ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE FAMILY TENDENCIES--LOVE ASPECTS
[Sidenote: The love attitude]
The problems connected with the origin, development and influence upon
human history of the love attitude in relation to the family are, as
we have said, in some respects both more important and more difficult
than those connected with the hate attitude--more important because, as
we have seen throughout, the hate attitude is to a considerable extent
merely a consequence of, or at any rate dependent on, the love attitude;
more difficult, because the psychic tendencies which enter into the love
attitude are in general more unconscious in character, further removed
from our everyday standard of conscious thought and feeling and, on the
whole, subject also to more violent and more permanent conflicts and
repressions.
[Sidenote: The positive and negative aspects that have to be considered]
We have seen that, in its positive form, this love attitude manifests
itself in an incestuous affection--in the first place, perhaps always of
the child for its mother; in what is perhaps a slightly more developed,
but certainly a more easily recognisable form, of the child for its parent
of the opposite sex; in a still more developed form, of brothers for
sisters, or of more remote relatives for one another. In its negative form
this attitude is manifested as a violent antipathy to any such incestuous
attachment, at any rate in so far as this attachment assumes the sexual
form or anything resembling such a form. We have here to consider, first,
what can be the influences which bring about this incestuous attachment
in the human mind--an attachment of such durability that, as we have
seen, it determines to a large extent the nature and course of the whole
of the subsequent love life of the individual, as well as of many of
the activities which lie apparently far removed from the sphere of love
or sex; secondly, given the existence of this attachment, what are the
further influences which have brought about its repression--a repression
that corresponds in strength and influence to the importance of the
positive impulse to which it is opposed.
[Sidenote: Influences determining the positive aspects]
Let us consider first the positive side of the love attitude. The
influences which, we may suggest, play an important part in bringing about
a strong tendency to the formation of incestuous affections in the human
mind may be most conveniently grouped under a number of separate heads.
[Sidenote: The long duration of human childhood]
(1) First in time and perhaps also in importance would seem to be a group
of factors connected with the long period of infancy, childhood and youth,
which characterises, to a greater or a less extent, all branches of the
human race. During this long period, the child is, as we have more than
once emphasised, wholly or partially dependent on its parents for the
satisfaction of its needs. Now it is a fundamental tendency of the mind to
experience pleasure in connection with, and generally to appreciate, those
objects which administer to, or are associated with, the basic needs and
requirements of the organism; _i. e._ the mind tends naturally to react
towards these objects in a manner which, at a higher level of development,
we should designate as love[226]. It is not altogether surprising then
that, the parents being for many years associated with the fulfilment
of the great majority of conscious needs, the nascent love of the child
should be directed to them in a greater measure than to any other object.
[Sidenote: Primitive sympathy reacting on the expressions of instinctive
parental feeling]
(2) It is a pretty generally recognised fact that--in virtue of a process
which McDougall[227] has conveniently designated primitive sympathy--among
the stimuli which are most effective in producing any given feeling or
emotion are the manifestations of that feeling or emotion in some other
person or persons. Now it is generally admitted by psychologists that
the presence of children tends to evoke an instinctive affection and
tenderness on the part of the parents; the biological justification, and
indeed necessity, for such an instinct, as well as for the fact of its
existence being indeed sufficiently manifest--especially no doubt in women
but to a considerable extent in men also. In virtue of this instinctive
tenderness parents naturally give expression to their affection in the
presence of the children, whereupon the latter, reacting through primitive
sympathy, tend to experience affection in their turn and to direct it
upon the nearest and most appropriate object--_i. e._ the parent whose
manifestations of tenderness have aroused the emotion. This sequence of
events being frequently repeated, the child's affections come in time to
be firmly attached to the parent, reciprocating the affection he receives
from this direction.
[Sidenote: Love and respect as elements of imitation and suggestibility]
(3) Again, it is evident that, especially in primitive communities, the
child is dependent on its parent, not only for the fulfilment of its
elementary needs and desires, but also for the opportunity of learning
how to fulfil these needs and desires in its own person. This process of
learning implies--especially perhaps in immature minds--a tendency to
imitate the teacher and to be suggestible towards him. Now suggestibility,
as we have already seen, probably depends to a considerable extent
upon love; it certainly depends largely upon an attitude of respect or
admiration on the part of the one who is suggestible. Much the same is
true of imitation; we notoriously tend to imitate those whom we love, whom
we admire, and to whom we look up with confidence and veneration. This
being the case, the adoption of an attitude of love and respect towards
his parents, would be of considerable advantage to the child, as enabling
him to acquire more readily those capacities, habits and ideas which he
most naturally learns from his parents (and later on from those on to
whom the parent-regarding feelings are displaced) through imitation and
suggestion. In view of the comparatively unformed and plastic condition of
many of the instinctive tendencies in human infants, the ability to learn
easily and quickly from their elders is of great importance to children
in their early years. We have here then very possibly a factor which
contributes to the survival-value of a strong parent attachment, though it
may not actually call any such attachment into being.
[Sidenote: Early arousal of sex tendencies in the family is necessary for
cultural displacements]
(4) Modern psychology is showing more and more that the growth of man's
principal instinctive tendencies is continuous from early youth upward
to maturity, there being few or no sudden changes, transitions or fresh
departures as development proceeds. The work of Freud and his followers
has, above all, clearly shown that the sexual tendencies are not narrowly
confined to processes intimately connected with the reproduction of
the species, but pervade the whole life of the individual, manifesting
themselves in a great variety of ways, many of which are very far removed
from the reproductive sphere but are of the greatest importance in the
increase and maintenance of culture. More especially it has been shown (in
a way which we have to some extent already studied) that these tendencies
undergo a continuous process of development from childhood upwards, and
that on their growth and history depends to a considerable extent the
character and social value of the individual.
Such being the nature and conditions of development of this important
aspect of the mind, it is evident that something akin to the later
affections characteristic of maturity should be found even in the earliest
attachments of the child. It is only on the mistaken assumption that the
sexual impulse emerges, as it were, fully grown at the time of puberty,
that the existence of sexual elements in the loves of an earlier age
appears surprising. In reality it is necessary, if the sexual tendencies
are to play their important role in the displacements involved in the
civilised adult life, that they should ripen early, even though they may
not be required for purposes of reproduction for many years to come; and
if they are to ripen early, it is only natural that they should be called
into play in the child's relations to his parents, who are as a rule by
far the most prominent persons of his environment during the first years
of his existence. It would seem probable, the human mind being constituted
as it is, that unless the large source of energy which is contained in,
and habitually manifested through, the sexual tendencies (in the wide
sense assigned to them by Freud) were made available in infancy or early
childhood, the child would have too little motive at its disposal to make
the vast efforts necessary to enable it to pass from the helplessness
and ignorance of infancy to the relatively enormous skill and knowledge
of adult life, and to acquire the manifold and complex characteristics
of an age-long culture. The early awakening of the sexual tendencies
in connection with the life of the family thus reveals itself as a
natural--and indeed perhaps to some extent an inevitable--condition of any
high degree of human civilisation or cultural achievement.
[Sidenote: Necessity for the early transition from Autoerotism to
object-love]
(5) Another factor of great importance in mental and moral development,
as regards which the early direction of love on to the parents plays
an important part, is one to which we have already often had occasion
to refer--the development of object love as distinct from the more
primitive levels of sexuality manifested in Autoerotism and Narcissism.
The full social and ethical implications of this change are not yet
completely understood--the whole subject of the Narcissistic trends
and their manifestations, normal and abnormal, having only recently
been studied by the psycho-analytic method--but it is abundantly clear
that these are of very considerable significance. Failure to carry out
the change successfully would seem to bring with it almost inevitably
certain grave defects of character, involving an exaggerated egoism and a
correspondingly deficient altruism; defects which must seriously detract
from the social value of the individual, and which when present in large
numbers of the population, must imperil the success or even the existence
of the social organism. It is essential therefore that the stage of
object-love should become firmly established in at least a majority of
individuals if society is to prosper, and, as we have seen, the transition
from Autoerotism to object-love is under normal human conditions brought
about in connection with the child's relations to its parents. How indeed
could this transition be more easily and surely achieved than through
this relationship--at once the earliest, the most necessary and, in many
ways, the most intimate which the individual ever knows? Through the
affection which the child feels towards those who supply its elementary
needs, it learns the meaning of attachment to an object outside itself--an
attachment which, in its further development, leads to the tendency to
seek the goal of effort and desire in the outer world rather than in
intimate connection with the self, the tendency upon which all altruism
is ultimately based. Just as the early awakening of the sexual impulses
ensures that these impulses shall have time and opportunity to devote the
great motive power at their disposal to the work involved in mental growth
and education, so the early arousal of object-love in connection with the
parents ensures that these impulses shall take that direction which alone
will enable the child to become a useful and a pleasant member of society.
[Sidenote: The Narcissistic love elements are also satisfied by incestuous
affection]
(6) If the incestuous direction of affection thus assists the development
of object-love, we must not forget that at the same time it is calculated
to give a considerable degree of satisfaction to the Narcissistic
elements of love. In their most characteristic and pronounced form, these
Narcissistic elements will usually manifest themselves in a homosexual
direction and therefore not in the typical form of incestuous heterosexual
affection with which we are here chiefly concerned. There can be little
doubt however that, in a less violent and overwhelming form and as a
factor in a total complex situation, the Narcissistic elements do enter
very frequently into normal love between members of the opposite sexes.
The similarities--physical, mental and circumstantial--that usually exist
between those who are of common descent bring it about that a partial
identification of the self with the loved object is often easier in the
case of a blood relative than with any other person. Hence the influence
of this factor will frequently add itself to the other forces which tend
to produce an incestuous direction of affection.
The partial identification upon which the operation of this Narcissistic
factor in object-love depends, may of course take place at many different
psychic levels, from one at which the perception of the resemblance
between the loved object and the self may to some extent enter into
consciousness, to one at which the identification seems to rest upon some
mysterious deep-seated and archaic bond of union, depending possibly upon
organic factors or upon the experiences of pre-natal life--such a bond
for instance as that which arises perhaps as a result of the close vital
connection between mother and child during the period of gestation and
lactation[228].
[Sidenote: Thus two opposing tendencies in love find simultaneous
gratification]
In this way the love of a child to those who are related to it by
ties of blood--and particularly to the parents--is such as to afford
a convenient compromise between two sets of conflicting impulses--the
impulses that tend to the development of object-love and those more
primitive ones that manifest themselves most clearly at the autoerotic
and Narcissistic levels. Such a compromise formation is, as we know,
peculiarly characteristic of the process of displacement. It is a
general law of mental progress in conation that in the new direction
of activity that results from a conflict of impulses, there are to be
found certain elements that are connected with the satisfaction of both
conflicting aims. As a ready means of providing such common elements, the
love of parents and of other relatives may therefore in very many cases
be supported by the energy derived both from the Narcissistic and the
object-seeking components of affection. Hence another potent reason for
the widespread occurrence of this form of love.
[Sidenote: The dependence aspects may also indirectly foster incestuous
tendencies]
(7) Another set of factors working towards the production and maintenance
of the tendencies to incest are those connected with the dependence of the
youthful individual on the family, with all that this implies. We have
already, in Chapters IV and V studied the manner in which the inertia
of habit, the difficulties involved in the growth of individuality, the
efforts required for self-governance, self-maintenance and independence
and the tendency to regress to an earlier stage of development in the face
of obstacles, all combine to produce the retention of, or the return to,
a relatively infantile attitude towards the family. We were there chiefly
concerned with the aspects of self-preservation and self-expression rather
than with the aspects of love or reproduction, but it is evident that the
infantile and childish stages of both aspects must be associated with one
another, so that a fixation at an early stage of development with regard
to one aspect will be likely to bring with it a corresponding fixation
as regards the other. Thus, for instance, an undue reluctance to abandon
the conception of the mother as the protector and provider of childhood
may easily entail a similar failure of growth on the erotic side. In
general it would appear that the inertia of the human mind, which so
often involves a failure to emancipate the self from the trammels of the
early family life, will tend inevitably to produce a corresponding want
of adjustment in the love life. This factor of itself would not suffice
to bring about the tendency to incest, but, given the existence of this
tendency, it might constitute an influence of very considerable power in
maintaining the tendency in question, both in the individual and in the
race, and might even be a means of producing a reversion to this tendency
in cases where it seemed to have been superseded or outgrown.
[Sidenote: The sentiment of parent-love is powerful in virtue of its early
formation]
(8) The sentiment of parent love having been called into existence by
the aid of the factors we have already enumerated--directly in the case
of 1 and 2, more indirectly in the case of 4, 5 and 6 and still more
indirectly perhaps in the case of 3 and 7--all conditions are particularly
favourable for its continuance and growth. In the first place, it is
almost certainly one of the earliest important sentiments to be formed,
the only other one which can compare with it in this respect being the
self-regarding sentiment. It thus enjoys as compared with most others
sentiments all the advantage afforded by priority. What the exact nature
of any such advantage may be, it would be hazardous to suggest in detail:
we know however that it is a general characteristic of the function and
development of mind that dispositions which are formed early in the life
of the individual enjoy a greater stability and permanence than those
subsequently acquired. Even where, as so often happens, the function of
the earlier dispositions is modified or obscured by the results of later
experience, the phenomena of "regression" to earlier levels, as manifested
in pathology, show clearly enough that the earlier dispositions remain
intact throughout life and in many cases seem to be (in themselves and
apart from the influence of extraneous factors) paths that offer less
resistance to the passage of emotional energy than do those formed at a
later period. It may well be then that its priority of formation gives to
the sentiment of parent-love a more stable and deep-rooted foundation than
that enjoyed by any sentiment subsequently formed.
Further, psycho-analytic study appears to indicate very strongly that it
is in the nature of the mind for _all_ the earliest channels of conative
energy not only to remain capable of functioning in later life, but
actually to continue to function, though often in such a degree or in such
a way as to have but little if any _direct_ influence on consciousness
or action. Thus it would appear that when a sublimation is formed and
emotional energy is directed into a fresh channel, not all the energy
passing through the original channel is deflected; some, on the contrary,
continues to pass along the original channel. At each fresh sublimation
this process is repeated, so that, to use a simile of Freud's, we may
compare the development of the Libido to the history of a wandering tribe,
which at each fresh migration leaves some of its members behind in the
home it is just leaving (the larger the proportion of the population that
is left behind--_i. e._ the greater the fixations--the greater being of
course the tendency to regress along the former line of advance when an
obstacle is encountered). In such a system of function and development, it
is clear that the oldest channels are necessarily, in a sense, the most
stable and permanent, the least easy to modify or to destroy.
In this respect then the channels comprising the sentiment of parent-love
are comparable to all other early channels of the Libido. Just as the
autoerotic trends connected with the oral, anal and urethral regions
of the body and the primitive tendencies to sadism, masochism and
exhibitionism have been shown to underlie many of the activities of adult
life, so (on a higher and more complex level of development) parent-love
has been revealed as the foundation upon which rests the greater part of
the affection of childhood, adolescence and maturity. From this point of
view it would appear that parent-love, in its persistence and influence on
later life, exhibits characteristics which are, in greater or less degree,
common to all the earliest manifestations of the Libido.
[Sidenote: Furthermore, numerous influences favour its persistence]
In one important respect however the history of parent love differs from
the history of many other of these early manifestations. Parent-love not
only comes into being at a very early age, but, as regards many of its
attributes, it normally persists with but little alteration throughout
the whole of the impressionable period from infancy to adolescence. The
sensual elements of this love are, it is true, for the most part repressed
soon after they appear, but the elements of tenderness and veneration
usually remain and build up a sentiment which operates vigorously and
continuously for many years, whereas the other sentiments formed during
this period (with the exception again of the self-regarding sentiment)
are apt to be of a far more temporary and evanescent character. It is
true, as we have seen, that as development proceeds the affection felt
towards the parents is to some extent displaced on to other persons, but
nevertheless, in the normal course of events, a large portion of this
affection remains throughout early life fixated on its original object.
Moreover as regards this fixation of affection on the parents (provided
only no sensual element be too apparent), the individual meets as a rule
with every encouragement and sign of approval from those about him, not
with the disapprobation or ridicule which he often encounters when his
affections are directed elsewhere. The sentiment of parent love has
therefore the support of moral sanction in a way enjoyed by few, if any,
other sentiments of love that may be formed in early life.
We see therefore that both as regards priority of formation and as
regards duration, vigour and continuity of function throughout the all
important period of development, parent love normally occupies an almost
unique place among the sentiments--a place which renders to some extent
intelligible the importance of the role it plays in human life.
[Sidenote: The tendency to incest thus brought about is strengthened by
practice and tradition]
(9) Finally, the tendency to incestuous direction of affection, having
once been brought into existence, has no doubt been strengthened and
consolidated by the actual practice of incest that has pretty certainly
occurred on a wide scale among certain races and at certain levels of
development[229].
[Sidenote: The occurrence of incest may also be inferred from certain
practices and institutions]
Apart from the actual observation of incestuous practices at the present
day, the previous occurrence of incest on a wide scale may (as we have
already to some extent indicated in earlier chapters) frequently be
inferred with some degree of certainty from the nature of practices,
customs, observances and institutions which seem to be remnants or
vestiges of a one-time general prevalence of incest. We have already
referred to the practice of brother-sister marriage among certain lines
of monarchs (p. 91), to the customs of the levirate and sororate (p. 93)
and of group marriage (p. 90), the _droit de seigneur_ (p. 143) and the
licence frequently permitted at certain festivals such as initiation (p.
89).
Evidence for the previous existence of incest is also forthcoming from
the measures and prohibitions erected to prevent it. The "avoidances"
practised by a large number of savage peoples are very numerous and have
reference to all the principal relationships, both those of blood and
those acquired by marriage. These "avoidances" are unhesitatingly regarded
by most authorities as customs adopted as a precaution against incest.
[Sidenote: Especially from Exogamy]
The most striking institution of this kind is however undoubtedly that of
Exogamy. There is as yet no complete consensus of opinion as to the causes
that have led to the origin and development of exogamy, but the majority
of the eminent investigators who have devoted themselves to the subject
agree that the avoidance of incest is the principal factor that has led to
the creation of the system. The various stages of exogamic development, as
seen in Australia, appear to constitute so many fresh encroachments upon
the liberty of incest[230], the later and more complex four class system
prohibiting certain unions between relatives that the earlier and simpler
two class system has permitted, while the eight class system in turn
prevents those that are not excluded under the four class system, though
the actual relationships prohibited differ somewhat according to whether
descent is traced in the male or female line.
[Sidenote: Exogamy was probably preceded by Endogamy]
There is a considerable amount of evidence to show that exogamy, where now
in force, was preceded by a period in which the unions prohibited under
its rule were freely indulged in, though the marriage tie was at the same
time broader and less binding. Thus of the Central Australians Spencer
and Gillen[231] say that tradition "seems to point back to a time when
a man always married a woman of his own totem. The reference to men and
woman of one totem always living together in groups would appear to be too
frequent to admit of any other satisfactory explanation. We never meet in
tradition with an instance of a man living with a woman who was not of his
own totem." The same conclusion as to the former universal prevalence of
endogamy emerges from a study of the actually observed condition of the
Australian natives, the rude and uncultivated tribes of the interior being
still to some extent endogamic, while there is a gradual increase in the
frequency and strictness of exogamy, as we proceed from these to the more
advanced communities of the north[232]. Among the Kacharis of Assam we
have an example of what is probably the still more primitive process of a
_compulsory_ endogamy giving place to freedom to marry outside the totem
group, endogamy being here thus not only permitted but enjoined[233].
Other indications of the co-existence of endogamy with a totemic system
are found in Madagascar[234] and in N.W. America[235].
[Sidenote: Really primitive races mostly monogamous and endogamous]
Frazer supposes that exogamy in its beginning arose originally as
a restriction upon complete promiscuity, though he admits that such
promiscuity need not have been characteristic of absolutely primitive
man[236]. As a matter of fact the most primitive races that we know
seem to be usually _monogamous_ and _endogamous_. This is for instance
to a greater or less extent the case with the Veddahs[237], the
Andamanese[238], the lowest forest tribes of Brazil[239], the inhabitants
of the interior of Borneo[240], the Semangs and Senoi of the Malay
Peninsula[241], and the Negritos of the Philippines[242] and Central
Africa[243].
[Sidenote: The family is therefore their principal social unit]
[Sidenote: Incest a natural consequence of such conditions]
In these primitive peoples and in those who, as we must suppose, formerly
resembled them, the family would appear to be a more closely knit and
socially a more important unit than in the later age of totemism and
exogamy; there being in this respect a resemblance between the primitive
condition and that of the post-totemic patriarchal period. There is
reason to believe however that in the case of really primitive man (in
distinction from the later patriarchal period) the family is often the
only permanent and stable unit; such approximation to tribal organisation
as exists being mostly of a temporary or fluctuating character. With such
peoples the low state of culture will often necessitate a relatively
scattered population, and in these circumstances endogamy and incest may
be a natural--indeed possibly sometimes an inevitable--consequence; for
where families live in relative isolation for long periods together,
opportunities for marriage outside the family may be few, and abstention
from sexual activities during these periods would imply a greater power of
continence than would seem as a rule to be possessed by primitive peoples.
Incest would naturally follow too under these conditions from the early
ripening of the sexual instinct which is generally found in primitive
man[244]. The very early cohabitation of the sexes which results therefrom
would, in relatively isolated families, almost necessarily occur in an
incestuous form.
[Sidenote: How do past incestuous practices produce present tendencies to
incest?]
[Sidenote: The influence of heredity and of tradition]
If these influences have made incest a common practice at one period of
man's history, in what ways has this practice contributed to the tendency
to incest found at a later date and at the present day? In view of the
widespread (we are probably justified in saying universal) occurrence of
this tendency, of the relative uniformity of its ultimate nature in spite
of manifold differences of culture, training, and environment, of the
great strength which it possesses even after ages of repression, there is
not unnaturally a temptation to regard it as an innate factor in man's
mental constitution, _i. e._, to assert that there is in man an hereditary
tendency to direct his love and sexual inclination to those who are of his
own blood or at any rate to those with whom he has been brought up and has
been familiar since his infancy[245]. Possibly in the long ages in which
man or his pre-human ancestors lived in relatively isolated families, this
tendency was of advantage in the struggle for existence, in so much as it
may have contributed both to more rapid multiplication and to the greater
consolidation, and therefore greater safety and stability, of the family,
as the most important social unit. The tendency to incest may thus be due
ultimately to the action of natural selection; the long period during
which incest was regularly practised may have established and ingrained
it as a normal feature of the race and its persistence to-day may be due
to the continuance of the hereditary disposition thus formed and thus
consolidated.
Apart from the direct influence of this hereditary factor however, a long
period during which incest was habitual may have affected the tendency to
incest at a later time through custom, law and tradition. These change
but slowly in a primitive society, and, through their inertia, would tend
to reinforce or maintain the hereditary factor, even when, owing to the
action of other causes, incest may have been abandoned in the main in
favour of exogamy. These influences may have kept alive the remembrance
of, and desire for, incest, which would otherwise possibly have succumbed
to the forces working to bring about its suppression.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 226: _Cp._ in this connection Abraham, "Untersuchungen über
die früheste prägenitale Entwicklungstufe der Libido", _Zeitschrift
für ärztliche Psychoanalyse_, 1916, IV. Also Freud, "Sammlung kleiner
Schriften zur Neurosenlehre", IV, 274.]
[Footnote 227: "Social Psychology", 91.]
[Footnote 228: _Cp_. T. Burrow, "The Genesis and Meaning of Homosexuality
and its relation to the problem of introverted mental states."
_Psychoanalytic Review_, IV. 272.]
[Footnote 229: We have already (p. 90) given certain examples of that
most common form of incest, the connection of brother and sister. We may
here refer briefly to a few further instances, more especially to those
in which there occurs the more intimate connection between parents and
children. Such instances would seem to have been observed with especial
frequency among the Indians of North America. Thus Samuel Hearne, writing
in 1795, tells us of the Chippewayans that "it is notoriously known that
many of them cohabit occasionally with their own mothers and frequently
espouse their sisters and daughters. I have known several of them who,
after having lived in that state with their daughters, have given them
to their sons and all parties have been perfectly reconciled to it."
("Journey to the Northern Ocean," 1795, 130). Eighty years later Bancroft
tells us much the same of the Kadiaks ("The Native Races of the Pacific
States of North America," 1875, I, 81). An observer of about the same
period writes concerning the eastern tribes of the Tinnehs that "instances
of men united to their mothers, their sisters or their daughters are far
from rare. I have heard among them of two sons keeping their mother as a
common wife, of another wedded to his daughter, while in cases of polygamy
having two sisters to wife is very usual." ("Annual Report of Regents of
the Smithsonian Institution," 1867, 310).
In South America too the practice of incest of this kind would appear
to have been fairly frequently observed. Thus in Brazil the Indians of
the Isanna river "marry one, two or three wives and prefer relations,
marrying with cousins, uncles with nieces, nephews with aunts, so that
in a village all are connected" (A. R. Wallace, "Travels in the Amazon
and Rio Negro," 1889, 352). Commenting on this report, Frazer adds that
"in this preference for marriage with blood relations the Indians of the
Isanna agree with other Indian tribes of South America, especially of
Brazil" ("Totemism and Exogamy," III, 575). Concerning this same part of
the world, another traveller says that "in general it may be asserted
that incest in all degrees is of frequent occurrence among the numerous
tribes and hordes on the Amazon and the Rio Negro" (See Martius, "Zur
Ethnographie Amerikas, zumal Brasiliens," 1867, 116). Of the Peruvian
aborigines we are told by an earlier authority that they "follow their
own desires without excepting sister, daughter or mother. Others excepted
their mother but none else" (Garcilasso de la Vega, First part of the
"Royal Commentaries of the Yncas," trans. by C. R. Markham, 1869-71, I,
58).
Similar observations have been made by travellers among primitive peoples
in many other parts of the world. Thus with the Karens of Tenasserim
"matrimonial alliances between brother and sister or father and daughter
are not uncommon" (_Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Bengal_,
VII, 856). In Africa "the kings of Gonzalves and Gaboon are accustomed
to marry their grown-up daughters and the queens marry their eldest
sons" (A. Bastian, "Der Mensch in der Geschichte," 1860, III, 293). In
a district of Celebes "father and daughter, mother and son, brother and
sister frequently lived together in bonds of matrimony" (S. J. Hickson, "A
Naturalist in North Celebes," 1889, 277). With the Kalangs (probably the
aborigines of Java) "mother and son often live together as man and wife,
and it is a belief that prosperity and riches flow from such a union" (E.
Ketjen, De Kalangers, _Tijdschrift von Indische Taal-Land en Volkenkunde_,
1877, XXIV, 427). Very similar practices have been reported from New
Guinea (Rev. J. Chalmers, "Notes on the Natives of Kiwai," _Journal of
the Royal Anthropological Institute_, XXXI, II, 1903, 124), the Indian
Archipelago (Wilken, Over de Verwantschap en het huwelijks en enfrechts
bij de volken van het maleische ras, 1883, 277), and Melanesia (Frazer,
"Totemism and Exogamy," II, 118).
But it must not be supposed that the frequent practice of incest is
confined to primitive races. Although in civilised communities regarded
with almost universal condemnation, incest has probably always existed
to some extent among certain sections of the population and the practice
of incest among modern white races is undoubtedly much more prevalent
than is commonly supposed. A well known British psycho-analyst assures
me that in the exercise of their profession he and his colleagues hear
with astonishing frequency of cases of incest, the report of which is
otherwise suppressed. Particularly is this so as regards children. At
the present day however, incest undoubtedly occurs most frequently among
the poorer classes, where want of adequate housing accommodation renders
the temptation greater. It is startling to note in this connection
that, according to the Chicago Vice Commission, out of a group of 103
girls examined, no less than 51 reported that they had received their
first sexual experience at the hands of their father ("The Social Evil
in Chicago," 1911, quoted by W. A. White, "Mechanisms of Character
Formation," 1916, 163). Even if we allow a liberal margin for incorrect
or exaggerated statements (in this case of course, instances of
wish-fulfilment), these figures would seem to afford astonishing evidence
as to the prevalence of incest of the father-daughter type in the towns
of America. In this country there is reason to believe that similar
occurrences are far from being uncommon (_cp_. "Downward Paths", 20)]
[Footnote 230: _Cp_. Frazer, "Totemism and Exogamy," IV, 112 ff.]
[Footnote 231: "Native Tribes of Central Australia," 419.]
[Footnote 232: Frazer, "Totemism and Exogamy," I, 242 ff.]
[Footnote 233: _Idem, op. cit._, IV, 297, quoting Rev. S. Endle.]
[Footnote 234: _Idem, op. cit._, II, 636.]
[Footnote 235: _Idem, op. cit._, III, 340.]
[Footnote 236: _Op. cit._, IV, 138.]
[Footnote 237: "Among whom death alone separates husband and wife". John
Bailey, "An Account of the Wild Tribes of the Veddahs of Ceylon." Trans.
of the Ethnological Society, N. S. II, 1863, 293.]
[Footnote 238: Westermarck, "History of Human Marriage", 507.]
[Footnote 239: _Idem, loc. cit._]
[Footnote 240: _Idem, loc. cit._]
[Footnote 241: Wundt, "Elements of Folk Psychology", 48, 50.]
[Footnote 242: _Idem, loc. cit._]
[Footnote 243: _Idem, loc. cit._]
[Footnote 244: _Cp_. E. S. Hartland, "Primitive Paternity", II, 254, ff.]
[Footnote 245: It is not perhaps quite easy to see what can be the
psychic mechanism in virtue of which men should be attracted to blood
relations strictly as such, though to the present writer it would seem
to be a possibility which should not be entirely lost sight of. Such a
tendency may perhaps have arisen: (1) as the result of some vague and
unconscious sense of affinity, similarity or harmony, based perhaps on
an unconscious memory impression of pre-natal life (in the case of child
and mother or of twins), or upon some other condition of a psychical,
physiological or chemical order; (2) at a higher level through the action
of perceived physical or psychical resemblance, these in turn playing on
the Narcissistic components of the love impulse.]