ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE FAMILY TENDENCIES--HATE ASPECTS
[Sidenote: Recapitulation]
The descriptive portion of our task is now completed. We have traced,
with such degree of detail as the scope of this book has permitted, the
growth within the individual mind of some of the more important of those
feelings and tendencies which owe their origin and development to the
relations of the individual to the other members of his family. We have
seen how these feelings and tendencies are of fundamental importance in
the formation of individual character and how they have also exercised a
vast influence on social life and social institutions. We have seen also
that, throughout their multitudinous transformations and ramifications,
the tendencies originally connected with the family preserve some likeness
to their primitive character, being ultimately reducible upon analysis
to a series of displacements of a very few original trends and impulses.
These original impulses fall naturally into two main groups:--those which
bind the individual to the family (or to one or more of its members)
through a relationship of love, esteem or dependence; and those which are
based on a relationship of hate or fear; the trends falling within each
of these groups being manifested either in a direct and positive, or in a
reactionary and negative form; the latter being assumed as the result of
a conflict between one of the trends in question and some other trend of
an opposite, or at any rate a different, character (very often one of the
family trends belonging to the opposite group).
[Sidenote: The theoretical treatment of our subject and its difficulties]
Since these groups of impulses have shown themselves to play a part of
such importance in human mind and human conduct, it is not unnatural
that, having completed our review of their manifestations, we should feel
some curiosity as to the manner in which they have come to play this part
in the course of the past history of the human race and as to the nature
of the influence which they have exerted on this history. Unfortunately
in the present state of our knowledge it would not seem possible to
gratify this curiosity except in a very partial, unsatisfactory and
uncertain manner. The psychological mechanisms with which we have been
dealing have themselves, for the most part, been too recently discovered
to have as yet been adequately correlated, or brought into connection,
with the relevant facts of anthropological, ethnographical or biological
science. The data from these latter sources are moreover, in spite of
much diligent research in recent years, still in many important respects
too incomplete to afford a satisfactory basis for such correlation. As
a consequence of these conditions, it is to be feared that any attempt
that we may make to exhibit the psychical tendencies with which we have
been concerned, in their bearings upon early human history, or to explain
their origin in the light of this history or of the general conditions
of human life and mind, will result in little more than a restatement of
our psychological principles from a slightly different point of view.
Nevertheless the attempt may be worth making. A summary of some of the
main implications of our psychological knowledge in this field may perhaps
not seem amiss--especially in view of the astonishing and unlooked-for
character of much of this knowledge--and if we succeed in establishing a
few connections between our psychological data and the related facts of
anthropology or biology, these may perhaps serve as starting points--to
be either proved or else corrected--for subsequent enquiries based on a
more sound foundation. The reader will understand therefore that, in so
far as in the present and the two succeeding chapters there is anything
that is not--explicitly or implicitly--contained in what we have already
said, we shall have left the region of comparative certainty afforded
by the results of observation and induction, and shall be travelling
for the most part on the unsure ground of speculation--speculation that
can be justified only on the plea of natural curiosity, and by the hope
of opening up a few vistas which may be more fully surveyed by better
equipped workers in the future.
[Sidenote: The hate tendencies to some extent inevitable]
Of the two main groups of tendencies to which we have above
referred--which we may briefly call the love and hate groups--the former
opens up a number of problems in this connection which would seem to be
in some significant respects deeper, more important and more complex than
those raised by the latter. The hate tendencies are, indeed, as regards
the cause and nature of their origin and development, in the main not so
very difficult to understand. Psychologists are pretty well agreed as to
the circumstances which give rise to anger and fear--the emotions which
chiefly underlie the attitude of hate. Anger arises when the activities,
tendencies or wishes of the individual are interfered with or when
the individual is unwillingly forced to undergo some disagreeable or
undesirable experience, and it is directed to the object from which such
interference or such infliction of undesired experience is forthcoming.
Fear arises when harm is threatened to the individual or to that which he
possesses or holds dear, and is directed to the threatening object[216].
Now, as we have seen, the normal conditions of family life necessarily
give rise to some extent to the situations which arouse these emotions.
Through the mere exercise of ordinary parental authority and care,
and more especially through the process of elementary moral training
and education, the parent invariably interferes in some ways with
the primitive desires and tendencies of the child, and threatens the
child with punishment in the event of his transgressing the parental
prohibitions; the conditions are therefore present for the arousal in the
child's mind of anger and fear towards the parent, should the child be at
all susceptible to these emotions.
[Sidenote: Jealousy as a necessary consequence of marriage]
We have seen that the hate attitude is sometimes and to some extent
brought about indirectly as a consequence of jealousy aroused in
connection with the love attitude (jealousy being caused by interference
with the successful function of the love impulses), sometimes more
directly by a more general hostility between parent and child. In so far
as the first case is concerned, the hate attitude is obviously dependent
upon the existence of sexual rivalry between the child and one of the
parents. Granted the existence of the love impulse of the child towards
the parent of the opposite sex, the conditions of this rivalry are to be
found whenever the two parents live together--in fact wherever there is
marriage, and more especially wherever there is monogamy. Now marriage of
some sort would seem to exist in practically every human community--both
primitive and cultured--that has as yet been subjected to any degree of
careful study or investigation; in fact there is every reason to regard it
as an institution fundamentally characteristic of the human race and of
immemorial antiquity. It is therefore not surprising that we find evidence
of sexual jealousy between parents and children in many early myths and
customs and in the legends and beliefs of many peoples, both cultivated
and uncivilised. There is good ground for supposing that parent hatred
based on jealousy has been called into existence in innumerable successive
generations and has thus had ample opportunity to impress itself on the
forms, traditions and institutions of human society.
[Sidenote: and especially of monogamy]
[Sidenote: Parent-child jealousy perhaps less pronounced in the Totemic
Age]
In those societies which have developed or maintained a relatively strict
monogamy we should expect that this kind of parent hatred would be more
easily and extensively developed than in those in which the marriage tie
is looser, wider or more elastic, since in the former case the hatred
bred of jealousy would necessarily be directed on to a single individual,
whereas in the latter it might lose in intensity through diffusion over a
number of different persons. Now it is a feature of that relatively early
stage of culture which with Wundt[217] we may perhaps call the Totemic
age that the family ties are as a rule relaxed in favour of those wider
bonds that unite together the different members of the tribe or clan. In
this age we often find that some form of group marriage exists or shows
evident traces of having existed; in distinction to the more or less
strictly monogamous unions that are characteristic both of those races of
mankind which are at a more primitive level of development and of those
that have reached a more advanced stage of culture. We might imagine
therefore that this Totemic age was distinguished by a lessening of the
parent jealousy which must probably have existed both in the earlier
and in the later societies of a more strictly monogamic kind. We have
seen indeed that a reconciliation between fathers and sons is one of the
motives which finds expression in the initiation ceremonies--ceremonies
that arise and flourish principally at the Totemic stage of culture. The
men's clubs--one of the institutions most typical of this age--would
again seem to point to the existence of a tendency to do away with the
hostility between man and man by establishing a community of interest and
affection between the members of the clubs, who are brought into more
intimate contact with one another than would be the case if they remained
each more strictly within the confines of their own families. A similar
result is no doubt to some extent achieved by the corresponding throwing
together of the women, who are freed from the more intimate dependence
on the male that is fostered in a more closely knit family system. At
the same time the relative sexual freedom that is frequently permitted,
especially before marriage, affords an unfavourable environment for the
development of jealousy; as is shown by the absence of this passion so
frequently exhibited both within and without the marriage bond. Indeed
there would seem to be almost necessarily some degree of correspondence
between the strictness of the marriage relationship and the development of
jealousy. So long as men and women regard themselves as possessing certain
exclusive rights and privileges over one or more members of the opposite
sex, they are bound to resent any conduct which might appear to constitute
an infringement or challenge of these rights; freedom from jealousy can
only be obtained under these circumstances by perfect confidence that no
such attempt will be made, or, if made, will be unsuccessful--a condition
of mind which requires a more complete adaptation to the married state on
the part of all concerned than can usually be secured. On the other hand,
if no such exclusive privileges as are implied in the strict observance
of the marriage bond are demanded or expected, there is no ground or
occasion for the development of any high degree of jealousy. Monogamy, the
strictest and most exclusive form of marriage, is thus most especially
liable to bring jealousy in its train, since here all sexual tendencies
and privileges are centred round one person, who has to be guarded at
whatever cost against the advances of all other suitors[218].
[Sidenote: which differs in this respect both from preceding and
succeeding ages]
The Totemic age, characterised as it is by a recession in importance of
the family ties as compared with those of a wider social unit, would
appear then in one of its aspects to have been marked by a strong tendency
to get rid of jealousy, together with certain other of the passions which
are aroused in connection with, or centre round, the family. It differs
thus from the more strictly monogamic condition, which, according to our
most recent knowledge, would seem to exist among the really primitive
races of mankind[219]. It differs also, perhaps even more markedly, from
the conditions of the patriarchal family--that form of family which
seems on the whole to be characteristic of the post-Totemic stage of
culture[220]. At this latter stage the family--now however often in
an enlarged form comprising several smaller family groups and several
generations--once more becomes the predominant social unit; societies
based on the tribal or clan system having apparently proved themselves
more unstable or less capable of expansion and development than those
based upon the more fundamental unit of the family. The decline of
jealousy and of the hatreds based thereon was therefore, we may suppose,
at the close of the Totemic age replaced by a recrudescence of that more
vigorous hostility between father and son, mother and daughter, between
brothers and between sisters, which is to some extent inevitable in a
closely united monogamic family--a hostility which has continued to exist
uninterruptedly until the present day.
[Sidenote: Similar differences as regards other aspects of intra-family
hatred]
Much the same is also true, no doubt, as regards those aspects of
intra-family hostilities which are not based on jealousy. In the monogamic
families of primitive man these latter aspects of hostility had no doubt
free scope within certain limits. In the looser family conditions of the
Totemic age it seems probable that passions based on mutual interference
of different members of the family with each other's interests and desires
would be a good deal less developed. In the patriarchal family of the
later epoch conditions would seem however to become favourable once again
to the development of hostility of this kind, particularly to that between
father and son. The close and permanent organisation of the family under
the patriarchal system brings it about that the interests of father and
son continue to be to some extent antagonistic long after the son has
reached maturity, whereas in the state more nearly resembling that of
nature the son would usually be free from paternal tutelage as soon as he
had attained to full growth.
[Sidenote: The hate-producing causes are still potent in modern
civilisation]
The family life of most modern civilised nations is less closely organised
than that of the patriarchal family at its full development; children as
a rule becoming relatively or completely free from parental jurisdiction,
if not before, at least as soon as, they have married and founded a home
of their own. Nevertheless the lessening of antagonism that is brought
about by this relaxation of the family organisation is often to some
extent counterbalanced by the increasing social and economic dependence
of children on their parents that is apt to arise in advanced and complex
societies, specially among the higher and wealthier classes (_cp._ above
p. 58). The irksomeness of parental restrictions is apt to be increased
too, as civilisation advances, by the fact that the rules of conduct
and of morals inculcated by the parents tend to become in many respects
increasingly remote from the behaviour to which the young child's
primitive tendencies naturally impel him; so that a more violent friction
is likely to arise between the authority of the parents and the will of
the children in their early years[221].
For these reasons the antagonism between parents and children remains, as
we know, strong even in present day civilisation, though there are grounds
for thinking that it may perhaps have been stronger in those earlier
stages of society in which a more complex patriarchal system flourished.
[Sidenote: Negative aspects of the hate attitude]
As regards the negative or reactionary aspects of the hate attitude, it
is pretty clear that the influences which tend to produce repression
or inhibition of the hate are in the main of two kinds:--(1) "moral"
influences, such as the acceptance of a code of ethics, or of a tradition,
with which parent hatred is incompatible; (2) the co-existence with the
hate of a genuine love, admiration or respect towards the parent who is
hated.
[Sidenote: "Moral" influences]
As regards the ultimate psychological nature of the first of these
factors, we are face to face with a problem concerning which there is
at present no very great degree of certainty or unanimity, _i. e._ the
problem of the general nature of the forces of repression which inhibit
the immoral or anti-social tendencies of the mind. Freud[222] is inclined
to lay stress upon the impulses centering round the self (though more
especially in connection with the repression of the sexual trends);
others, like McCurdy[223] Trotter[224] and Hart[225], emphasize the
importance of the gregarious tendencies in this connection. Whatever may
be their ultimate basis in the mind, there can be little doubt however
that these moral forces on the whole increase with advancing culture,
thus tending always to substitute an indirect or negative for the more
primitive direct or positive expression of the hate attitude towards the
parents.
[Sidenote: Love that conflicts with and represses hate]
As regards the second factor, the arousal of love in opposition to hate
is evidently dependent partly (a) upon the child's own innate capacities
for affection, tenderness and gratitude; partly (b) upon the extent to
which these capacities are awakened and called into play by a kind and
loving attitude on the part of the parent towards the child. As regards
these factors it seems very difficult to say in the present state of our
knowledge whether there has been any considerable or lasting change during
the later period of human development. The extent to which tender feelings
have been aroused between parents and children of the same sex (for it is
of course with the relations between these that we are chiefly concerned
here) has naturally varied from age to age and from one family system to
another; the intensity and frequency of these feelings being as a rule in
inverse proportion to the intensity of the hate attitude. Thus it is that
those times and places which have produced the minimum of hatred between
parents and children have also probably on the whole tended to bring about
the greatest degree of repression of such hatred as did still exist--the
repression being due to the influence of love tendencies which were
opposed to those of hate. Nevertheless it is not easy to bring forward
any evidence to show a general tendency towards increase of the tender
feelings with which we are here concerned. Savage parents in many cases
appear to exhibit a very considerable degree of affection towards their
children, while the children are in their turn often not backward in their
manifestations of love and respect. Parents in civilised communities, on
the other hand, have often shown themselves (under a veneer of kindness
or consideration) singularly brutal and selfish in the treatment of their
children; the latter not infrequently manifesting a corresponding lack of
genuine affection for their parents. Under these circumstances it would
seem that we are perhaps justified in attributing the undoubted increase
in the repression of the hate attitude to the more efficient operation
of the "moral" factors, rather than to any growth of tenderness between
parent and child which might have served more effectually to counter-act
the hostile tendencies.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 216: Though we ought possibly to make an exception here in the
case of that fear which seems to arise as the result of a transformation
of sexual impulses. On the other hand, it is possible that this too may
be brought under the more general formula, if we recognise that the fear
is in this case directed not to some outer object but to some threatening
element within the mind. For a discussion of this matter see Freud,
"Vorlesungen zur Einführung in die Psychoanalyse," 466 ff. For a most
important discussion of the fundamental nature and conditions of love and
hate and of the different causes from which they originate, see Freud,
"Sammlung kleiner Schriften zur Neurosenlehre," IV, 270 ff.]
[Footnote 217: W. Wundt, "Elements of Folk Psychology," trans. by E. L.
Schaub, 1916, 116 ff.]
[Footnote 218: It is of course true that with a system of group marriage
the opportunities for sexual relations among young people may sometimes
be no greater than under monogamy, since all the available women may be
regarded as belonging exclusively to a certain class of men--usually those
who have attained a certain age. The hatred and jealousy aroused in the
young men towards their elders may in such cases be equal in intensity
to those felt under monogamic conditions, but the fact remains that this
hatred is no longer intimately connected with the _family_ (at any rate as
we understand that institution at the present day).]
[Footnote 219: Wundt. _Op. cit._ 34 ff.]
[Footnote 220: Wundt. _Op. cit._ 311 ff.]
[Footnote 221: This is of course specially the case where the moral code
upheld by the parents is one of unnecessary or extreme severity, in
which almost every natural manifestation of youthful joy, or vitality
is condemned; as is sometimes the case, for instance, with parents of
an ultra-puritanical way of thinking, whose own mental life, however
admirable in other respects, has been warped by excessive inhibitions.
Although marked perhaps by less bitterness than is usual in such cases,
Edmund Gosse's remarkable work "Father and Son" affords much interesting
ground for thought in this connection.]
[Footnote 222: _e. g._ "Zur Einführung des Narzißmus." _Jahrbuch der
Psychoanalyse_, 1914, VI, 5 ff.]
[Footnote 223: _Psychiatric Bulletin_, I, No. 1; "The Psychology of War,"
49.]
[Footnote 224: "Instincts of the Herd in Peace and War," 79 ff.]
[Footnote 225: "The Psychology of Insanity," 167 ff.]