impulse, absorbing and pervading as it is, would thus
interfere with all normal occupations of man, would
destroy any budding form of association, would create
chaos from within and would invite dangers from
without. As we know, this is not a mere phantasy ;
the sex impulse has been the source of most trouble
from Adam and Eve onwards. It is the cause of most
tragedies, whether we meet them in present day
INSTINCT AND CULTURE 199
actualities, in past history, in myth or in hterary
production. And yet the very fact of conflict shows
that there exist some forces which control the sexual
impulse ; it proves that man does not surrender to
his insatiable appetites ; that he creates barriers and
imposes taboos which become as powerful as the very
forces of destiny.
It is important to note that these barriers and
mechanisms which regulate sex under culture are
different from the animal safeguards in the state of
nature. With the animal instinctive endowment and
physiological change throw male and female into a
situation out of which they have to extricate them-
selves by the simple play of natural impulses. With
man the control comes, as we know, from culture and
tradition. In each society we find rules which make it
impossible for men and women to yield freely to the
impulse. How these taboos arise, by what forces they
work, we shall see presently. For the moment it is
enough to realize clearly that a social taboo does not
derive its force from instinct, but that instead it always
has to work against some innate impulse. In this we see
plainly the difference between human endowment and
animal instinct. While man is ready to respond sexually
at any moment, he also submits to an artificially
imposed check upon this response. Again, while there
is no natural bodily process which definitely releases
active sexual interest between male and female, a
200 SEX AND REPRESSION
number of inducements towards courtship guide and
bring out the impulse.
We can now formulate more precisely what we mean
by the plasticity of instincts. The modes of behaviour
associated with sex interest are determined in man
only as regards their ends ; man must mate selectively,
he cannot mate promiscuously. On the other hand,
the release of the impulse, the inducement to courtship,
the motives for a definite selection are dictated by
cultural arrangements. These arrangements have to
follow certain lines parallel to the hnes of natural
endowment in the animal. There must be an element
of selection, there must be safeguards for exclusive-
ness, above all therfe must be taboos which prevent
sex from constantly interfering in ordinary life.
The plasticity of instincts in man is defined by the
absence of physiological changes, of automatic release
of a biologically determined cause of courtship. It is
associated with the effective determination of sexual
behaviour by cultural elements. Man is endowed with
sexual tendencies but these have to be moulded in
addition by systems of cultural rules which vary from
one society to another. We shall be able to see with
greater precision in the course of our present inquiry
how far these norms can differ from each other and
diverge from the fundamental animal pattern.
IV
MARITAL RELATIONS
T ET us follow the universal romance of life and look
into its next stage. And let us examine the bonds
of marriage into which lead the two parallel paths of
man and animal, of eolithic cave-dweller and of super-
simian ape. Of what does marriage really consist in
animals, especially in apes ? Mating occurs as the
culminating act of courtship and with this the female
conceives. With impregnation the rut is over and with
its end there ceases the sexual attractiveness of the
female to other males. But this is not the case with the
male who has won her, whom she has chosen and to
whom she has surrendered. It is difficult to affirm
from the data at our disposal whether in the state of
nature the higher apes still continue to mate sexually
after impregnation. The fact, however, that the female
ceases to be attractive to other males while her mate
remains attached to her constitutes the bond of
animal marriage. The specific response of both male
and female to the new situation ; their mutual attach-
ment ; the tendency of the male to remain with his
consort, to guard her, to assist her, and to protect and
nourish her — these are the innate elements of which
animal marriage is made up. The new phase of life
201
202 SEX AND REPRESSION
therefore consists of a new type of behaviour ; it is
dominated by a new hnk in the chain of instincts.
This new link might appropriately be called the
matrimonial response in contrast to the sexual impulse.
The animal union is based neither upon the un-
controllable passion of rut nor on the sexual jealousy
of the male nor on any claims of general appropriation
on the part of the male. It is based on a special innate
tendency.
When we pass to human society the nature of
matrimonial bonds is found to be entirely different.
The act of sexual union, in the first place, does not
constitute marriage. A special form of ceremonial
sanction is necessary and this type of social act differs
from the taboos and inducements of which we spoke
in the previous chapter. We have here a special creative
act of culture, a sanction or hallmark which establishes
a new relation between two individuals. This relation-
ship possesses a force derived not from instincts but
from sociological pressure. The new tie is something
over and above the biological bond. As long as this
creative act has not been performed, as long as marriage
has not been concluded in its cultural forms, a man and
a woman can mate and cohabit as long and as often as
they like, and their relation remains something
essentially different from a socially sanctioned marriage.
Their tie, since there is no innate matrimonial arrange-
ment in man, is not biologically safeguarded. Nor is
INSTINCT AND CULTURE 203
it, since society has not established it, enforced by
cultural sanction. As a matter of fact, in every human
society a man and a woman who attempt to behave as
if they were married without obtaining the appropriate
social sanction are made to suffer more or less severe
penalties.
A new force, therefore, a new element, comes into
play supplementing the mere instinctive regulation of
animals : the actual interference of society. And it
need hardly be added that once this sanction has been
obtained, once two people have been married, they
not only may but must fulfill the numerous obligations,
physiological, economic, religious, and domestic which
are involved in this human relationship. As we have
seen, the conclusion of a human marriage is not the
consequence of a mere instinctive drive but of complex
cultural inducements. But after matrimony has been
sociologically sealed and hall-marked, a number of
duties, ties, and reciprocities are imposed, backed up
by legal, religious, and moral sanctions. In human
societies such a relationship can usually be dissolved
and re-entered with another partner but this process
is never easy to carry out, and in some cultures the
price of divorce makes it almost prohibitive.
Here we see clearly the difference between instinctive
regulation on the one hand and cultural determinism
on the other. While in animals marriage is induced
by selective courtship, concluded by the mere act of
204 SEX AND REPRESSION
impregnation, and maintained by the forces of the
innate matrimonial attachment, in man it is induced
by cultural elements, concluded by sociological
sanction and maintained by the various systems of
social pressure. And yet here again it is not difficult
to perceive that the cultural apparatus works very
much in the same direction as natural instincts and
that it attains the same ends though the mechanism
entirely differs. In the higher animals marriage
is necessary because the longer the pregnancy,
the more helpless the pregnant female and the
new-born infant and the more necessary it is
for them to have the protection of the male. The
innately determined bond of matrimonial affection
by which the male responds to the pregnancy of his
chosen mate fulfills this need of the species, and is,
in fact, indispensable for its continuity.
In man this need for an affectionate and interested
protector of pregnancy still remains. That the innate
mechanism has disappeared we know from the fact
that in most societies on a low as well as on a high
level of culture the male refuses to take any
responsibility for his offspring unless compelled to do
so by society, which enforces the contract of marriage.
But each culture develops certain forces and there
exist certain arrangements which play the same part
as the instinctive drives do in an animal species. The
institution of marriage in its fundamental moral.
INSTINCT AND CULTURE 205
legal and religious aspects must thus be regarded not
as the direct outgrowth of the matrimonial tendency
in animals but as its cultural substitute. This
institution imposes upon man and woman a type of
behaviour which corresponds as closely to the needs of
the human species as the innate tendencies in animals
correspond to theirs.
As we shall see, the most powerful means by which
culture binds husband and wife to each other consists
in the moulding and organizing of their emotions and
in the shaping of their personal attitudes. This process
we shall have opportunity to study more fully, and in
it we shall find the essential differences between animal
and human bonds. While in animals we find a chain
of linked instincts succeeding each other and replacing
each other, human behaviour is defined by a fuUy
organized emotional attitude, a sentiment, as it is
technically called in psychology. While in the animal
we have a series of physiological moments, events
happening within the organism, each of which
determines an innate response, in man we have a
continuously developing system of emotions. From the
first meeting of the two prospective lovers, through
gradual infatuation and the growth of associated
interests and affections, we can follow a developing
and increasingly richer system of emotions in which
continuity and consistency are the condition of a happy
and harmonious relationship. Into this complex
206 SEX AND REPRESSION
attitude there enter, besides innate responses, social
elements, such as moral rules, economic expecta-
tions and spiritual interests. The latter stages of
matrimonial affection are powerfully determined by
the course of courtship. On the other hand, courtship
and the personal interest of two prospective lovers is
coloured by the possibilities of future matrimony and
by its advantages. In the anticipatory elements, in
which the future responses are brought to bear upon
present arrangements ; in the influence of memories
and experiences ; in the constant adjustment of past,
present, and future, we see why human relationship
presents a continuous and homogeneous growth instead
of the series of clearly differentiated stages which we
find in the animal.
In all this, again, we meet the same plasticity of
instincts already noticed in the earlier stages, and we
see that though the mechanisms under culture differ
considerably from physiological arrangements, the
general forms into which society moulds human
matrimonial rules follow clearly the lines dictated by
natural selection to animal species.
V
PARENTAL LOVE
/COURTSHIP, mating, and pregnancy lead in animal
and man to the same end : the birth of the off-
spring. To this event there is also a similar mental re-
sponse in pre-human species as well as in woman and
man under culture. In fact at first sight the act of
birth might be quoted as the one organic event in which
man does not differ at all from the animal. Maternity,
indeed, is usually regarded as the one relationship which
is bodily carried over from the simian to the human
status ; which is defined biologically and not culturally.
This view, however, is not correct. Human maternity
is a relationship determined to a considerable degree
by cultural factors. Human paternity, on the other
hand, which appears at first as almost completely
lacking in biological foundation, can be shown to be
deeply rooted in natural endowment and organic
need. Thus here again we are forced to compare
minutely the animal with the human family, to state
the similarities as well as the differences.
With the animal, birth changes the relationship
between the two mates. A new member has arrived
into the family. The mother responds to it immediately.
207
2o8 SEX AND REPRESSION
She licks the offspring, watches it constantly, warms
it with her body, and feeds it with her breasts. The
early maternal cares imply certain anatomical arrange-
ments such as the pouches in the marsupials and the
milk-glands in the mammals. There comes a response
in the mother to the appearance of the offspring.
There is also a response in the young — it is, in fact,
perhaps the most unquestionable type of instinctive
activity.
The human mother is endowed with similar
anatomical equipment and, in her body, conception,
pregnancy, and childbirth entail a series of changes
analogous to the gestation of any other mammal.
When the child is born the bodily status which con-
stitutes animal motherhood is to be found also in the
human mother. Her breasts swollen with milk invite
the child to suck with an impulse as elementary
and powerful as the infant's hunger and thirst. The
needs of the child for a warm, comfortable, and safe
place dovetail into the extremely strong, passionate
desire of the mother to clasp the infant. They are
correlated to her tenderness and solicitude for the
child's welfare.
Yet in no human society, however high or low it
might be in culture, is maternity simply a matter of
biological endowment or of innate impulses. Cultural
influences analogous to those we found determining
relations between lovers and imposing obligations
INSTINCT AND CULTURE 209
between consorts, are at work even in moulding the
relation of the mother to the child. From the moment
of conception this relation becomes a concern of the
community. The mother has to observe taboos, she
follows certain customs and submits to ritual pro-
ceedings. In higher societies these are largely but not
completely replaced by hygienic and moral rules ;
in lower they belong to the domain of magic and
religion. But all such customs and precepts aim at
the welfare of the unborn child. For its sake the mother
has to undergo ceremonial treatment, suffer privations
and discomforts. Thus an obligation is imposed upon
the prospective mother in anticipation of her future
instinctive response. Her duties run ahead of her
feelings, culture dictates and prepares her future
attitude.
After birth the scheme of traditional relations is not
less powerful and active. Ceremonies of purification,
rules which isolate the mother and child from the rest
of the community, baptismal rites and rites of the
reception of the newborn infant into the tribe, create
one and all a special bond between the two. Such
customs exist both in patrilineal and matrUineal
societies. In these latter there are, as a rule, even more
elaborate arrangements and the mother is brought into
yet closer contact with the child, not onl}^ at the outset
but also at a later period.
Thus it can be said without exaggeration that culture
210 SEX AND REPRESSION
in its traditional bidding duplicates the instinctive drive.
More precisely it anticipates its rulings. At the same
time, all cultural influences simply endorse, amplify,
and specialize the natural tendencies, those which bid
the mother tenderly to suckle, to protect, and to care
for her offspring.
If we try to draw the parallel between the relation
of father to child in animal and human societies, we
find that it is easy to discover the cultural elements
in humanity but difficult to find out what instinctive
endowment could exist. As a matter of fact, in higher
cultures at least the necessity for imposing the bond of
marriage is practically and theoretically due to the fact
that a father has to be made to look after his children.
An illegitimate child has, as a rule, no chance of
receiving the same care from its natural father as a
legitimate one and the latter is cared for to a large
extent because it is the father's duty. Does that mean
that there are no innate paternal tendencies in man ?
It will be possible for us to show that the human
father is, on the contrary, endowed with definite
impulses — not sufficient to establish natural paternity,
but powerful enough to serve as the raw material out
of which custom is fashioned.
Let us first look at paternity among the higher
mammals. We know that the male is indispensable
there, because, owing to long pregnancy, lactation,
and education of the young, the female and her offspring
INSTINCT AND CULTURE 211
need a strong and interested protector. Correlated
with this need we find what has been called in the
previous chapter the matrimonial response. This
response, which induces the male to look after the
pregnant female, is not weakened by the act of birth,
but, on the contrary, it becomes stronger and develops
into a tendency on the part of the male to protect the
whole family. The matrimonial attachment between
the two partners has to be regarded biologically as an
intermediate stage leading up to paternal attachment.
Turning now to human societies, we see that the
need, far from abating, becomes even stronger. The
pregnant and lactant woman is not less but more
helpless than her simian sister, and this helplessness
increases with culture. The children again need not
only the ordinary cares of animal infancy, not merely
suckling and tending, as well as the education of
certain innate tendencies, but also such instruction in
language, tradition, and handicraft as is indispensable
even in the simplest human societies.
Can we therefore imagine that as humanity was
passing from a state of nature into culture the
fundamental tendency in the male, which under the
new conditions was even more imperative, should
be gradually lessened or be led to disappear ? Such a
state of affairs would run counter to all biological
laws. It is, in fact, completely denied by all the facts
observed in human societies. For, once a man is made
212 SEX AND REPRESSION
to remain with his wife to guard her pregnancy, to
observe the various duties which he usually has to
fulfill at birth, there can be not the slightest doubt that
his response to the offspring is that of impulsive interest
and tender attachment.
Thus we see an interesting difference between the
working of cultural and natural endowment. Culture —
in the form of law, morals, and custom — forces the male
into the position in which he has to submit to the
natural situation, that is, he has to keep guard over
the pregnant woman. It forces him also, through
various means, to share in her anticipatory interest in
the child. But once forced into this position, the male
responds invariably with strong interests and positive
feelings for the offspring.
And this brings us to a very interesting point. In
all human societies — ^however they might differ in the
patterns of sexual morality, in the knowledge of
embryology, and in their types of courtship — there is
universally found what might be called the rule of
legitimacy. By this I mean that in all human societies
a girl is bidden to be married before she becomes
pregnant. Pregnancy and childbirth on the part of an
unmarried young woman are invariably regarded as
a disgrace.^ Such is the case in the very free com-
^ Wester marck in the History of Human Marriage, 1921, vol. i,
pp. 138-157, cites approximately 100 cases of primitive peoples
who are characterized by their pre-nuptial chastity. But many of
INSTINCT AND CULTURE 213
munities of Melanesia described in this essay. Such is
the case in all human societies concerning which we
have any information. I know of no single instance in
anthropological Hterature of a community where
illegitimate children, that is children of unmarried
girls, would enjoy the same social treatment and have
the same social status as legitimate ones.
The universal postulate of legitimacy has a great
sociological significance, which is not yet sufficiently
acknowledged. It means that in all human societies
moral tradition and law decree that the group con-
sisting of a woman and her offspring is not a
sociologically complete unit. The ruUng of culture
runs here again on entirely the same lines as natural
endowment ; it declares that the human family must
consist of the male as well as the female.
And in this culture finds a ready response in the
the statements quoted do not afford very definite evidence of this
fact. Thus to say of certain tribes that " chastity is prized in man
or woman " or that " a good deal of value is laid upon the virginity
of the bride " is not to give proof of lack of pre-marital intercourse.
What, however, is of extreme importance in this computation of
evidence from our point of view is that the only thing it definitely
indicates is the universality of the postulate of legitimacy. Thus
twenty-five of the cases quoted refer, not to chastity, but to the
prohibition of an unmarried girl being with child. Further, more
than a score of others indicate, not the absence of illicit sexual
relations, but that when they occur, censure, or punishment, or
a fine, or compulsion of the two parties to marry, according to the
tribe, follows discovery. In fact though the total evidence is not
conclusive as regards chastity it does prove that the postulate
of legitimacy is of extremely wide prevalence. The two problems
should be kept distinct, from the point of view of our argument.
214 SEX AND REPRESSION
emotional attitudes of the male. The father at all
stages of culture is interested in his children, and this
interest, no matter how it might be rationalized in
certain patrilineal societies, is exactly the same in
matrilineal societies where the child is neither an heir
nor successor to his father nor even usually regarded
as the offspring of his body.^ And even when, as in a
polyandrous society, there is no possibility at all for
any knowledge and interest in the matter of who might
be the begetter, the one who is selected to act as the
father responds emotionally to this call.
It would be interesting to inquire in what way we
could imagine the working of the instinctive tendency
of fatherhood. With the mother the response is plainly
determined by the bodily facts. It is the child whom
she has created in her womb that she is going to love
and be interested in. With the man there can be no
such correlation between the seminal cell which
fertilizes the female ovum on the one hand and the
sentimental attitude on the other. It seems to me that
the only factors which determine the sentimental
attitude in the male parent are connected with the
life led together with the mother during her pregnancy.
If this is correct, we see how the dictates of culture are
necessary in order to stimulate and organize emotional
attitudes in man and how innate endowment is indis-
^ Compare the writer's The Father in Primitive Psychology,
"Psyche Miniatures," 1927.
INSTINCT AND CULTURE 215
pensable to culture. Social forces alone could not
impose so many duties on the male, nor without a
strong biological endowment could he carry them out
with such spontaneous emotional response.
The cultural elements which enter into the father-
to-child relationship are closely parallel to those which
determine maternity. The father usually has a share
in the mother's taboos, or, at least, he has to maintain
some others side by side with her, A special type of
prohibition which is definitely associated with the
welfare of the child is the taboo on sexual intercourse
with a pregnant wife. At birth there are again duties
for the father to perform. The most famous of these is
the couvade, a custom in which the husband has to
take over the symptoms of post-natal illness and
disability while the wife goes about the ordinary
business of life. But though this is the most extreme
form of affirmation of paternity, some analogous
arrangement, by which the man shares in certain
post-natal burdens of his wife, or, at least, has to carry
on actions in sympathy with her, exist in all societies.
It is not difficult to place this type of custom in our
scheme. Even the apparently absurd idea of the
couvade presents to us a deep meaning and a necessary
function. If it is of high biological value for the human
family to consist of both father and mother ; if
traditional customs and rules are there to establish
a social situation of close moral proximity between
2i6 SEX AND REPRESSION
father and child ; if all such customs aim at drawing
the man's attention to his offspring, then the couvade
which makes man simulate the birth-pangs and the
illness of maternity is of great value and provides the
necessary stimulus and expression for paternal
tendencies. The couvade and all the customs of its
type serve to accentuate the principle of legitimacy,
the child's need of a father.
In all this we have again the two sides of the question.
Instincts alone never determine human behaviour.
Rigid instincts which would prevent man's adaptation
to any new set of conditions are useless to the human
species. The plasticity of instinctive tendencies is the
condition of cultural advance. But the tendencies are
there and cannot be developed arbitrarily. Although
the character of the maternal relation is determined
by culture ; although the obligations are imposed from
outside by tradition, they all correspond to the natural
tendency, for they all emphasize the closeness of the
bond between father and child, they isolate them and
mdke them dependent upon each other. It is important
to note that many of these social relations are
anticipatory : they prepare the father for his future
feelings, they dictate to him beforehand certain
responses, which he will later develop.
Paternity we have seen cannot be regarded as a
merely social arrangement. Social elements simply
place man into a situation in which he can respond
INSTINCT AND CULTURE 217
emotionally, and they dictate to him a series of actions
by which the paternal tendencies can find their
expression. Thus, while we find that maternity is
social as well as biological, we must affirm that
paternity is determined also by biological elements,
that therefore in its make-up it is closely analogous to
the maternal bond. In all this culture emphasizes
rather than overrides the natural tendencies. It
re-makes, with other elements, the family into the
same pattern as we find in nature. Culture refuses
to run riot.
VI
THE PERSISTENCE OF FAMILY TIES IN MAN
nnHE family life of mammals always lasts beyond the
birth of the offspring and the higher the species
the longer both parents have to look after their progeny.
The gradual ripening of the child needs more protracted
care and training on the part of both father and mother,
and these have to remain united to look after the little
ones. But in no animal species does the family last for
life. As soon as the children are independent they leave
the parents. This is in keeping with the essential
needs of the species, for any association, with its
corresponding ties becomes a burden to animals
unless it has some specific function to fulfill.
With man, however, new elements enter. Apart
from the tender cares dictated by nature and endorsed
by custom and tradition, there enters the element of
cultural education. Not only is there a need of training
instincts into full development, as in the animal
instruction in food-gathering and specific movements,
there is also the necessity of developing a number of
cultural habits as indispensable to man as instincts are
to animals. Man has to teach his children manual
skill and knowledge in arts and crafts ; language and
218
INSTINCT AND CULTURE 219
the traditions of moral culture ; the manners and
customs which make up social organization.
In all this there is the need of special co-operation
between the two generations, the older which hands on
and the younger which takes over tradition. And here
we see the family again as the very workshop of cultural
development, for continuity of tradition, especially
at the lowest levels of development, is the most vital
condition of human culture and this continuity depends
upon the organization of the family. It is important
to insist that with the human family this function, the
maintenance of the continuity of tradition, is as
important as the propagation of the race. For man
could no more survive if he were deprived of culture
than culture could survive without the human race to
carry it on. Newer psychology teaches us, moreover,
that the earliest steps of human training, those which
happen within the family, are of an educational
importance which has been completely overlooked by
earlier students. But if the influence of the family is
enormous at present, it must have been even greater
at the beginnings of culture, where this institution was
the only school of man and the education received was
simple but had to be given with a vigour of outline
and a strength of imperative not necessary at higher
levels.
In this process of parental education by which the
continuity of culture is maintained we see the most
220 SEX AND REPRESSION
important form of division of functions in human
society : that between giving the lead and taking it,
between cultural superiority and inferiority. Teaching
— the process of imparting technical information and
moral values — requires a special form of co-operation.
Not only must the parent have an interest in instructing
the child, and the child an interest in being taught,
but a special emotional setting is also necessary. There
must be reverence, submission, and confidence on the
one hand, tenderness, feeling of authority, and desire
to guide on the other. Training cannot be done without
some authority and prestige. The truths revealed,
the examples given, the orders imposed will not reach
their aim or command obedience unless they are backed
up by those specific attitudes of tender subordination
and loving authority which are characteristic of all
sound parental relations to the child. These correlated
attitudes are most difficult and most important in the
relation between the son and the father. Owing to the
vigour and initiative of the young and the conservative
authority of the old male, there is a certain difficulty
in the establishment of a permanent reverent attitude.
The mother, as the nearest guardian and the most
affectionate helpmate, usually finds no difficulties in
the earlier stages of relation to children. In the
relation between son and mother, however, which, if it
is to continue harmonious, should remain one of
submission, reverence, and subordination, there enter
INSTINCT AND CULTURE 221
other disturbing elements at a later stage of life. To
these, already known from the previous parts of this
book, we shall presently have once more to return.
The mature animal departs naturally from its
parents. In man the need for more enduring bonds is
indisputable. The education of the children, first of
all, binds them to the family for a long period beyond
their maturity. But even the end of cultural education
is not the final signal for dissolution. The contacts
established for cultural training last longer, and
they serve for the establishment of further social
organization.
Even after a grown-up individual has left his parents
and established a new household his relation to them
remains active. In all primitive societies, without
exception, the local community, the clan or the tribe,
is organized by a gradual extension of family ties. The
social nature of secret societies, totemic units and
tribal groups is invariably based on courtship ideas,
associated with local habitation by the principle of
authority and rank, but with all this it is still definitely
linked with the original family bond.^
It is in this actual and empirical relationship between
all wider social groupings on the one hand and the
family on the other that we have to register the
1 I cannot document this point of view more extensively here. It
will be developed in a work on The Psychology of Kinship, in
preparation for the International Library of Psychology.
222 SEX AND REPRESSION
fundamental importance of the latter. In primitive
societies the individual does build up all his social
ties upon the pattern of his relation to father and
mother, to brother and sister. In this, again, anthro-
pologists, psycho-analysts and psychologists are fuUy
in agreement, putting on one side the fantastic theories
of Morgan and some of his followers. Thus the
endurance of family ties beyond maturity is the
pattern of all social organization, and the condition
of co-operation in all economic, religious, and magical
matters. This conclusion we reached in a previous
chapter, where we examined the alleged gregarious
instinct and found that there is neither an instinct
nor a tendency towards " herding ". But if social
bonds cannot be reduced to pre-human gregariousness,
they must have been derived from the development of
the only relationship which man has taken over from
his animal ancestors : the relationship between husband
and wife, between parents and children, between
brothers and sisters, in short the relationship of the
undivided family.
This being so, we see that the endurance of family
bonds and the corresponding biological and cultural
attitude is indispensable not only for the sake of
the continuity of tradition but also for the sake
of cultural co-operation. And in this fact we
have to register what is perhaps the deepest
change in the instinctive endowment of animal
INSTINCT AND CULTURE 223
and man, for in human society the extension of
family bonds beyond maturity does not follow the
instinctive pattern to be found among animals. We
can no longer speak of plastic innate tendencies, for,
since the family bonds extended beyond maturity do
not exist in animals, they cannot be innate. Moreover
the utility and function of life-long family bonds are
conditioned by culture and not by biological needs.
Parallel to this, we see that in animals there is no
tendency to maintain the family beyond the stage
of biological serviceability. In man, culture creates
a new need, the need to continue close relations between
parents and children for the whole life. On the one
hand this need is conditioned by the transmission of
culture from one generation to another ; on the other
by the need of life-long endurance of bonds which
form the pattern and starting-point for all social
organization. The family is the biological grouping to
which all kinship is invariably referred and which
determines by rules of descent and inheritance the social
status of the offspring. As can be seen, this relation
never becomes irrelevant to a man and has constantly
to be kept alive. Culture, then, creates a new type of
human bond for which there is no prototype in the
animal kingdom. And as we shall see, in this very
creative act, where culture steps beyond instinctive
endowment and natural precedent, it also creates
serious dangers for man. Two powerful temptations.
224 SEX AND REPRESSION
the temptation of sex and that of rebeUion, arise at
the very moment of cultural emancipation from nature.
Within the group which is responsible for the first
steps in human progress there arise the two main
perils of humanity : the tendency to incest and the
revolt against authority.
VII
THE PLASTICITY OF HUIVIAN INSTINCTS
TXT'E shall proceed presently to discuss at some
length the two perils of incest and revolt, but first
let us rapidly survey the gist of the last few chapters
in which the family among man and animals has been
compared. We found that in both the general course
of behaviour is paralleled in its external form. Thus
there exists a circumscribed courtship, usually limited
in time, and defined in its form both in human com-
munities and in animal species. Again, selective mating
leads to an exclusive matrimonial life of which the
monogamous marriage is a prevalent type. Finally
in animal and in man we found parenthood, implying
the same kind of cares and obligations. In short, the
forms of behaviour and their functions are similar.
The preservation of species through selective mating,
conjugal exclusiveness, and parental care is the main
aim of human institutions as well as of animal
instinctive arrangements.
Side by side with similarities we found conspicuous
differences. These were not in the ends but in the means
by which the ends were reached. The mechanism by
which the selection of mating is carried on, by which
matrimo-nial relations are maintained and parental
225 Q
226 SEX AND REPRESSION
cares established, is in the animal entirely innate and
based on anatomical endowment, physiological change,
and instinctive response. The whole series shows the
same pattern for all animals of the species. In man the
mechanism is different. While there exists a general
tendency to court, to mate, and to care for the offspring
and while this tendency is as strong in man as in the
animal, it is no longer clearly defined once and for all
throughout the species. The landmark has disappeared
and has been replaced by cultural limitations. The
sexual impulse is permanently active, there is no rut
nor any automatic disappearance of female attraction
afterwards. There is no natural paternity, and even
the maternal relations are not exclusively defined by
innate responses. Instead of the precise instinctive
determinants we have cultural elements which shape
the innate tendencies. All this implies a deep change
in the relation between instinct and physiological
process and the modification of which they are capable.
This change we have termed the " plasticity of
instincts ". The expression covers the set of facts
described above in detail. They aU show that in man
the various physiological elements which release instinct
have disappeared, while at the same time there appears
a traditional training of the innate tendencies into
cultural habit responses. These cultural mechanisms
were analyzed concretely. They are the taboos which
forbid incest and adultery ; they are the cultural
INSTINCT AND CULTURE 227
releases of the mating instinct ; they are the moral
and ideal norms as well as the practical inducements
which keep husband and wife together — the legal
sanction of the marriage tie ; the dictates which shape
and express parental tendencies. As we know, all these
cultural co-determinants closely follow the general
course imposed by nature on animal behaviour. In
detail, however, the concrete forms of courtship,
matrimony and parenthood vary with the culture and
the forces by which they shape human behaviour
are no longer mere instincts but habits into which
man has been educated by tradition. The social
sanction of law, the pressure of public opinion, the
psychological sanction of religion and the direct induce-
ments of reciprocity replace the automatic drives of
the instincts.
Thus culture does not lead man into any direction
divergent from the courses of nature. Man still has
to court his prospective mate and she still has to choose
and to yield to him. The two still have to keep to one
another and be ready to receive the offspring and watch
over them. The woman still has to bear and the man
to remain with her as her guardian. Parents still have
to tend and educate their children, and under culture
they are as attached to them as under nature animals
are to their offspring. But in all this an astounding
variety of patterns replaces in human societies the
one fixed type imposed by instinctive endowment upon
228 SEX AND REPRESSION
all the individuals of a single animal species. The direct
response of instinct is replaced by traditional norms.
Custom, law, moral rule, ritual, and religious value
enter into all the stages of love-making and parenthood.
But the main line of their action invariably runs parallel
to that of animal instincts. The chain of responses
which regulate animal mating constitute a prototype
of the gradual unfolding and ripening of man's cultural
attitude. We must pass now to a more detailed com-
parison of the processes of animal instincts and human
sentiments.
VIII
FROM INSTINCT TO SENTIMENT
TN the last chapter we summarized the salient points
of our comparison between the constitution of the
animal and the human family. Through the dis-
appearance of the definite physiological landmarks,
through the increasing cultural control in man there
arises a complexity in the human response, a variety
which at first seems to introduce nothing but chaos and
disorder. This, however, is not really the case. In the
frst place we can see that the varying emotional
adjustments of mating in the human family are
simplified in one direction. The human bonds culminate
on their sexual side in marriage, on their parental side
in a life-long enduring family. In both cases the
emotions centre around one definite object, whether
this be the consort, the child, or the parent. Thus the
exclusive dominance of one individual appears as the
first characteristic in the growth of human emotional
attitudes.
As a matter of fact we can see this tendency even as
we ascend in the animal kingdom from the lower to
the higher species. Among the lower animals the male
seed is often scattered broadcast and the fertilizing of
229
230 SEX AND REPRESSION
the female egg is left entirely to physical agencies.
The personal equation, selection and adjustment
develop gradually and attain their fullest development
among the highest animals.
In man, however, this tendency is translated and
enforced by definite institutions. Mating, for instance,
is defined by a number of sociological factors some of
which exclude a number of females, while others
indicate the suitable partners or stipulate definite
unions. In certain forms of marriage the individual
bond is completely established by social elements,
such as infant betrothal or socially prearranged
marriages. In any case, right through courtship,
matrimonial relations and the care of the children,
the two individuals gradually establish an exclusive
personal tie. A number of interests of economic, sexual,
legal and religious nature are for each partner dominated
by the personality of the other. The legal and the
religious sanction of marriage establishes, as we know,
a lifelong, socially enforceable bond between the two.
Thus in human relations the emotional adjustments
are dominated by one object rather than by the
situation of the moment. Within the same relationship
the emotions and the type of drives and interests
vary : they are usually one-sided and disconnected
at the beginning of the courtship, they gradually ripen
into a personal affection during that period, they are
immensely enriched and complicated by the common
INSTINCT AND CULTURE 231
life in marriage, even more so by the arrival of children.
Yet throughout this variety of emotional adjustments
the permanence of the object, its deep hold on the other
indivi<;iuars life constantly increases. The bond cannot
be broken easily and the resistances are usually both
psychological and social. Divorce in savage and civilized
communities, for instance, or a rupture between parent
and child is both a personal tragedy and a sociological
mishap.
But though the emotions which enter into the human
family bond are constantly changing — though they
depend upon circumstances — matrimonial love, for
instance, entailing love and sorrow as well as joy, fear,
and passionate inclinations — though they are always
complex and never exclusively dominated by an
instinct, yet they are by no means chaotic or dis-
organized, in fact they are arranged into definite
systems. The general attitude of one consort to the
other, of a parent to a child and vice versa is not in
any way accidental. Each type of relationship must
dispose of a number of emotional attitudes which
subserve certain sociological ends, and each attitude
gradually grows up according to a definite scheme
through which the emotions are organized. Thus in
the relations between the two consorts the sentiment
begins with the gradual awakening of sexual passion.
In culture, this, as we know, is never a merely instinctive
moment. Various factors, such as self-interest.
232 SEX AND REPRESSION
economic attraction, social advancement, modify the
charm of a girl for a man or vice versa, in low levels
of culture as well as in more highly developed
civilizations. This interest once aroused, the passionate
attitude has to be gradually built up by the tradi-
tional, customary course of courtship prevailing in
a given society. No sooner has this attachment
been built up, than the decision to enter marriage
introduces a first contract, establishes a more or less
sociologically defined relationship. Through this period
a preparation for matrimonial ties takes place. The
legal bond of marriage as a rule changes the relation-
ship in which the sexual elements are still predominant
mto one of common life, and here the emotional
attitudes have to become reorganized. It is important
to note that the change from courtship to matrimony,
which in all societies is the subject of proverbs and jokes,
entails a definite and difficult readjustment of attitudes :
while in the human relationship the sexual elements
are not eliminated nor the memories of courtship
effaced, entirely new interests and new emotions have
to be incorporated. The new attitudes are built upon
the foundation of the old and personal tolerance and
patience in trying situations have to be formed at
the expense of sexual attractiveness. The initial
charms and the gratitude for the erotic pleasure
of earlier life have a definite psychological value
and form an integral part of the later feelings.
INSTINXT AND CULTURE 233
We find in this an important element of human
sentiments : the carrying over of previous memories
into later stages. We shall presently analyze the
relation of mother to child and father to son,
and show there that the same system of gradual
ripening and organizing the emotions takes place.
There is always a dominant emotional attitude
associated with the bodily relation. Between husband
and wife sexual desire is indispensable, as well as an
associated bond of personal attractiveness and com-
patibility of character. The sentimental elements of
courtship, the passionate feelings of first possession
must be incorporated into the calmer affection, allow-
ing husband and wife to enjoy each other's company
throughout the best part of their days. These elements
must also be harmonized with the community of work
and community of interest which unite the two into
the joint managers of the household. It is a well-known
fact that each transition between courtship and sexual
cohabitation, between that stage and the fuller common
life of later matrimony, between married life and
parental life, constitutes a crisis full of difficulties,
dangers and maladjustments. These are the points
at which the attitude undergoes a special phase of
reorganization.
The mechanism which we see at work in this process
is based on a reaction between innate drives, human
emotions and social factors. As we have seen, the
234 SEX AND REPRESSION
organization of a society has economic, social, and
religious ideals to impress upon the sexual inclination
of men and women. These exclude certain mates by
rules of exogamy, of caste division, or of mental
training. They surround others by a spurious halo of
economic attractiveness, of high rank, or superior
social status. In the relation between parents and
children also tradition dictates certain attitudes
which even anticipate the appearance of the objects
to which they pertain. The action of the sociological
mechanisms is specially important when we see it at
work in the growing mentality of the young. Educa-
tion, especially in simpler societies, does not take
place by the explicit inculcation of sociological, moral
and intellectual principles, but rather by the influence
of the surrounding cultural environment on the
ripening mind. Thus the child learns the principles
of caste, rank or clan division by the concrete avoid-
ances, preferences and submissions into which he is
being trained by practical measures. A certain ideal
is thus impressed upon the mind and by the time the
sexual interest begins to act the taboos and the
inducements, the forms of correct courtship, the ideals
of desirable matrimony are framed in his mind. It is
imperative to realize that this moulding and gradual
inculcation of ideals is not done by any mysterious
atmosphere, but by a number of well-defined, concrete
influences. If we cast back to the previous ideas of
INSTINCT AND CULTURE 235
this book and follow the hfe of an individual in
peasant Europe or savage Melanesia we can see
how the child within the parental home is educated
by the rebuke of the parents, by the public
opinion of the elder men, by the feeling of shame
and discomfort aroused by the reactions of them to
certain types of his conduct. Thus the categories
of decent and indecent are created, the avoidance
of forbidden relationships, the encouragement towards
certain other groups and the subtler tones of feeling
toward the mother, father, maternal uncle, sister
and brother. As a final and most powerful framework
of such a system of cultural values, we have to note
the material arrangements of habitation, settlement,
and household chattels. Thus in Melanesia the
individual family house, the bachelors' quarters, the
arrangements of patrilocal marriage and of matrilineal
rights are all associated, on the one hand with the
structure of villages, houses, and the nature of territorial
divisions, and on the other with injunctions, taboos,
moral laws, and various shades of feeling. From this
we can see that man gradually expresses his emotional
attitudes in legal, social, and material arrangements
and that these again react upon his conduct by mould-
ing the development of his behaviour and outlook.
Man shapes his surroundings according to his cultural
attitudes, and his secondary environment again produces
the typical cultural sentiments.
236 SEX AND REPRESSION
And this brings us to a very important point which
will allow us to see why in humanity instinct had to
become plastic and innate responses have to be trans-
formed into attitudes or sentiments.
Culture depends directly upon the degree to which
the human emotions can be trained, adjusted, and
organized into complex and plastic systems. In its
ultimate efficiency culture gives man mastery over his
surroundings by the development of mechanical things,
weapons, means of transportation and measures for
protection against weather and climate. These,
however, can only be used if side by side with the
apparatus there is also transmitted the traditional
knowledge and art of using it. The human adjustments
to the material outfit have to be learned anew by each
generation. Now this learning, the tradition of know-
ledge, is not a process which can be carried on by
sheer reason nor by mere instinctive endowment.
The transmission of knowledge from one generation
to another entails hardships, efforts and an inexhaustible
fund of patience and love felt by the older generation
for the younger. This emotional outfit, again, is
only partly based on the endowment, for all the
cultural actions which it dominates are artificial, non-
specific, and therefore not provided with innate drives.
The continuity of social tradition, in other words,
entails a personal emotional relation in which a number
of responses have to be trained and developed into
INSTINCT AND CULTURE 237
complex attitudes. The extent to which parents can
be taxed with burdens of cultural education depends
upon the capacity of the human character for adapta-
tion to cultural and social responses. Thus in one of its
aspects culture is directly dependent upon the plasticity
of innate endowment.
But the relation of man to culture consists not only
in transmission of tradition from one individual to
another ; culture even in its simplest forms cannot
be handled except by co-operation. As we have seen,
it is the lengthening of the ties within the family
beyond strict biological maturity which allows on the
one hand of cultural education and on the other of
work in common, that is, co-operation. The animal
family of course has also a rudimentary division of
functions, consisting mainly in the provision of food
by the male during certain stages of maternal care and
later on in the protection and nutrition afforded by
father and mother. In animal species, however, both
the nutritive adjustment to environment and the
scheme of economic division of functions are rigid
Man is allowed through culture to adapt himself to a
very wide range of economic environment and this
he controls, not by rigid instincts, but by the capacity
for developing special technique, special economic
organization, and adjusting himself to a special form
of diet. But side by side with this merely technical
aspect there must also go an appropriate division of
238 SEX AND REPRESSION
function and a suitable type of co-operation. This
obviously entails various emotional adjustments under
various environmental conditions. The economic
duties of husband and wife differ. Thus in an arctic
environment the main burden of providing food falls
on the man ; among the more primitive agricultural
peoples the woman has the greater share of providing
for the household. With the economic division of
functions there are associated religious, legal and moral
distinctions which dovetail into economic work. The
charm of social prestige, the value of the consort as
practical helpmate, the ideal of moral or religious
nature, all these considerably colour the relationship.
It is its variety and the possibility of adjusting such
relations as the conjugal one and the parental one which
aUow the family to adapt itself to varying conditions
of practical co-operation and this latter to become
adapted to the material outfit of culture and the
natural environment. How far we can trace concretely
these dependencies and correlations is beside the point
in our present argument. I wish to emphasize here the
fact that only plastic social ties and adjustable systems
of emotion can function in an animal species which is
capable of developing a secondary environment and
thus adjusting itself to the difficult outer conditions
of life.
Through all this we can see that although the basis
of human family relations is instinctive, yet the more
INSTINCT AND CULTURE 239
they can be moulded by experience and by education,
the more cultural and traditional elements these ties
can accept, the more suitable will they be for a varied
and complex division of functions.
What has been said here with reference to the family
refers obviously also to other social ties. But in these,
contrary to what is the case with the bonds of the
family, the instinctive element is almost negligible. The
great theoretical importance of marriage and of the
family runs parallel with the great practical importance
of these institutions for humanity. Not only is the
family the link between biological cohesion and social
cohesion, it is also the pattern on which all wider
relations are based. The further sociologists and
anthropologists can work out the theory of senti-
ments, of their formation under cultural conditions and
of their correlation with social organization, the nearer
shall we move towards a correct understanding of
primitive sociology. Incidentally I think that an
exhaustive description of primitive family life, primitive
courtship customs and clan organization will rule
out from sociology such words as " group instinct ",
" consciousness of kind ", " group mind ", and
similar sociological verbal panaceas.
To those acquainted with modern psychology it
must have become clear that in working out a theory
of primitive sociology we had to reconstruct an
important theory of human emotions, developed by
240 SEX AND REPRESSION
one who unquestionably deserves to be ranked as one
of the greatest psychologists of our time. Mr. A. F.
Shand was the first to point out that in the classifica-
tion of human feelings, in the construction of the
laws of emotional life, we can reach tangible results
only when we realize that human emotions do not float
in an empty space, but are all grouped around a number
of objects. Around these objects human emotions
are organized into definite systems. Furthermore,
Shand, in his book on The Foundations of Character,
has laid down a number of laws whicji govern the
organization of emotions into sentiments. He has
shown that the moral problems of human character
can be solved only by a study of the organization of the
emotions. In our present argument, it has been possible
to apply Shand's theory of sentiments to a sociological
problem, and to show that a correct analysis of the
change from animal to cultural responses vindicates
his views to the full. The salient points which dis-
tinguish human attachments from animal instincts
are the dominance of the object over the situation ;
the organization of emotional attitudes ; the continuity
of the building up of such attitudes and their crystalliza-
tion into permanent adjustable systems. Our additions
to Shand's theory consist only in showing how the
formation of sentiments is associated with social
organization and with the wielding of material culture
by man.
INSTINCT AND CULTURE 241
An important point which Shand has brought out
in his study of human sentiment is that the leading
emotions which enter into them are not independent
of each other, but that they show certain tendencies
towards exclusion and repression. In the analysis
which follows we shall have to elaborate on the two
typical relations between mother and child on the one
hand and the father and child on the other. This will
also help to reveal the processes of gradual clearing off
and of repression by which certain elements have to
be eliminated from a sentiment as it develops.
And here we should like to add that Shand 's theory
of sentiments stands really in a very close relation to
psycho-analysis. Both of them deal with the concrete
emotional processes in the life history of the individual.
Both of them have independently recognized that it
is only by the study of the actual configurations of
human feelings that we can arrive at satisfactory results.
Had the founders of psycho-analysis known Shand's
contribution, they might have avoided a number of
metaphysical pitfalls, realized that instinct is a part
of human sentiments and not a metaphysical entity,
and given us a much less mystical and more concrete
psychology of the unconscious. On the other hand,
Freud has supplemented the theory of sentiments on
two capital points. He was the first to state clearly
that the family was the locus of sentiment formation.
He also has shown that in the formation of senti-
242 SEX AND REPRESSION
ments the process of elimination, of clearing away, is of
paramount importance and that in this process the
mechanism of repression is the source of conspicuous
dangers. The forces of repression, assigned by psycho-
analysts to the mysterious endo-psychic censor can,
however, be placed by the present analysis into a
more definite and concrete setting. The forces of
repression are the forces of the sentiment itself. They
come from the principle of consistency which every
sentiment requires in order to be useful in social
behaviour. The negative emotions of hate and anger
are incompatible with the submission to parental
authority and the reverence and trust in cultural
guidance. Sensual elements cannot enter into the
relation of mother and son if this relation is to remain
in harmony with the natural division of functions
obtaining within the household. To these questions
we pass in the following chapter.
IX
MOTHERHOOD AND THE TEMPTATIONS OF
INCEST
' I 'HE subject of the " origins " of incest prohibitions
is one of the most discussed and vexed questions
of anthropology. It is associated with the problem of
exogamy or of primitive forms of marriage, with
hypotheses of former promiscuity and so on. There is
not the slightest doubt that exogamy is correlated with
the prohibition of incest, that it is merely an extension
of this taboo, exactly as the institution of the clan with
its classificatory terms of relationship is simply an
extension of the family and its mode of kinship
nomenclature. We shall not enter into this problem,
especially because in this we are in agreement with
such anthropologists as Westermarck and Lowie.^
To clear the ground it will be well to remember that
biologists are in agreement on the point that there is
no detrimental effect produced upon the species by
incestuous unions. ^ Whether incest in the state of
^ Compare Westermarck's History of Human Marriage and
Lowie's Primitive Society. Some additional arguments will
be contributed by the present writer in the forthcoming book on
Kinship.
* For a discussion of the biological nature of inbreeding, cf.
Pitt-Rivers, The Contact of Races and the Clash of Culture, 1927.
243
244 SEX AND REPRESSION
nature might be detrimental if it occurred regularly
is an academic question. In the state of nature the
young animals leave the parental group at maturity
and mate at random with any females encountered
during rut. Incest at best can be but a sporadic
occurrence. In animal incest, then, there is no bio-
logical harm nor obviously is there any moral harm.
Moreover, there is no reason to suppose that in
animals there is any special temptation.
While with the animal then there is neither bio-
logical danger nor temptation and in consequence no
instinctive barriers against incest, with man, on the
contrary, we find in all societies that the strongest
barrier and the most fundamental prohibition are
those against incest. This we shall try to explain,
not by any hypotheses about a primitive act of
legislation nor by any assumptions of special aversion
to sexual intercourse with inmates of the same house-
hold, but as the result of two phenomena which
spring up under culture. In the first place, under the
mechanisms which constitute the human family serious
temptations to incest arise. In the second place,
side by side with the sex temptations, specific perils
come into being for the human family, due to the
existence of the incestuous tendencies. On the first
point, therefore, we have to agree with Freud and
disagree with the well-known theory of Westermarck,
who assumes innate disinclination to mate between
INSTINCT AND CULTURE 245
members of the same household. In assuming, how-
ever, a temptation to incest under culture, we do
not follow the psycho-analytic theory which regards
the infantile attachment to the mother as essentially
sexual.
This is perhaps the main thesis which Freud has
attempted to establish in his three contributions to
sexual theory. He tries to prove that the relations
between a smaU child and its mother, above all in the
act of suckling, are essentially sexual. From this
it results that the first sexual attachment of a male
towards the mother is, in other words, normally an
incestuous attachment. " This fixation of libido," to
use a psycho-analytic phrase, remains throughout life,
and it is the source of the constant incestuous tempta-
tions which have to be repressed and as such form one
of the two components of the CEdipus complex.
This theory it is impossible to adopt. The relation
between an infant and its mother is essentially different
from a sexual attitude. Instincts must be defined not
simply by introspective methods, not merely by analysis
of the feeling tones such as pain and pleasure, but above
all by their function. An instinct is a more or less
definite innate mechanism by which the individual
responds to a specific situation by a definite form of
behaviour in satisfaction of definite organic wants.
The relation of the suckling to its mother is first of
all induced by the desire for nutrition. The bodily
246 SEX AND REPRESSION
clinging of a child to its mother again satisfies its
bodily wants of warmth, protection and guidance.
The child is not fit to cope with the environment by
its own forces alone, and as the only medium through
which it can act is the maternal organism it clings
instinctively to the mother. In sexual relations the
aim of bodily attraction and cUnging is that union
which leads to impregnation. Each of these two innate
tendencies — the mother-to-child behaviour and the
process of mating — cover a big range of preparatory
and consummatory actions which present certain
similarities. The line of division, however, is clear,
because one set of acts, tendencies and feelings serves
to complete the infant's unripe organism, to nourish,
to protect and warm it ; the other set of acts sub-
serves the union of sexual organs and the production
of a new individual.
We cannot therefore accept the simple solution that
the temptation of incest is due to sexual relation between
the infant and mother. The sensuous pleasure which is
common to both relations is a component of every
successful instinctive behaviour. The pleasure index
cannot serve to differentiate instincts, since it is a
general character of them all. But although we have
to postulate different instincts for each emotional
attitude yet there is one element common to them both.
It is not merely that they are endowed with the general
pleasure tone of all instincts, but there is also a sensuous
INSTINCT AND CULTURE 247
pleasure derived from bodily contact. The active
exercise of the drive which a child feels towards its
mother's organism consists in the permanent clinging
to the mother's body in the fullest possible epidermic
contact, above all in the contact of the child's hps
with the mother's nipple. The analogy between the
preparatory actions of the sexual drive and the com-
summatory actions of the infantile impulse are remark-
able. The two are to be distinguished mainly by their
function and by the essential difference between the
consummatory actions in each case.
What is the result of this partial similarity ? We can
borrow from psycho-analysis the principle which
has now become generally accepted in psychology
that there are no experiences in later life which would
not stir up analogous memories from infancy. Again,
from Shand's theory of sentiments we know that the
sentimental attitudes in human Ufe entail a gradual
organization of emotions. To these we found it
necessary to add that the continuity of emotional
memories and the gradual building of one attitude on
the pattern of another form the main principle of
sociological bonds.
If we apply this to the formation of the sexual
attitude between lovers we can see that the
bodily contact in sexual relations must have a very
disturbing retrospective effect upon the relation
between mother and son. The caresses of lovers employ
248 SEX AND REPRESSION
not only the same medium — epidermis ; not only the
same situation — embraces, cuddling, the maximum
of personal approach ; but they entail also the same
type of sensuous feelings. When therefore this new
type of drive enters it must invariably awaken the
memories of earlier similar experiences. But these
memories are associated with a definite object which
remains in the foreground of an individual's emotional
interests throughout life. This object is the person of
the mother. With regard to this person the erotic life
introduces disturbing memories which stand in direct
contradiction to the attitude of reverence, submission
and cultural dependence which in the growing boy
has already completely repressed the early infantile
sentimental attachment. The new type of erotic
sensuality and the new sexual attitude blend disturb-
ingly with the memories of early life and threaten to
break up the organized system of emotions which has
been built up around the mother. This attitude, for
purposes of cultural education, has become less and
less sensual, more and more coloured by mental and
moral dependence, by interest in practical matters,
by social sentiments associated with the mother as the
centre of the household. We have seen already in the
previous chapters of this book how at this stage the
relation between the boy and his mother is clouded
over and how a reorganization of the sentiments has
to take place. It is at this time that strong resistances
INSTINCT AND CULTURE 249
arise in the individual's mind, that all sensuality
felt towards the mother becomes repressed, and that
the subconscious temptation of incest arises from the
blending of early memories with new experiences.
The difference between this explanation and that of
psycho-analysis consists in the fact that Freud assumes
a continuous persistence from infancy of the same
attitude towards the mother. In our argument we try
to show that there is only a partial identity between the
early and the later drives, that this identity is due
essentially to the mechanism of sentiment formation ;
that this explains the non-existence of temptations
among animals ; and that the retrospective power of
new sentiments in man is the cause of incestuous
temptations.
We have now to ask why this temptation is really
dangerous to man although it is innocuous to animals.
We have seen that in man the development of emotions
into organized sentiments is the very essence of social
bonds and of cultural progress. As Mr. Shand has
convincingly proved, such systems are subject to
definite laws : they must be harmonious, i.e., emotions
consistent with one another, and the sentiments so
organized that they will allow of co-operation, con-
tinuity of blending. Now within the family the
sentiment between mother and child begins with the
early sensuous attachment which binds the two with
a deep innate interest. Later on, however, this attitude
250 SEX AND REPRESSION
has to change. The mother's function consists in educat-
ing, guiding and exercising cultural influence and
domestic authority. As the son grows up he has to
respond to this by the attitude of submission and
reverence. During childhood, that is during this
extremely long period in psychological reckoning which
occurs after weaning and before maturity, emotions of
reverence, dependence, respect, as well as strong attach-
ment must give the leading tone to the boy's relation
to his mother. At that time also a process of emancipa-
tion, of severing all bodily contacts must proceed
and become completed. The family at this stage is
essentially a cultural and not a biological workshop.
The father and the mother are training the child into
independence and into cultural maturity ; their
physiological role is already over.
Now into such a situation the inclination towards
incest would enter as a destructive element. Any
approach of the mother with sensual or erotic
temptations would involve the disruption of the
relationship so laboriously constructed. Mating with
her would have to be, as all mating must be, preceded
by courtship and a type of behaviour completely
incompatible with submission, independence and
reverence. The mother, moreover, is not alone. She
is married to another male. Any sensual temptation
would not only upset completely the relation between
son and mother but also, indirectly, that between
INSTINCT AND CULTURE 251
son and father. Active hostile rivalry would
replace the harmonious relationship which is the
type of complete dependence and thorough sub-
mission to leadership. If, therefore, we agree with the
psycho-analysts that incest must be a universal
temptation, we see that its dangers are not merely
psychological nor can they be explained by any such
hypotheses as that of Freud's primeval crime. Incest
must be forbidden because, if our analysis of the
family and its role in the formation of culture be
correct, incest is incompatible with the estabUsh-
ment of the first foundations of culture. In any type
of civilization in which custom, morals, and law would
allow incest, the family could not continue to exist.
At maturity we would witness the breaking up of the
family, hence complete social chaos and an impossi-
bility of continuing cultural tradition. Incest would
mean the upsetting of age distinctions, the mixing up
of generations, the disorganization of sentiments and
a violent exchange of roles at a time when the family
is the most important educational medium. No society
could exist under such conditions. The alternative
type of culture under which incest is excluded, is the
only one consistent with the existence of social
organization and culture.
Our type of explanation agrees essentially with the
view of Atkinson and Lang, which makes the pro-
hibition of incest the primal law, although our argu-
252 SEX AND REPRESSION
ment differs from their hypothesis. We differ also from
Freud in that we cannot accept incest as due to the
innate behaviour of the infant. From Westermarck
we differ in so far as the aversion to incest does not
appear to us as the natural impulse, a simple tendency
not to cohabit with persons living in the same house
from infancy, but rather as a complex scheme of cultural
reactions. We have been able to deduce the necessity
of the incest taboo from the change in instinctive
endowment which must run parallel with social
organization and culture. Incest, as a normal mode of
behaviour, cannot exist in humanity, because it is
incompatible with family life and would disorganize
its very foundations. The fundamental pattern of aU
social bonds, the normal relation of the child to the
mother and the father, would be destroyed. From
the composition of each of these sentiments the
instinct of sex must be eliminated. This instinct is
the most difficult to control, the least compatible with
others. The temptation to incest, therefore, has
been introduced by culture, by the necessity of
establishing -permanent organized attitudes. It is
therefore, in a sense, the original sin of man. This
must be atoned for in all human societies by one of
the most important and universal rules. Even then
the taboo of incest haunts man throughout life, as
psycho-analysis has revealed to us.
X
AUTHORITY AND REPRESSION
TN the previous chapter we have been mainly
interested in the relation between the mother and
the son ; here we shall discuss that between the father
and the son. In this discussion the daughter recdves
but Uttle of our attention. On the one hand, as results
from all that has been said above in Chap. IX, incest
between father and daughter is less important, while
on the other, the conflicts between the mother and the
daughter are not so conspicuous. In any case what is
said about mother and son and father and son can
refer with Uttle modification and on a less pronounced
scale to the other set of relations. The cast of the
Freudian (Edipus tragedy, therefore, in which the son
again figures in relation to both parents, is anthro-
pologically quite correct. Freud has refused even to
place Electra side by side with (Edipus, and we have
to countersign this act of ostracism.
In discussing previously the relation between father
and son we have definitely affirmed the instinctive
basis of this relationship. The human family is in need
of a male, as definitely as the animal family, and in all
human societies this biological need is expressed in the
253
254 SEX AND REPRESSION
principle of legitimacy which demands a male as the
guardian, protector, and regent of the family.
It would be useless to speculate upon the role of the
animal father as a source of authority within the
family. It seems unlikely that he should ever develop
into a t3a'ant, because as long as he is indispensable
to his children he presumably possesses a fund of natural
tenderness and forbearance. When he ceases to be
useful to the offspring they leave him.
Under conditions of culture the father's authority,
however, is indispensable, because at the later stages,
when the parents and children have to remain together
for the purpose of cultural training, there is need
for some authority to enforce order within the family,
as indeed within any other form of human grouping.
Such grouping, based on cultural and not on biological
needs, lacks perfect instinctive adjustment, implies
friction and difficulties and needs the legal sanction
of some sort of force.
But though the father or some other male must
become invested with authority at later stages, his
role in the earlier periods is entirely different. As
in the earliest stages of animal family, where the male
is present to protect the pregnant and lactant femcde,
so also in the earlier stages of the human family the
father is a guard and a nurse rather than the male in
authority. When he shares the taboos of pregnancy
with his wife, and watches over her welfare at that
INSTINCT AND CULTURE 255
time, when he becomes confined during his wife's
pregnancy, when he nurses the babies, his bodily force,
his moral authority, his reUgious prerogative and his
legal power do not come into play at all. In the first
place, what he has to do at those stages is regarded
as a duty and not as a prerogative. In many of those
intimate functions a man has to play the part of a
woman — often in a somewhat undignified manner —
or he has to assist her in certain tasks. Yet at the same
time he is often excluded and submitted to ridiculous
and humiliating attitudes — sometimes even regarded
by the community as such — while his wife performs
the important affairs of life. In all this, as we have
repeatedly emphasized, the father acts in a meek and
willing manner ; he is usually very happy in per-
forming his duties, interested in his wife's welfare,
and delighted with the small infant.
The whole series of customs, ideas and social
patterns imposed on the man by his culture is clearly
correlated with his value to the family, with his
utility to the species at that time. The father is made
to behave like a loving, kind, and solicitous person, he
is made to subordinate himself to his wife's organic
activities, because at this stage his protection, his love,
and his tender emotions make him into an efficient
guardian of his wife and children. Thus here again
the end of cultural behaviour among human beings
is the same as that of innate endowment among
256 SEX AND REPRESSION
animal species : this end is to shape an attitude of
protective tenderness on the part of the male towards
his pregnant mate and her offspring. But under
conditions of culture the protective attitude has to
last much longer — beyond the biological maturity of
the young — while again, a much greater burden is
placed upon the initial instalment of emotional tender-
ness. And here we find the essential difference between
the animal and the human family, for while the animal
family dissolves with the cessation of the biological
need for parental care, the human family has to endure.
After that moment the family under culture has to start
on a process of education in which parental tenderness,
love and care are no longer sufficient. Cultural training
is not merely the gradual development of innate
faculties. Besides an instruction in arts and knowledge,
this training also implies the building up of sentimental
attitudes, the inculcation of laws and customs, the
development of morality. And all this implies one
element which we have found already in the relation
between child and mother, the element of taboo,
repression, of negative imperatives. Education consists
in the last instance in the building up of complex and
artificial habit responses, of the organization of
emotions into sentiments.
As we know, this building up takes place through
the various manifestations of public opinion and of
moral feeUng, by the constant influence of the moral
INSTINCT AND CULTURE 257
pressure to which the growing child is exposed. Above
all it is determined by the influence of that framework
of tribal life which is made up of material elements
and within which the child gradually grows up, to
have its impulses moulded into a number of senti-
ment patterns. This process, however, requires a
background of effective personal authority, and here
again the child comes to distinguish between the
female side of social life and the male side. The women
who look after him represent the nearer and more
familiar influence, domestic tenderness, the help, the
rest and the solace to which the child can always
turn. The male aspect becomes gradually the principle
of force, of distance, of pursuit of ambition and of
authority. This distinction obviously develops only
after the earlier period of infancy, in which, as we have
seen, the father and the mother play a similar part.
Later on, though the mother, side by side with the
father, has to train and teach the child, she still
continues the tradition of tenderness, while the father
in most cases has to supply at least a minimum of
authority within the family.
At a certain age, however, there comes the time at
which the male child becomes detached from the
family and launches into the world. In communities
where there are initiation ceremonies this is done by
an elaborate and special institution, in which the new
order of law and morality is expounded to the novice.
258 SEX AND REPRESSION
the existence of authority displayed, tribal conditions
taught and very often hammered into the body by a
system of privations and ordeals. From the socio-
logical point of view, the initiations consist in the
weaning of the boy from the domestic shelter and sub-
mitting him to tribal authority. In cultures where there
is no initiation the process is gradual and diffused, but
its elements are never absent. The boy is gradually
allowed or encouraged to leave the house or to work
himself loose from the household influences, he is
instructed in tribal tradition and submitted to male
authority.
But the male authority is not necessarily that of
the father. In the earlier part of this book it is shown
how such submission of the boy to paternal authority
works and what it means. We reformulate it here
in the terminology of our present argument. In
societies where the authority is placed in the hands
of the maternal uncle the father can remain the
domestic helpmate and friend of his sons. The father
to son sentiment can develop simply and directly.
The early infantile attitudes gradually and continually
ripen with the interests of boyhood and maturity.
The father in later life plays a role not entirely dissimilar
to that at the threshold of existence. Authority, tribal
ambition, repressive elements and coercive measures
are associated with another sentiment, centring
round the person of the maternal uncle and building
INSTINCT AND CULTURE 259
up along entirely different lines. In the light of the
psychology of sentiment formation, and here I must
refer to Shand's account, it is obvious that such a
growth of two sentiments, each simply and internally
harmonious, would be infinitely easier than the
building up of the paternal relation under father-right.
Under father-right the paternal role is associated
with two elements each of which creates considerable
difficulty in the building up of the sentiment. Where
this mode of reckoning of descent is associated with
some pronounced form of patria potestas the father has
to adopt the position of the final arbiter in force and
authority. He has gradually to cast off the role of
tender and protective friend, and to adopt the position
of strict judge, and hard executor of law. This change
involves the incorporation within the sentiment of
attitudes which are as diametrically opposed to one
another as the attitude of sensuous desire and reverence
within the maternal sentiment. There is no need,
perhaps, to develop this point, to show how difficult
it is to link up confidence with repressive powers,
tenderness with authority, and friendship with rule,
for on all these we have dwelt exhaustively in the
earher parts of the book. There also we have spoken
of the other aspect which is always associated with
father-right, even where this does not imply a definite
paternal authority, for the father has always to be
dispossessed and replaced by the son. Even though
26o SEX AND REPRESSION
his powers might be Hmited he is yet the principal
male of the older generation, represents law, tribal
duties and repressive taboos. He stands for coercion,
for morality, and for the limiting social forces. Here
also the building up of the relationship upon the initial
foundation of tenderness and effective response into
an attitude of repression is not easy. All this we know.
Here, however, it is important to place this
knowledge into our present argument : in the develop-
ment of the human family the relation of father to
offspring, instead of being based on an innate response
which is closed by the departure of the mature child,
has to be developed into a sentiment. The foundations
of the sentiment lie in the biologically conditioned
tenderness of paternal responses, but upon these founda-
tions a relation of exacting, stem, coercive repression
has to be built up. The father has to coerce, he has to
represent the source of repressive forces, he becomes the
lawgiver within the family and the enforcing agent of
the tribal rules. Patria potestas converts him from a
tender and loving guardian of infancy into a powerful
and often dreaded autocrat. The constitution of the
sentiment into which such contradictory emotions
enter must therefore he difficult. And yet it is just
this contradictory combination of elements which is
indispensable for human culture. For the father is at
the earlier stages the biologically indispensable member
of the family, his function is to protect the offspring.
INSTINCT AND CULTURE 261
This natural endowment of tenderness is the capital
upon which the family can draw in order to keep him
interested and attached to it. But here, again, culture
has to make use of this emotional attitude, in imposing
functions of an entirely different type upon him as the
eldest male within the family. For as the children,
especially the sons, grow up, education, cohesion
within the family, and co-operation demand the
existence of a personal authority which stands for the
enforcement of order within the family and for the
conformation to tribal law outside. The difficult
position of the father is, as we can see, not the result
merely of male jealousy, of the ill-tempers of an older
man and of his sexual envy, as seems to be implied in
most psycho-analytic writings ; it is a deep and
essential character of the human family which has to
undertake two tasks : it has to carry on propagation
of the species and it has to insure the continuity of
culture. The paternal sentiment with its two phases,
the first protective, the other coercive, is the inevit-
able correlate of the dual function in the human
family. The essential attitudes within the (Edipus
complex, the ambivalent tenderness and repulsion
between son and father, are directly founded in the
growth of the family from nature into culture. There
is no need for an ad hoc hypothesis in order to explain
these features. We can see them emerging from the
very constitution of the human family.
262 SEX AND REPRESSION
There is only one way of avoiding the dangers
which surround the paternal relation and this is to
associate the typical elements which enter into the
paternal relation with two different people. This is the
configuration which we find under mother-right.
XI
FATHER-RIGHT AND MOTHER-RIGHT
TT TE are now in a position to approach the vexed
problem of paternal and maternal descent, or, as
it is more crisply but less precisely called, father-right
and mother-right;
Once we explicitly state that the expressions
" mother-right " and " father-right " do not imply the
existence of authority or power, we can use them
without danger as being more elegant than matriliny
and patrihny, to which terms they are equivalent
The questions usually asked with regard to these two
principles are: which of them is more "primitive",
what are the " origins " of either, were there definite
" stages " of matriliny and patrihny ? — and so on.
Most theories of matriliny aimed at associating this
institution with the early existence of promiscuity,
the resulting uncertainty of fatherhood and thus with
the need of counting kinship through females. ^ The
variations on the theme pater semper incertus fill
many volumes on primitive morality, kinship, and
mother-right.
^ See e.g. E. S. Hartland, Primitive Society, 1921, pp. 2, 32, and
passim.
263
264 SEX AND REPRESSION
As often happens, the criticism which has to be
directed against most theories and hypotheses must
start with a definition of the concept and the formula-
tion of the problem. Most theories imply that father-
right and mother-right are mutually exclusive alter-
natives. Most hypotheses place one of these alternatives
at the beginning, the other at a later stage of culture.
Mr. S. Hartland, for instance, one of the greatest
anthropological authorities on primitive sociology,
speaks of " the mother as the sole foundation of
society " {op. cit., p. 2) and affirms that under
mother-right " descent and therefore kinship are
traced exclusively through the mother ". This
conception runs throughout the work of this
eminent anthropologist. In it we see mother-right
as a self-contained social system, embracing and
controlling all aspects of organization. The task
which this writer has put before himself is to prove
" that the earliest ascertainable systematic method of
deriving human kinship is through the woman only,
and that patrilineal reckoning is a subsequent develop-
ment " (p. 10). Remarkably enough, however, right
through Mr. Hartland's work, in which he tries to
prove the priority of matrilineal over patrilineal descent,
we encounter invariably one statement : there is
always a mixture of mother-right and father-right. In
a summarizing statement indeed, Mr. Hartland says
that : — " Patriarchal rule and patrilineal kinship have
INSTINCT AND CULTURE 265
made perpetual inroads upon mother-right all over the
world ; consequently matrilineal institutions are found
in almost all stages of transition to a state of society in
which the fMher is the centre of kinship and govern-
ment " (p. 34). As a matter of fact, the correct
statement would be that in all parts of the world we
find maternal kinship side by side with institutions
of paternal authority, and we find the two modes of
linking descent inextricably mingled.
The question arises whether it is at aU necessary
to invent any hypotheses about " first origins " and
" successive stages " in the counting of descent and
then to have to maintain that from the lowest to the
highest types of society humanity lives in a transitional
state. It seems that the empirical conclusion would
rather be that motherhood and fatherhood are never
found independent of each other. The logical line of
inquiry indicated by the facts would be first of all to
ask the question whether there is such a thing as
matriliny independent of paternal reckoning and
whether perhaps the two types of counting descent
are not complementary to each other rather than
antithetic. E. B. Tylor and W. H. R. Rivers had already
seen this line of approach and Rivers, for instance,
splits up mother-right and father-right into three in-
dependent principles of counting : descent, inheritance
and succession. The best treatment of the subject,
however, we owe to Dr. Lowie, who has brought order
266 SEX AND REPRESSION
into the problem and has also introduced the very
efficient terminology of bilateral and unilateral kinship.
The organization of the family is placed on the bilateral
principle. The organization of a clan is associated with
the unilateral kinship reckoning. Lowie ^ very clearly
shows that, since the family is a universal unit and since
genealogies are universally counted equally far on
both sides, it is nothing short of preposterous to speak
about the purely matrilineal or patrilineal society.
This position is entirely unassailable. Equally importan t
is Lowie's theory of the clan. He has shown that in a
society where in certain respects the one side of kinship
is emphasized there will arise groups of extended kindred
corresponding to one or other of the sib or clan organiza-
tions of mankind.
It will be well perhaps to supplement Lowie's
argument and to explain why unilateral emphasis
has to be placed on the counting of certain human
relations, in what respects this is done, and what are
the mechanisms of unilateral kinship reckoning.
We have seen that in all the matters in which the
father and the mother are vitally essential to the
child, kinship has to be counted on both sides. The
very institution of the family, involving always
both parents, binding the child with a two-fold
tie, is the starting point of bilateral kinship
^ R. H. Lowie, Primitive Society, chapters on the " Family ",
" Kinship ", and the " Sib ".
INSTINCT AND CULTURE 267
reckoning. If we distinguish for a moment between
the sociological reality of native life and the doctrines
of kinship reckoning entered into by the natives, we
can see that kinship is counted on both sides at the
earhest stages of the individual's life. Even there,
however, though both parents are relevant, their
roles are neither identical nor symmetrical. As life
advances, the relation between the child and his
parents changes and conditions arise which make
an explicit sociological counting of kinship im-
perative— ^which, in other words, force society to
frame its own doctrine of kinship. The latter stages
of education, as we have seen, consist in the handing
over of material possessions and of the tradition
of knowledge and art associated with them. They
consist also in the teaching of social attitudes, obliga-
tions and prerogatives, which are associated with
succession to dignity and rank. The transmission of
material goods, moral values, and personal prerogatives
has two sides ; it is a burden on the parent who
always has to teach, to exert himself, to work patiently
upon the novice ; it is also a surrender on the parents'
side of valuables, possessions and exclusive rights.
Thus, for both reasons, the lineal transmission of
culture from one generation to another has to be
based upon a strong emotional foundation. It must
take place between individuals united by strong senti-
ments of love and affection. As we know, society can
268 SEX AND REPRESSION
draw upon only one source for such sentiments — the
biological endowment of parental tendencies. Hence,
transmission of culture in all these aspects is invariably
associated with the biological relation of parent to
child, it always takes place within the family. This is
not enough, however. There are still the possibilities
of paternal transmission, maternal transmission, or
else transmission in both lines. This latter can be shown
to be the least satisfactory : it would introduce into
a process which in itself is surrounded with perils,
complications, and psychological dangers, an element
of ambiguity and confusion. The individual would
always have the choice of belonging to two groups ; he
could always claim possessions from two sources ; he
would always have two alternatives and a double status.
Reciprocally, a man could always leave his position
and his social identity to one of two claimants. This
type of society would introduce a perpetual source of
strife, of difficulty, of conflict, and as must be clear
at first sight, it would create an intolerable situation.
Indeed, we find our conclusion fully confirmed that
in no human society are descent, succession and
inheritance left undetermined. Even in such com-
munities as those of Polynesia, where an individual
can follow his maternal or paternal line alternatively,
he must make his choice early in life. Thus unilateral
kinship is not an accidental principle. It cannot be
" explained " as due to ideas of paternity, or to this
INSTINCT AND CULTURE 269
or that feature of primitive psychology or social
organization. It is the onl}'^ possible way of deahng
with the problems of transmission of possessions,
dignities, and social privileges. As we shall see,
however, this does not preclude a number of complica-
tions, supplementary phenomena and secondary
reactions. There is still the choice between mother-
right and father-right.
Let us have a closer look at the working of the
principle of maternal and paternal kinship. As we know,
the organization of emotions within the sentiment
is closely correlated with the organization of society.
In the formation of the maternal sentiment, as we
followed it in detail in the first part of the book and
as we summarized it in one of the last chapters, we are
not able to see any deep disturbance by the change
from the early tenderness to the exercise of authority.
Under mother-right it is not the mother who wields
coercive powers but her brother, and succession does
not introduce any antagonisms and jealousies between
the mother and her son, for here again he inherits
only from her brother. At the same time the bond of
personal affection and tenderness between the mother
and the child is, in spite of all cultural and social
influences to the contrary, stronger than between
the father and the child. Nor is there any reason to
deny that the obvious physical nature of motherhood
may have greatly contributed towards the emphasis
270 SEX AND REPRESSION
of the bodily identity between offspring and mother.
Thus, while in the maternal tie the ideas about pro-
creation, the tender feelings of infancy, the stronger
emotional ties between mother and child would lead to
a more powerful sentiment, this sentiment is in no way
disturbed by the burden of legal and economic trans-
mission which it entails. In other words, under mother-
right the social decree that the son has to inherit from
the mother's brother in no way spoils the relation
to the mother and on the whole it expresses the fact
that this relation is empirically more obvious and
emotionally stronger. As we have seen in the detailed
discussion of the institutions of one matrilineal society,
the mother's brother, who represents stern authority,
social ideals and ambitions, is very suitably kept at
a distance outside the family circle.
Father-right, on the other hand, entails, as we have
seen in detail in the last chapter, a definite break within
the formation of the sentiment. In the patrilineal
society the father has to incorporate in himself the two
aspects, that of tender friend and rigid guardian of law
This creates both a disharmony within the sentiment,
and social difficulties within the family by disturbing
co-operation and by creating jealousies and rivalries
at its very heart.
One more point may be mentioned. Even more in
primitive communities than in civilized societies, kin-
ship dominates the regulation of sexual attitudes.
INSTINCT AND CULTURE 271
The extension of kinship beyond the family implies
in many societies the formation of exogamy side by
side with the formation of clans. Under mother-right,
the prohibition of incest within the family is in a simple
manner extended into the prohibition of sexual inter-
course within the clan. In a matrilineal society,
therefore, the building up of the general sexual
attitude towards all women of the community is a
continuously harmonious and simple process. In a
patriarchal society, on the other hand, the rules of
incest which apply to the members of the family are
not simply extended to the clan but a new scheme of
ideas of the sexually licit and illicit has to be built up.
Patrilineal exogamj'^ does not include the one person
with whom incest should be most rigorously avoided,
that is the mother. In all this we see a series of reasons
why mother-right might be considered a more useful
principle of social organization than father-right.
The utility is obviously associated with that level of
human organization where kinship plays a paramount
sociological part in its narrower as well as in its
classificatory form.
It is clearly important to realize that father-right
also presents considerable advantages. Under mother-
right there is always a double authority over the
child and the family itself is cleft. There develops that
complex cross-system of relationship which in primitive
societies increases the strength of social texture but
272 SEX AND REPRESSION
which in higher societies would introduce innumerable
complications. As culture advances, as the institutions
of clan and classificatory kinship disappear, as the
organization of the local community of tribe, city, and
state has to become simpler, the principle of father-
right naturally becomes dominant. But this brings
us out of our special line of inquiry.
To sum up, we have seen that the relative advantages
of mother-right and father-right are well balanced
and that it would probably be impossible to assign
to either of them a general priority or a wider
occurrence. The advantage of the unilateral as against
the bilateral principle of kinship counting in legal,
economic and social matters, however, is beyond any
doubt and cavil.
The most important point is to realize that neither
mother-right nor father-right can ever be an exclusive
rule of counting kinship or descent. It is only in the
transmission of tangible values of a material, moral or
social nature that one of the two principles becomes
legally emphasized. As I have tried to show on other
occasions,^ such a legal emphasis brings with it certain
customary traditional reactions which tend to a certain
extent to obliterate its one-sided working.
Returning once more to our starting-point, that of
the criticism expressed by Dr. Jones on the conclusions
^ Crime and Custom in Savage Society, 1926 ; Nature, supplement
of 6th February, 1926 ; and article of 15th August. 1925.
[NSTINCT AND CULTURE 273
reached in the previous parts of the book, it can now
be seen that the appearance of mother-right is not a
mysterious phenomenon brought about by " unknown
social and economic reasons ". Mother-right is one
of the two alternatives of counting kinship, both of
which shows certain advantages. Those of mother-
right are perhaps on the whole greater than those of
father-right. And among them unquestionably we
have to mention the central point which has been
brought out in this chapter : the value which it has
in eliminating the strong repressions in the paternal
sentiment and in placing the mother in a more con-
sistent and better adapted position within the scheme
of sexual prohibitions in the community.
XII
CULTURE AND THE "COMPLEX"
T T 7E have now covered the field of our subject : the
change in instinctive endowment correlated with
the transition from nature to culture. We can briefly
indicate the course of our argument and summarize
our results. We started with psycho-analytic views on
the origins and history of the complex. In this we
came upon a number of obscurities and inconsistencies.
The concept of the repression of already repressed
elements ; the theory that ignorance and matriliny were
devised as means of deflecting hatred ; the idea that
father-right is a happy solution of most difficulties in
the family ; were all difficult to reconcile with the
general doctrine of psycho-analysis as well as with
fundamental anthropological facts and principles. It
was found also that all these inconsistencies result
from the view that the CEdipus complex is the primal
cause of culture, that it is something which preceded
and produced most human institutions, ideas, and
beliefs. In attempting to find in what concrete form
this primordial CEdipus complex has originated accord-
ing to psycho-analytic theory, we came upon Freud's
hypothesis of the " primeval crime ". Freud regards
274
INSTINCT AND CULTURE 275
culture as a spontaneously generated reaction to the
crime and he assumes that the memory of the crime,
the repentance and the ambivalent attitude have
survived in a ' Collective Unconscious '.
Our utter incapacity to accept this hypothesis
forced us to examine it more closely. We found that
the totemic crime must be imagined as a dividing
event between nature and culture ; as the moment of
cultural beginning. Without this assumption the
hypothesis has no meaning. With it the hypothesis
falls to pieces because of the inconsistencies involved.
Having found that in Freud's hypothesis as in all
other speculations on the early form of the family,
the capital mistake is made of ignoring the difference
between instinct and habit, between the biologically
defined reaction and the cultural adjustment, it
became our task to study the transformation of family
ties due to the passage from nature to culture.
We attempted to ascertain the essential modification
in innate endowment and to show what were the
consequences of it to human mentality. In the course
of this we naturally came upon the most important
psycho-analytic problems, and we were able to offer a
theory of the natural formation of the family complex.
We found the complex as an inevitable by-product of
culture, which arises as the family develops from a
group bound by instincts into one which is connected
by cultural ties. Psychologically speaking, this change
276 SEX AND REPRESSION
means that a cohesion by a chain of Unked drives is
transformed into a system of organized sentiments.
The building up of sentiments obeys a number of
psychological laws which guide the mental ripening
so as to eliminate a number of attitudes, adjustments,
and instincts from a given sentiment. The mechanism
of it we found in the influence of the social environment,
working through the cultural framework and through
direct personal contacts.
The process of elimination of certain attitudes
and impulses from the relation between father and
child and mother and child present a considerable
range of possibilities. The systematic organization of
impulses and emotions may be carried out by a gradual
drawing off and waning from certain attitudes, by
dramatic shocks, by organized ideals, as in the cere-
monials, by ridicule, and public opinion. By such
mechanisms we find, for instance, that sensuality is
gradually eliminated from the child's relation to its
mother, while often tenderness between father and
child is replaced by a stern and coercive relation. The
way in which these mechanisms operate does not
lead to exactly the same results. And many maladjust-
ments within the mind and in society can be traced
back to the faulty cultural mechanism by which
sexuality is suppressed and regulated or by which
authority is imposed. This we have presented with
great detail in a small number of concrete cases in
INSTINCT AND CULTURE 277
the first two parts of the book. This again has been
theoretically justified in this last part.
Thus the building up of the sentiments, the conflicts
and maladjustments which this impHes, depend largely
upon the sociological mechanism which works in a given
society. The main aspects of this mechanism are the
regulation of infantile sexuality, the incest taboos,
exogamy, the apportionment of authority and the
type of household organization. In this perhaps lies
the main contribution of the present memoir. We have
been able to indicate the relation between biological,
psychological and sociological factors. We have
developed a theory of the plasticity of instincts under
culture and of the transformation of instinctive
response into cultural adjustment. On its psycho-
logical side our theory suggests a line of approach
which, while giving fuU due to the influence of social
factors, does away with the hypotheses of "group
mind ", the " collective unconscious ", " gregarious
instinct ", and similar metaphysical conceptions.
In all this we are constantly dealing with the central
problems of psj^cho-analysis, the problems of incest,
of paternal authority, of the sexual taboo and of the
ripening of the instinct. In fact the results of my
argument confirm the general teachings of psycho-
analysts on several points, though they imply the
need of serious revision on others. Even on the concrete
question of the influence of mother-right and its
278 SEX AND REPRESSION
function, the results which I have pubHshed previously
and the conclusions of this book are not entirely sub-
versive of psycho-analytic doctrine. Mother-right, as has
been remarked, possesses an additional advantage over
father-right in that it " splits the (Edipus complex ",
dividing the authority between two males, while on
the other hand it introduces a consistent scheme of
incest prohibition in which exogamy follows directly
from the sexual taboo within the household. We had
to recognize, however, that mother-right is not
altogether dependent upon the complex, that it is a
wider phenomenon determined by a variety of causes.
These I have tried to state concretely in order to meet
Dr. Jones's objection that I assume this appearance
for unknown sociological and economic reasons. I have
tried to show that mother-right can be made intelligible
as the more useful of the two alternative forms of
reckoning kinship. The real point, as we saw, is that
the unilateral mode of counting relationship is adopted
in almost all cultures but that among peoples of low
cultural level the maternal line shows distinct advantage
over the paternal one. Among these signal characteristic
advantages of mother-right we find its power to modify
and split the " complex ".
I should add that from the point of view of
psycho-analytic theory it is difficult to explain why
the complex as such should be harmful. After
all, to a psycho-analyst, the (Edipus complex is
INSTINCT AND CULTURE 279
the fons et origo of culture, the beginning of
rehgion, law, and morality. Why should there be
any need to remove it ? Why should humanity
or the " collective mind " have " devised " any
means to break it up ? To us, however, the complex
is not a cause but a by-product, not a creative principle
but a maladjustment. This maladjustment assumes
a less harmful form under mother-right than under
father-right.
These conclusions were first set forth in two articles
which appeared separately a few years ago and are now
reprinted as Part One and Two of this volume. Here
again in dealing with the general problem, we have
found certain confirmations of psycho-analytic theory,
if this be taken as an inspiration and a working
hypothesis and not as a system of dogmatic tenets.
Scientific research consists in collaboration, in a
give and take between various specialists. The
anthropologist has received some help from the psycho-
analytic school and it would be a great pity if the
exponents of this latter refused to collaborate, to
accept what is offered in good faith from a field where,
after all, they cannot be at home. The advancement of
science is never a matter of simple progress in a direct
line. In the conquest of a new domain, claims are often
pegged out on which the barren soil will never yield a
return. It is as important for a student or for a
school to be able to withdraw from an untenable
28o SEX AND REPRESSION
position as to pioneer ahead into new fields of discovery.
And, after all, it should ever be remembered that in
scientific prospecting the few grains of golden truth
can only be won by the patient washing out and
rejection of a mass of useless pebbles and sand.
INDEX
Adolescence : 17
Adoption : rare in Trobriands,
21
Affection : maternal, 18, 26,
207-8, 269 ; paternal, 31-2,
211-12, 214-16, 254-6
Ambivalence : 79, 80, 154, 261 ;
of savages, 138
Amphlett Islanders : neurotic,
86-88 ; perversions, 90
Anal-eroticism : 35 n., 39, 51, 54
Animal life — v. Family
Atkinson, J. J. : 149, 251
Authority : in family — v. Father,
Mother's brother
Babyhood : 16. 18
Birth: 18-19, 207, 209. 215;
trauma of. 22 ; dream of, 95
Boas. F. : 157 n.
Brother: murder of, 101-2;
—in myth, 114-15, 119-20;
relations between brothers,
120-1
Buhler, Charlotte : 33 n.
Bukumatula (young people's
house) : 67
Butura (fame) : 45
Cannibalism : mythical origin
in Trobriands, 115
Childhood : Pt. i, ch. vi and vii ;
periods of, 15-17 — v. also
Games, Sexuality, etc.
Children's communities : 41,
55-6
Clan : 45-8, 271, 212— v. also
Exogamy
Co-habitation — v. Sexual re-
lations
Complex : — of family, 2, 183 ;
— and myth, 5, Pt. ii. ch. i ;
matrilineal. 80-1, 83, 85, 120,
123. 134 ; — and social
structure, 139, 143, 158;
nature of, 144, 279 ; — and
sentiment, 173-8, 275-9— u.
also Nuclear complex. Qidipus
complex. Repression
Co-operation: 219-20,237-8
Courtship : in animals, 193 ;
in man. 196-7, 225, 227
Couvade : 215-16
Crawley. E. : 157 n.. 194
Crime: 91. 100-2
Cross-cousin marriage: 114
Culture : ' origin ' of, 148-58 ;
nature of, 157-8, 165-7,236-9;
behaviour in, 180, 227-8 — v.
also Emotion, Instinct, Senti-
ment, Family
Darwin. Charles : 148-151,159.
193 n,
' Decent ' : and ' indecent ',
33-6, 38-9, 77, 235
D'Entrecasteaux Islanders ; 87.
90. 115
Descent — v. Father-right.
Mother -right. Family. Kinship
Dewey, J. : 157 n.
Discipline : absence in Tro-
briands, 27, 41
Divorce : 231
Dokonikan — v. Tudava
Dream fantasies : 91 ; at
puberty, 63, 80
Dreams : 92-7, 144 ; — of
death, 101 ; — and magic,
125 — V. also Kirisala
Durkheim. E. : 157 n.
Economics of marriage : 238
Education in family: 218-21,
234-5. 256, 267-8
Electra complex : 65. 252
281
282
INDEX
Ellis, Havelock : 33 n., 193 n..
194, 196 n.
Embarrassment at puberty :
60-1, 63
Emotions and culture : 236-7,
276-7 ; organization in
marriage, 230-3 — v. also Senti-
ment
Endopsychic censor : 242
Excrement, cursing by : 104
Excretion, interest in : 34, 38,
51-2. 77
Exogamy : 79, 96, 195; 234,
242, 271, 277-8; breach of,
— V. Suvasova
Family : in psycho-analysis, 2-7;
comparison of savage and
civilized, 8-14, 19-32, 75-8.
80 ; — complex, 2, 8, 15,
74-82 ; Cyclopean, 149, 158,
160, 164 ; among anthropoids,
150-1, 159-62, 163 ; among
man as compared with
animals, summary, 225-8 ;
fundamental constitution of,
192 ; importance in culture,
184-5, 221-3, 239; — ties,
218-24, 238-9— t;. also
Emotions, Fatherhood,
Instinct, Marriage, Sentiment
Father: in Trobriands, 9-11;
in Europe, 27-9 ; compared,
12-13, 23-4, 29-32, 42-4, 76-7;
— and daughter, 12, 38, 43,
65-6, 72-3, 76 ; — and son,
37-8, 43, 61. 68-9, 80, 253-62 ;
gifts, 120-1 ; authoritv, 42-4,
183, 220, 224, 254, 257-62 ;
absent in Trobriand myth
109-10— y. also Affection,
Family
Fatherhood : social nature of,
23, 214-17 ; ignorance of
physiological, 9, 109, 145,
137-46, 171
Father-right and mother-right :
262-73
Fire, myth of : 115
Fliigel, J. C. : 5 n., 16 n.
Folk-lore and psycho-analysis :
104— v. also Myth
Frazer, Sir J. G. : 157 n., 194
Freud, S.: 1, 6, 15 n., 35, 157 n.,
172, 241-2 ; modification of
his theory of complex, 81-2 ;
sex latency period, 49-51, 78 ;
theory of neurosis, 86, 89-90 ;
of dreams, 92^, 124 ; of
folk-lore, 104 ; Totem and
Taboo, 148, 168 ; Cyclopean
family, 149-152, 158-60, 164 ;
totemism and beginnings of
culture, 149-59, 162, 167, 274 ;
critique of, 155-172 ; on
incest, 244-6, 249, 252
Games, sexual, of children : 9,
55-7
Genital, interest : 35 n., 39,
55-6
Ginsberg, M. : 157.n.
Gregariousness — v. Herd Instinct
Gwayluwa (mania) : 87
Hartland, E. S. : 263 n., 264
Herd instinct, disproved : 185-
92, 222
Hobhouse, L. T. : 157 n.
Homosexuality — v. Perversion
Incest : father-daughter, 65-6,
73, 100 ; brother-sister, 84,
96-9, 132 ; mother-son, 245-
52, 271, 277 ; last absent in
Trobriands, 100 ; incestous
dreams. 95-7 ; incestous
temptations, 80, 83, 139, 183,
224, Pt. iv, ch. ix ; in myth,
126-9, 134 ; biology of
incestous unions, 243-4
' Indecent ' : 33-6, 38-9, 51-5,
71, 77 ; category created by
elders, 52 — v. also ' Decent '
Infancy : period of development,
16
Infantile sexuality — v. Sexuality
of children
Initiation : 17, 257-8 ; none
in Trobriands, 59-60
Instinct : defined, 161, 186, 245 ;
— and custom. 22 ; — modi-
fied under culture. 182, 184,
192, 199-200, 203-6, 225-8;
INDEX
283
strengthened bv culture, 210,
212, 214-15, 216-17—1;. also
Herd instinct, Sentiment
Jealousy : uncle and nephew,
79, 83, 103
Jones, Ernest : 6, 136-47, 153,
158, 162-3. 272-3, 278
Kada — v. Mother's brother
Kayro'iwo — v. Magic of love
Kinship: 47, 69 n., 159; bi-
lateral and unilateral, 266-9,
272, 278— t;. also Father,
Mother, etc.
Kinsmen: 47-8, 101
Kirisala : magical dream, 128
Kroeber, A. L. : 157 n., 167, 172
Kula : dreams, 93-4 ; magic,
130
Kwoygapani : magic, 112
Lang, Andrew: 157 n., 251
Language : 180, 182, 189-90
Legitimacy, postulate of : 212-14
' Libido ' : 1, 33, 245
Lowie, R. H. : 157 n., 184 n.,
243 n., 265-6
Lugiita (sister) : 108
Magic: 93, 108, 117; black,
87-8, 101 ; love, 84, 93, 123-9.
130, 132-3 ; suvasova, 99 ;
shipwreck, 122 ; — and myth,
117-134; magical filiation,
129-131 — V. also Kwoygapani,
Waygxgi
Mailu : neurasthenics in, 88-9
Malasi : clan, and incest, 97
Marett, R. R. : 157 n.
Marriage : in Trobriands, 9-12,
45; animal, 201-2. 204;
human, 202-6, 225-8, 230
' Mass psyclie ' : 156-8
Material culture : 180-2, 190-1
Maternal instinct : 18, 20, 22,
160, 207-8— y. also Affection
Mating : 197, 225, 228, 230
Matrihny : 4, 9, 75-6, 103 ;
— and myth, 108-17— w.
also Mother-right
Matrimonial response : 202, 211
McDougall, W. : 175
Medium (spiritualistic) : 88, 98
Miracle : 131-2
Missions : and native morality,
90
Mokadayu, story of : 98
Moll, A. : 33 n., 49
Morals : 182, 256-7
Morgan, L. H. : 222
Mother : and son, 36, 38, 62,
80, 220, 245-52, 269-70 [v.
also Incest) ; — and daughter,
36, 65
Motherhood : in savage and
civilized society compared,
19-23, 25-7
Mother-right : 102 ; ' origin ',
137-140, 145-7. 171. 278;
and father-right, Pt. iv, ch.
xi — V. also Matriliny
Mother's brother : 9-10, 13,
44-7, 69, 79, 100, 113, 116,
120-1, 258-9 — V. also Tudava
Myth : 6, 108-34 ; classifica-
tion of, 108 ; interpretation
of, 116; — of flying canoe,
118-22 ; — of salvage magic,
122-3 ; — of love magic.
126-9 ; and ritual, 133 — v.
also Fire, Magic, Tudava
Nagowa (mental disorder) : 87
Nakedness : no taboo in
Melanesia, 55
Neurosis : among Melanesians,
85-90 ; interpretation of, 170
' Nuclear complex ' : 4. 75, 137,
173-8 ; varies with social
strata, 14-15 ; with constitu-
tion of family, 81-2, 142 ;
Jones's view of. 137 — v. also
Complex
Nursing of child: 20-21. 23,
208, 245-7
Obscenity : 104-7
CEdipus complex : 2, 5, 6, 65,
78, 80, 83, 135, 182, 245, 252.
261, 274, 278-9 ; product of a
patriarchal society, 5, 75,
167-70, 173 ; assimilation
of, 168-9 ; assumed univer-
sality, 137-48, 158, 162-3, 171
284
INDEX
Parental love : among animals,
IW», 207-8 ; — in man, 208
Parricide : 102 ; primeval, 152,
Pt. iii, ch. iv and v ; critique
of. 172, 251, 274
Paternity: biological foundation
of, 207, 210-15; cultural rein-
forcement of, 215-17 — V. also
F~atherhood
Patria postestas — r. Father,
authority
Patriarchy : 168-70
Peasant family : 14. 17, 29,
34,;J7, 41,43, 51-4, 64
Perversions : rare in Trobriands,
57, 90
Physiological fatherhood — v.
Fatherhood
Pitt-Rivers, G. : 22 n., 184 n.,
243 n.
Plasticity of instincts : 200, 206,
216, 223, 236-7, 277, Pt. iv,
ch. vii — V. also Instinct
Ploss-Renz : 33 n.
Pokala (pavment) : 120
Pregnancy': 19-21, 204, 208-9,
210-12, 214— j;. also Taboo
Primal horde — v. Family, Cyclo-
pean
Property : in magic, 120-1, 125,
128-9
Psycho-analysis : relation to
biology and sociology, 1, 135 ;
to anthropology, 6-7, 116, 136,
140-1,279-80; —and family,
2, 75, 81 ; — and myth, 134 ;
— and theory of A. F. Shand,
241-2
Puberty : 59-73 ; of civilized
boy, 60-4 ; of civilized girl,
64-6 ; in Trobriands, 66-73
Rank, Dr O. : 6, 22
Repression : 38-9, 71-2, 80-3,
241-2, 273 ; — and neurosis,
89 ; — and dreams, 91-3 ;
— and abuse, 104-7 ; — and
myth, 110 ; — of knowledge
of paternity, 137-8, 144-7 ;
- and the complex, 143-6,
171. 174-5
Rivers, W. H. R. : 265
Robertson Smith, \V. : 148-9
Rut : 194 5. 197-8. 201
Selective mating — v. Mating
Sentiment : 2, 75, 176-8, 191,
205, 240-2, 248-50, 260-1,
Pt.iv, ch.viii — v. also Instinct,
Complex
Sex confidences : 36 n.
Sex latency period : 49-55, 58,
78
Sexuality of children : 9, 33,
35, 49-50, 55-8, 77, 86, 277—
V. also Games
Sexual desire : in marriage, 233
Sexual dreams : 95-7
Sexual impulse : 193-8; control
of, 199-200
Sexual relations : 30, 195-6,
200-6, 230-4 ; and mother,
246-8
Sexual rivalry : 36-7
Shand, A. F. : 2, 175-8, 240-2,
247, 249, 259
Sister— v. Incest, Obscenity,
etc. ; substitute for mother,
143
Social organization : 221-3 — v.
also Family, Clan
Speech — v. Language
Stern, W. : 33 n.
Stout, G. F. : 175
Succession : 268-9 — v. also Kin-
ship
Suckling : 245-7
Sidumwoya (love magic) : 125-8
Suvasova (breach of exogamy) :
73, 96, 99-100
Taboo : 79, 83, 128, 133, 2561;
brother and sister, 12, 46,
57_8, 70-2, 79 ;— of birth, 19,
22 ; — of pregnancv, 21, 209,
215, 254 ; sex, 47^ 77, 100,
165, 195, 199, 200. 226 ;
exogamv, 79 ; incest, 79, 252.
277 ; origin of, 148, 155
Tomakava (stranger) : 47-8
Totemism : 148, 155. 162-3,
Pt. iii, ch. iii-iv ; totemic
sacrament, 149, 152, 165
Tradition : 219, 227, 236
INDEX
285
Tudava, myth of : 111-14
Tylor. E. li. : 265
Vlatile (younp man) : 66
Uncle : maternal — v. Mother's
brother; substitute for father,
143
Unconscious clement in complex
174-5. 182
Veyola- ~v . Kmsnirn
Wayi^igi, magic of rain and
sunshine : 130, 133
Weaning : 23, 25-6
Westerniarck, E. : 157 11., 175.
194, 196 n., 212 n.. 243 n .244.
252
Witches, flying ; 122
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