FAMILY INFLUENCES IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE LOVE LIFE
[Sidenote: The more advanced stages of love displacement]
When the original object-love, at first directed to the parent, has been
successfully transferred to some more remote relative in the manner
studied in the last chapter, the course of normal development now requires
that a further transference should take place by means of a similarity
or association of some kind between this latter relative and some other
person totally unconnected by family relationship. In consequence it
is often possible to trace in the selection of the object of love the
influence of similarity, or of some other connecting link, between this
object and the lover's sister, brother, cousin or other relative. Here,
however, the emancipation from the original object is carried too far
for the underlying motive determining the direction of affection to be
regarded as in any sense pathological or abnormal or as indicating an
undue degree of fixation at an infantile stage of development; except in
cases where this motive is so strong as to bring about the direction of
love upon an object which is totally unsuitable, through the overlooking
of defects which would otherwise be patent. Rather is this act of
transference, when free from any such exaggeration, to be looked upon
as the final stage of the whole process of development we have been
following and as an indication of the attainment of maturity as regards
the direction of the love impulse.
[Sidenote: "Falling in love"]
The importance of the displacement here at work will be more readily
grasped, if we bear in mind that it constitutes one of the principal
factors in the normal and all-important process of "falling in love," and
particularly of that most striking but at the same time most mystifying
aspect of that process which we call "love at first sight." Love and its
causes have ever raised the wonder and curiosity both of the plain man and
of the philosopher, but, apart from more or less unsatisfactory theory and
vague speculation, neither has been able to bring forward any explanation
of the sudden over-powering attraction which a young man or woman, boy or
girl, may feel for some one member of the opposite sex; one whose charms
may appear to more unbiassed eyes to be but little if at all superior to
those of others of the loved one's age and situation. Thanks however to
the work of the psycho-analytic school, psychology is at last beginning to
cast a few rays of light upon the darkness which has hitherto surrounded
this central problem of human life and feeling. Freud, in a recent
article[116] summarizing the results of psycho-analysis in this direction,
has divided loves into two main types:--
[Sidenote: Two types of love:--]
(1) the narcissistic type,
(2) the dependence type.
[Sidenote: The narcissistic type]
In the first type the love is the result of a projection of the lover's
self on to some other person--the narcissistic love originally directed to
the Self being thus displaced on to the person of the loved one--through
some process of identification or some strong associative link. Love of
this type is frequently manifested in ties of a homosexual nature, where
the lover finds in one of his own sex a nearer copy of himself than would
otherwise be possible. It is also manifested in some of the fervent
affections of parents for their children, where the parents regard those
whom they have produced as in a manner an extension of themselves (_cp._
below Ch. XIV). And finally it is manifested in some connections of a
normal heterosexual kind; a man for example finds and admires in his wife
those feminine qualities which are present in himself but to which, so
long as they are in himself, he is unable (owing to repression of the
feminine side of his nature) to afford full recognition or appreciation;
or a woman finds attractive in a man those qualities of boyishness and
masculinity which she herself possessed in some degree before the time
of puberty but which she has since sacrificed to make way for a more
pronounced development of her "womanly" characteristics.
[Sidenote: The dependence type]
In love of the second type the affection is more genuinely and primarily
"object-love." The lover is here attracted towards his object because
he finds in it something that is essential to the fulfilment of his own
bodily or mental needs. It is this love which, as we have seen, is under
normal circumstances first aroused in connection with the parents (and
especially the mother), by whom the first primitive requirements of the
infant are fulfilled. It is this love too which, in its displaced form,
we have seen to be so frequently directed on to brothers, sisters or
other near relatives, and which, by a further process of displacement,
in the course of normal development eventually flows on to persons
unconnected with the lover by any bond of relationship. The repression,
as a result of which this latter displacement has occurred, as a rule,
brings it about that the associative links that connect the newer with
the older love are not perceptible to the lover himself; the bond is an
unconscious one. Nevertheless, this bond is often sufficiently clear to
any keen observer, whose eyes have once been opened to the fact of its
existence. In other cases however it may be of a more obscure nature, so
as to require a deeper study of the personality of the lover and of his
psychological history (such as can often only be obtained by employment of
the psycho-analytic method) before the nature of the association becomes
apparent.
[Sidenote: The repression of the incestuous basis of affection, as shown
in myth and legend]
The fact that in the personality of the loved object there often lies
hidden, as it were, the buried image of a brother, sister, parent or
other object of incestuous affection in the past, would seem to play
an important part in the formation of a type of story of world-wide
occurrence, of which the Cupid-Psyche myth and the Lohengrin legend
are perhaps the best known examples[117]. In these stories a marriage
or love affair takes place between partners, one of whom is usually of
mysterious (sometimes divine) origin and consents to enter upon the
alliance only upon the condition that no question shall be asked as
to his (or her) name, parentage or home; or upon the erection of some
other prohibition, such as one which forbids the use of vision or of
speech (either generally or under specified circumstances); upon the
infringement of which conditions the mysterious partner vanishes, leaving
the remaining member of the pair to lament the loss that has been thus
foolishly incurred through curiosity. Here the prohibition would seem to
be imposed with a view to concealing the fact that the union is based
ultimately upon the foundation of an incestuous affection, or is itself
incestuous in nature: a recognition of this fact would spoil the pleasure
of the union by arousing the repressions connected with incestuous love
and must therefore (as in the case of the marriage between Œdipus and
Jocasta in the Œdipus myth, where Jocasta--in Sophocles' play--strenuously
opposes all efforts at investigation) be prevented by the most rigorous
prohibitions, the breaking of which involves the permanent dissolution of
the union.
[Sidenote: Similarity as a basis of displacement]
[Sidenote: Its biological significance]
Among associations other than those of family relationship by means of
which the process of displacement is brought about, those depending on
mental or physical similarity are probably the most important; of all
the available methods of transference, they are too, in many respects,
the easiest, most natural and the least liable to cause pathological
aberrations of development. There can be little doubt, too, that the
frequent occurrence of the displacement of the love impulse along
these lines constitutes a factor of very considerable sociological and
historical importance. The tendency to choose a mate resembling in some
essential aspects--mental or physical--one's own nearest relatives,
must, for good or evil, act as a potent means of preserving the purity
of individual types and of family, national or racial qualities;
especially when, as may often happen, there is added to the influence of
this factor that of the narcissistic element of love to which we have
already referred. So long as the associative link which conditions the
displacement is one that has some correspondence to reality, the closer
the unconscious identification of the sexual partner of adult life with
the object loved in infancy, the more likely will it be for this partner
to possess hereditary qualities similar to those of the lover himself, and
the greater therefore, in all probability, the resemblance of the ensuing
offspring to their parents.
[Sidenote: Name]
Among the similarities of a less essential kind which may assist in the
process of displacement, those of _name_ are apt to play an important
but subtle part and one that is very liable to be overlooked or where
observed, ascribed to coincidence rather than (as it more often should
be) to the operation of unconscious mental factors[118]. They are in
some respects a source of danger, inasmuch as they are concerned with
relatively superficial characteristics[119] which have little to do with
the real nature of the person selected, thus making easy the choice of
otherwise unsuitable objects of affection.
[Sidenote: Age]
Similarities with the parents as regards _age_ often exercise some
influence in early years and in the early stages of displacement, but in
later life are less operative than, in view of the intensity of the parent
fixation in some individuals, might perhaps be expected. This is probably
due, to a large extent at any rate, to the fact already referred to, that
the unconscious parent love of adult life has as its object the image of
the parents as they appeared to the child in infancy; these image-parents
being therefore of a considerably younger age than that which the real
parents have actually attained by the time the child has reached maturity.
The similarities as regards _general or special circumstances_ may also
on occasion be important in determining the direction of transference and
in cases where the process of displacement has suffered an arrest at a
comparatively early stage, may cause serious difficulties or restrictions
in the choice of object.
[Sidenote: Falling in love with those who are already married or betrothed]
Thus it may happen that, just as the child's love activities in relation
to its earliest love object were impeded by the fact that this object
was already bound by affection, law or both, to a third person (_i.
e._ the parent of the same sex as that of the child), so in adult life
the individual's choice may fall only on objects who are similarly not
at liberty in the disposal of their affections[120]. There are indeed
some men and women who can only fall in love with married or betrothed
persons, and who are doomed therefore either to become dangerous enemies
to the harmonious married life of others or else themselves to suffer
successive repetitions of the unsuccessful love of their childhood[121].
Marriage in such cases may bring no relief, because the object of their
affection may cease to exercise attraction as soon as its possession is
undisputed and unhindered. The widespread occurrence and intensity of
the unconscious ideas underlying this kind of aberration is shown by the
frequent treatment of the subject in legend and literature (_Cp._ Tristan
and Iseult, Paolo and Francesca, Pelleas and Melisande, Don Carlos and his
step-mother, Casandra and a host of other examples in which the expression
and fulfilment of a great love are prevented by the fact that one of
the lovers is already married or affianced to a third person, usually a
relative, and one who on analysis can easily be shown to represent the
parent who stood in the way of the first love of the child.)[122].
[Sidenote: The desire for obstacles in the way of love]
In a number of other cases stress is laid not so much on the unfree
condition of the loved object, but, more generally, on the barrier raised
by the incestuous nature of the desired relationship. This factor will of
course in the majority of cases merely add its force to those demanding
previous marriage or betrothal to another as a necessary qualification of
the loved object, but will sometimes manifest itself alone as a felt _need
for_ the occurrence of some sort of _hindrance_ to the consummation of
love, the lover being unable to derive full satisfaction from the union
or to remain permanently attracted to his chosen object in the absence
of such hindrance[123]. Here it will usually be found that the loved
object is unconsciously identified with the parent or with some other near
relation.
In other cases the desire for some kind of obstacle may manifest itself in
a tendency to keep secret the existence and the circumstances of the love.
With persons subject to this tendency (which would seem to be found more
especially among women) a love affair may lose a great part--or perhaps
the whole--of its attractiveness as soon as it is made public and is
openly admitted, as by the act of marriage.
[Sidenote: The rescue phantasy]
Since the thought of the sexual relations of the parents is, both on
account of jealousy and on account of the repression of incestuous
cravings, one that is usually extremely distasteful to the child, the
latter often likes to imagine that the loved parent enters into such
relations unwillingly and under compulsion. Such a belief can arise most
easily in a boy's mind as regards his mother: it then in its turn gives
rise to the idea of rescuing the mother from the unwelcome and tyrannical
attentions of the father[124]; a phantasy which has found expression in
the many stories and legends (of which that of Andromeda and that of St.
George are perhaps the most widely known examples) in which a distressed
and beautiful maiden is delivered by a young knight or hero from the
clutches of a tyrant, giant or monster[125]. This phantasy is sometimes
found too in a sublimated form in which, for instance, great enthusiasm
may be aroused by the effort to deliver a small or helpless race or nation
from the dominion of a larger and more powerful people[126], or again by
the struggle for the liberation of an oppressed section of a community
from the tyranny of a ruling class[127].
[Sidenote: The symbolic meaning of the rescue]
The idea of rescue has too, as has recently been discovered, a further
symbolic meaning, which may be present to the Unconscious[128]. To rescue
means to save from death, _i. e._ to present with life, and thus comes to
be equated with the notion of begetting or bringing to life. In this way
the rescue of the mother may signify to the Unconscious a begetting, _i.
e._ a process of cohabitation with her, the boy thus putting himself in
the place of his father and fulfilling in a symbolic manner his incestuous
desires. As a further determinant of the rescue phantasy in this sense
there is sometimes to be found an obscure notion of self-begetting--the
creation of oneself without the co-operation of the parent of one's
own sex, all obligation to and connection with this parent being thus
repudiated. Such a repudiation of the undesired parent may also find
expression in the phantasy of rescuing this parent from death--an idea
which is not infrequent in legend and folklore: the obligation that the
child had incurred through the gift of life by the parent being now
cancelled by the incurring of a similar obligation on the part of the
parent towards the child.
[Sidenote: Hatred and contempt of the mother for permitting the advances
of the father]
[Sidenote: The mother regarded as a prostitute]
Freud has drawn attention to the occurrence of a curious case of
displacement--not infrequent among men and of very considerable importance
for subsequent sexual life--which seems to depend to some extent at any
rate, upon an arrest in the Unconscious at the stage of secondary mother
hatred or contempt to which we referred on p. 59[129]. In such cases
the mother is not pitied for having to suffer unwelcome advances from
the father, but hated and despised for permitting or encouraging these
advances. The father, being, according to the estimation of the child's
Unconscious, a partner altogether undesirable, one who would under no
circumstances be preferred to the child himself by any woman of good
taste, the mother is regarded as a person quite lacking in such taste, a
woman who indeed might give herself to _anybody_ (a view which of course
also encourages the hope that she may some day give herself to the child).
If this view should persist in the Unconscious, the mother may come
subsequently to be regarded as a sort of _prostitute_.
[Sidenote: The dissociation of sexual attractiveness and esteem]
Now although such a sequence of ideas in the Unconscious may lead to
contempt of the mother, it has not deprived her of her original power of
attracting love and admiration; it leads rather to a mental splitting up
of these original attractive attributes, the more purely and directly
sexual ones being separated from the other characteristics in virtue
of which she stands as an example of all that is morally desirable in
womanhood. These two different aspects of the mother attributes are then
in later life sought and found in different individuals--the sexual
attributes in prostitutes or in women of inferior morality, education,
intelligence or social station; the other attributes--objects of tender
love and admiration--in women of a higher standing, towards whom however
no physically sexual attraction can be felt.
[Sidenote: The importance of this dissociation]
This dissociation of purely sexual attraction from tenderness, esteem
and the other components of fully developed love, is, if we take account
of its presence in minor as well as in major degrees, of such frequent
occurrence, that it has been regarded by some as a normal feature of the
sex impulse in the human male. It is at the same time a feature which
cannot but be productive of harm in a monogamous society, so that if
Freud's explanation of its origin should prove to be one that is at all
generally valid, this aberrant process of development must be regarded as
one that entails very serious consequences of an ethical and sociological
as well as of a psychological nature, and one therefore to whose
incidence, genesis, growth and history a little further consideration may
perhaps not unprofitably be devoted here.
[Sidenote: Influences in later life which are liable to reinforce it]
The dissociation between the more purely sexual constituents of love and
the elements of esteem, reverence and tenderness which is originally
brought about in the manner indicated by Freud, probably owes much of
its prevalence and importance in later life to the fact that, once
established, it is very apt to be strengthened and maintained by certain
of the conditions under which the development of a youth's sexual
knowledge is liable to occur. Among the most important of these conditions
are the two following:
[Sidenote: Masturbation]
(1) The first actual experience of acute sensory pleasure of a sexual kind
about the time of puberty is very frequently associated with the act of
masturbation, which in its turn is often accompanied by visual phantasies
in which the rôle of sexual partner is played by women or girls known
to the boy. As masturbation itself is usually carried on in the face of
considerable psychic opposition, being looked upon as sordid, disgusting
or injurious to health, there is not unnaturally a reluctance to bring
into connection with this manifestation of the sexual impulse any woman
or girl who is sincerely and profoundly loved, esteemed or honoured;
those introduced into the masturbation phantasies being therefore such
who, while not devoid of superficial sexual attractiveness, nevertheless
display some real or supposed inferiority (as regards beauty, virtue,
social standing or what not), as a result of which they make no appeal to
the boy's sense of higher moral values. Through frequent repetition of
this process, women of an inferior type come to be firmly associated with
the more directly sexual aspects of love, from which women who are looked
upon with tenderness or veneration are correspondingly dissociated, lest
these dear objects of affection should be sullied by being brought into
contact with what the boy regards as dishonourable, lewd or filthy[130].
[Sidenote: Prostitution]
(2) At a later stage of development the original dissociation thus
reinforced is frequently still further strengthened by the association (in
thought or deed or both) of sexual practices with prostitutes--a class
of women whom the youth is himself prepared to condemn because of the
already existing connection in his mind between inferiority and sex, and
as regards whose condemnation from the moral point of view he, as a rule,
finds ample corroboration in the opinions expressed or implied by those
around him.
[Sidenote: Effect of the dissociation on marriage]
The moral degradation of the sexual object thus receives its final
confirmation, and when later in marriage the young man endeavours to
unite esteem and tenderness with sexual passion, he may find that the
dissociation between these elements of love has grown too wide and
fundamental to be overcome, so that one or other of these requisites of
a complete and happy married life has necessarily to be sacrificed. As
a result of this, a man may marry a woman whom he is prepared indeed to
cherish, honour and esteem, but towards whom (for this very reason) he
feels himself but little attracted in a purely sexual sense; in which case
he will often be tempted after a while to seek a more complete degree
of sexual satisfaction elsewhere. Or else, should the directly sexual
trends prevail, he may select a partner who is inferior to him in some
important intellectual, moral or social respect, thus paving the way for a
married life in which many of his more sublimated tendencies, desires and
aspirations are doomed to suffer permanent lack of gratification[131].
[Sidenote: The liability of women to a corresponding dissociation]
There can be little doubt that women are, on the whole, less liable
to suffer from this kind of dissociation than are men. With women the
directly sexual elements of love are more frequently aroused together
with the elements of tenderness and esteem, than is the case with men.
Thus many women experience sexual desire or gratification _only_ in
relation to men to whom they are bound also by feelings of deep affection,
admiration or respect. This difference between the sexes is perhaps to
some extent a constitutional one, the elements in question being by nature
more intimately fused and integrated in one sex than in the other[132].
Some part of the difference is however due, beyond all reasonable doubt,
to environmental and educational factors.
Of the three principal factors we have enumerated as liable to bring about
a high degree of dissociation between sexual attraction and esteem in men,
it seems probable that the first--that due to the child's contempt for
the (otherwise) loved parent for yielding to the sexual advances of the
hated parent--is almost if not quite as potent with women as with men.
The subsequent reinforcement of the dissociation by the two remaining
factors is however to a considerable extent inoperative with women. The
influence of masturbation is in nearly all respects less marked in women
than in men, partly perhaps because at the important age, at or about
the time of puberty, the practice is less frequent with girls than with
boys, but principally because for a variety of reasons it meets with less
violent psychic opposition, arouses less violent moral conflicts and is
to a much lesser extent liable to become the cause of self-contempt or
self-reproach[133]. Nor again is the association of sexual activity with
prostitution (although the act of prostitution itself may be regarded with
considerable repulsion) so deeply ingrained in women as in men.
In spite, however, of the lesser operation of these factors in the case
of women and in spite of any possible closer connection (through innate
organization) of the elements of the love impulse which are liable to
dissociation, it is nevertheless true that a very considerable number of
women do suffer from some degree of this dissociation[134].
[Sidenote: Manifestations of the dissociation in women]
Such women will often be attracted to two kinds of men--one of which
(frequently physically inferior) may arouse sympathy, respect, devotion
or tenderness, while the other (frequently of a morally, socially or
intellectually inferior type, but often physically superior[135]) will
alone be capable of arousing sexual desire. Quite often the attraction
to an inferior person is combined with the desire for clandestinity to
which we referred above; the whole complex finding its most satisfying
and appropriate expression in a furtive love affair of such a kind as to
be contrary to the moral or social standards of the woman's upbringing
and environment. It is obvious that the difficulties which bar the way
to a completely successful marriage for such women are but little if
at all inferior to those existing in the case of men who suffer from a
corresponding condition of dissociation[136].
[Sidenote: Combination of the prostitute and rescue phantasies]
In a certain number of cases there is to be observed a combination of
the original prostitute phantasy (the remoter consequences of which we
have been here considering) with the rescue phantasy to which we referred
above. Such a combination of motives may give rise to the enthusiasm
for "rescue work" as displayed by such persons as John Storm in Sir
Hall Caine's novel "The Christian" or, more generally, may bring about
the desire to lead the prostitute, fallen or abandoned woman (mother
substitute) to a better way of life (_Cp._ Hamlet and his mother)[137]. In
women too this combination of motives may not infrequently be observed,
manifesting itself most often as a desire to effect the regeneration of
some drunkard, ne'er-do-well or criminal or of some class of men of this
description; sometimes leading even to marriage with a person of this
kind, with a view to the better attainment of this end (though in these
cases the superior sexual attractiveness of such men is of course usually
an additional--though not always a recognised--motive).
[Sidenote: The desire for chastity]
In still other cases again the intensely disagreeable feeling that is
associated with the idea of the mother giving herself to the father may
lead to an overwhelming desire for the strictest previous chastity in
any woman that may be selected as bride or sexual partner; the virginity
of the later love serving as a recompense for the supposed impurity and
faithlessness of the earlier object of affection, and to some extent no
doubt (through the process of identification) bringing about--so far as
the unconscious mind of the lover is concerned--a purification of this
former object. Such feelings as these, working in the Unconscious, are
probably among the most powerful factors which determine the behaviour
of that not inconsiderable number of men whose affection and general
attitude towards a woman are completely changed by the merest suspicion
that she has experienced sexual relationships with any but themselves,
however great the extenuating circumstances connected with such
relationships; who are utterly unable to entertain the idea of marriage
with any such woman (_Cp._ Angel Clare in Thomas Hardy's "Tess of the
d'Urbervilles") or who in temporary or venal intercourse will go to much
trouble or expense to secure a virgin for their partner[138].
[Sidenote: The importance of displacement in the love life]
The brief review which we have undertaken in this chapter of the
displacement of the love impulse from persons of the immediate family
environment to objects selected from a wider circle, is sufficient to
show that the whole nature and course of the love life of an individual
is to a very large extent dependent on the way in which this displacement
is achieved[139]. There is little doubt but that the further advance of
psychological science will reveal more intimately the working of those
mechanisms with which we have here been dealing, and of whose nature
and importance we are now beginning to gain some rough preliminary
understanding. In view of the desirability of a satisfactory direction of
the love impulse, as well from the point of view of national and racial
well-being as from that of individual happiness and family prosperity, it
is to be expected that the further enlightenment which we may hope for on
this subject, will be, both practically and theoretically, as important as
any which the science of Psychology will bring us.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 116: "Zur Einführung des Narzißmus." _Jahrbuch für
Psychoanalyse_, VI, 1. I.]
[Footnote 117: See especially Otto Rank, "Die Lohengrinsage," Schriften
zur angewandten Seelenkunde.]
[Footnote 118: An influence of this kind may also manifest itself by
causing the successive falling in love with several persons of the same
name, as for instance, in the case of Schiller (Charlotte von Wolzogen,
Charlotte von Kalb, Charlotte von Lengefeld) or in that of Shelley
(Harriet Grove, Harriet Westbrook and the later affection for Harriet de
Boinville). The incestuous origin of such a name influence may be shown
even more clearly in cases where the names of persons successively loved
are those of different members of the lover's own family; as in the case
of Mörike; (Clara and Louisa, after the name of his two sisters). _Cp._
Rank, "Das Inzestmotiv in Dichtung und Sage," pp. 91, 543. In a case known
to me, a young woman fell in love successively with three men possessing
the same Christian name, one of whom had the same surname as herself. In
a fourth love affair the surname of the man was the same as the Christian
name of her brother, to whom she was much attached, and contrary to her
usual custom she always called this fourth lover by his surname instead of
by his Christian name.]
[Footnote 119: Though not perhaps quite so superficial as is often
supposed. Psycho-analytic work has drawn attention to the influence that a
name may often exercise upon the behaviour and mental characteristics of
its possessor. (_Cp._ Stekel, "Die Verpflichtung des Namens," _Zeitschrift
für Psychotherapie und medizinische Psychologie_, III, Part 2, 1911.
Abraham, "Über die determinierende Kraft des Namens," _Zentralblatt für
Psychoanalyse_, II, 1912, 133). Goethe (Wahlverwandtschaften, Part I, Ch.
2) too had already noticed the possibility of this influence.]
[Footnote 120: _Cp._ Freud, "Beiträge zur Psychologie des Liebeslebens,"
_Jahrbuch für Psychoanalytische und Psychopathologische Forschungen_,
1910, II, 390.]
[Footnote 121: It is such a character for instance that Ibsen appears
to have met in the person of Emilie Bardach of Vienna, who served as
principal model for Hilda Wangel in The Master Builder and who is referred
to in the following description given to his friend Elias (_Neue Deutsche
Rundschau_ 1906, p. 1462, quoted by William Archer in his Introductions to
Ibsen's plays, Vol. X, p. XXIV) "He related how he had met in the Tyrol
a Viennese girl of very remarkable character. She at once made him her
confidant. The gist of her confessions was that she did not care a bit
about one day marrying a well brought-up young man--most likely she would
never marry. What tempted and charmed and delighted her was to lure other
women's husbands away from them. She was a little daemonic worker: she
often appeared to him like a little bird of prey, that would fain have
made him too, her booty."]
[Footnote 122: Otto Rank, "Das Inzestmotiv in Dichtung und Sage,"
especially p. 121.]
[Footnote 123: An interesting example of this curious desire is quoted
by Rank (Das Inzestmotiv in Dichtung und Sage, p. 94.) from the life
of Schiller: on the occasion of the publication of the banns for the
marriage between the poet and Charlotte von Lengefeld, the former is said
to have remarked jokingly to his bride that it would be a pity if no one
came to raise some objection to the marriage or to dispute his right to
Charlotte's hand!]
[Footnote 124: This belief is often strengthened by, and in its turn tends
to confirm, the frequently held infantile theory which regards sexual
relations as consisting essentially of an attack on the mother by the
father--a theory which itself exerts in many cases an important and often
harmful influence on subsequent sexual life.]
[Footnote 125: _Cp._ E. S. Hartland, "The Legend of Perseus." Vol. I, p.
94.]
[Footnote 126: Byron's espousal (note, by the way, the implications
underlying the use of such an expression in this connection) of the cause
of Greek independence may be cited as a classical example of this form of
sublimation.]
[Footnote 127: _Cp._ below, Ch. XII.]
[Footnote 128: _Cp._ Otto Rank, "Die Lohengrinsage." 87. ff., Ernest Jones
"Papers on Psycho-Analysis," 233.]
[Footnote 129: "Beiträge zur Psychologie des Liebeslebens." _Jahrbuch für
psychoanalytische und psychopathologische Forschungen_, 1910, II, 389.]
[Footnote 130: Indeed it frequently happens that a boy will call up the
image of some girl whom he sincerely loves in order that he may the better
resist the temptation to practise masturbation.]
[Footnote 131: For an interesting and suggestive study of the influence of
a high degree of this dissociation upon married life and upon the general
attitude towards questions of sex and of morality, the reader is referred
to J. D. Beresford's novel "God's Counterpoint".]
[Footnote 132: If this is so (and indeed perhaps in any case), it is
evident that the difference in question must be taken into consideration
in dealing with such questions as those affecting the pre-marital chastity
or unchastity of men, the "double moral standard" in sexual matters _etc._]
[Footnote 133: Among the causes of the greater condemnation of
masturbation in men one of great importance consists in the fear of
castration which--as result of threats by parents and nurses and
otherwise--frequently becomes intimately associated with the onanistic
act. Closely connected with this is the fact that the significance and
consequences of masturbation are more obvious in the male than in the
female--the emission of semen and the lassitude that follows this being
very liable to produce a sense of loss and injury, thus easily arousing or
reinforcing the fears connected with the ideas of castration. Perhaps a
further factor of a more general nature is played by the greater freedom
of narcissistic impulses in women (_Cp._ Freud, "Zur Einführung des
Narzißmus," _Jahrbuch für Psychoanalyse_, VI. I.). The relatively greater
persistence of infantile self-love shows itself clearly in the greater
freedom of the milder manifestations of homosexuality in women (the
homosexual partner being a projection of the lover's self; _Cp._ above p.
103) and may very well also be the cause of women's more natural attitude
to masturbation as a form of auto-erotic gratification.]
[Footnote 134: _Cp._ Ernest Jones, "Papers on Psycho-Analysis" 558, the
whole chapter being important in this connection.]
[Footnote 135: Since there is a very general tendency for physical
superiority in men to arouse sexual feelings in the woman, whereas
inferiority in men as regards size, strength, health, _etc._, is apt to
arouse a sympathetic, motherly affection in the woman.]
[Footnote 136: I am indebted to my friend Major O. Berkeley-Hill for
the suggestion that the attraction which women often feel for men of a
racially more primitive type, and the corresponding jealousy that the
(often subconscious) perception of this attraction arouses in men of the
women's own race, are among the most important factors which prevent
the reconciliation or co-operation of different races and which are the
cause of much of the brutality and violence which a superior race is apt
to exercise towards an inferior one. (_Cp._ the frequent lynchings of
negroes for real or supposed sexual offences in America, or the anti-negro
or anti-Chinese riots that are of not infrequent occurrence in English
seaport towns.) If this should be true (and there can be little doubt that
it applies to certain cases) it would appear that we are dealing with a
psychological fact possessing historical and sociological bearings of even
wider significance than would at first appear--bearings which must be kept
in mind in all attempts to produce rapprochement or better understanding
between the different races of mankind. (For a study of the tendency in
question in individual cases _Cp._ the novels of Robert Hichens, _e. g._
"Bella Donna" and "Barbary Sheep")]
[Footnote 137: A very interesting case illustrative of the rescue and
prostitute phantasies will be found in Ernest Jones. "Einige Fälle von
Zwangsneurose," _Jahrbuch für Psychoanalytische und Psychopathologische
Forschungen_, 1913, V, 55.]
[Footnote 138: This psychic tendency must of course be distinguished from
the sexual jealousy so characteristic of paranoia, which has been shown
to be due to repressed homosexuality, the paranoiac projecting on to his
wife or paramour the tender feelings towards some person or persons of his
own sex, which he himself harbours in his Unconscious. (_Cp._ Ferenczi,
"Contributions to Psycho-Analysis," trans. by Ernest Jones, Ch. XI, p. 238
ff.)
Both the importance and the incestuous origin of this desire for chastity
are clearly demonstrated by the infrequently recurring theme of the Virgin
Mother in religion and mythology. _Cp._ below Ch. XIV.]
[Footnote 139: An interesting historical case of one whose career was
probably influenced to a large extent by quite a number of the unconscious
motives discussed in this chapter is that of King Henry VIII of England.
See J.C. Flügel, "On the Character and Married Life of Henry VIII." _The
International Journal of Psycho-Analysis_, 1920, I, 24.]