"Though the brothers had joined forces in order to overcome the father,
each was the others' rival among the women. Each one wanted to have
them all to himself like the father, and in the fight of each against
the others the new organization would have perished. For there was no
longer any one stronger than all the rest who could have successfully
assumed the role of the father. Thus there was nothing left for the
brothers to do, if they wished to live together, but to erect incest
prohibitions, perhaps after many difficult experiments, in the course
of which they may all have renounced the women whom they desired."
In other words, the incest taboo was adopted to assure peace within the
family circle, a convenience measure dictated by jealousy.
=Repressed Incestuous Feelings= may at times drive one into a most
objectional form of behavior. A brother who in childhood was too fond
of his sister (or vice versa) may, from an unconscious desire for
self-protection, adopt a hostile attitude to his sister. The more
attracted he was to her the more sadistic he will appear in later years.
He may even avoid all the women who would in any way suggest his sister
and in that way never feel satisfied in love, for the women who cannot
possibly suggest to him his sister, lack all the fetishes which would
vouchsafe him safety and eroticism.
Such a man should be analysed and made to realise the incestuous
cravings which he has repressed into his unconscious. His hatred would
then change into affection and in his search of a mate he would
logically seek the sister image which alone would insure him sexual
happiness.
I have reconciled in that way several groups of brothers and sisters
who had never been able to get along after puberty, altho most of them
had developed a dangerous fondness for each other before puberty.
Repressed sister fixation like repressed mother fixation has been found
on several occasions as one of the components of homosexualism in the
man, father or brother fixation as one of the causes of frigidity in
the woman.
=Blood Relations.= Mother or sister fixation is frequently the cause of
marriage between blood relations. This sort of union has been unjustly
suspected of breeding mental inferiors. We should rather say that it
is the mental inferiors who seek their mate within the family circle.
Unable to secure the mother or the sister as a mate, they select a
woman who has as many of the family traits as possible, that they may
feel more secure in her company. If a defective child is bred of such
unions, it is not due to the close relationship of the parents but to
the fact that too often one of the mates was deficient physically or
mentally.
In this respect as in many others, self-knowledge and acceptance
of one's personality, coupled with a courageous understanding of
unavoidable biological facts, are the necessary conditions for perfect
mental health and freedom.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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