Psychology of sex - Total No. of Records in System :: 2032

THE SEXUAL IMPULSE IN YOUTHpatriarchal family, such as we have had during historicaltimes in the parts of Europe best known to us, is essentialfor an CEdipus complex. But that is far from being a kindof family always and everywhere known. The substanceof the familyisbiological but its forms are sociallymolded. This is made clear by Malinowski (who startedwith a bias favorable to psycho-analysis) in his book Sexand Repression in Savage Society. The complexes whichare supposed to mold culture could only have arisenunder culture, and cultures are of various kinds. Nor canwe accept a "primeval horde equipped with all the bias,maladjustments and ill-tempers of a middle-class Europeanfamily and then let loose in a prehistoric jungle."Every type of civilization cannot but have a special typeof complex as itsnecessary by-product.The CEdipus complex, further, rests on the belief thatthere is a strong natural human tendency, appearing atthe earliest age, to sex love towards near relations whichcan only be overcome by stern laws and severe repressions.It isagreed by all authorities that the free exercise ofincestuous impulsesisincompatible with a family order,and that on such a basis no developed culture would belikely to arise. But authorities differ as to the naturalor unnatural character of incestuous impulses. Westermarckheld originally that there is a definite natural instinctaverse to incest; Freud holds that there is frominfancy a strong natural instinct to incest; Malinowskidoes not accept the aversion to incest as natural but asscheme of culturalintroduced by culture, "a complexreactions." The position I have long held largely harmonizesthese opposing views. There is a sexual attractiontowards persons with whom there is close contact, suchpersons being often relations, and the attraction beingtherefore termed "incestuous." But this is a weak attrac-[93]