The mother’s role, of course, continues to be important too. The little girl has repressed her guilt feelings toward her mother, along with all of her directly sensual feelings, and during the latency period Mother emerges as a model to imitate. In effect the little girl says something like this to herself: “She, after all, got the man I prize most highly in the whole world. Therefore, she must have something very desirable. Therefore, I’ll imitate it.” She proceeds to do just that. Of course I do not mean that this is _all_ there is to her feelings about her mother; she loves her mother deeply and abidingly and without her would feel, and indeed would be bereft. Her imitation of her mother is a tribute to those feelings too. However, I may remind you that I am selecting those aspects of the child’s relationships that bear directly on her later sexual maturity. The next stage of development starts approximately at the age of ten and ends with the complete maturation, psychological and biological, of the individual woman. It is often divided into two phases; the first phase, which lasts until thirteen, fourteen, or fifteen, we call puberty; the second, by that much-misunderstood word “adolescence.” Puberty is ushered in by great glandular changes in the child. The young body begins to take on the semblance of womanhood. Breasts begin to grow; pubic hair starts. Gradually the uterus, or womb, stirs, begins to expand, readies itself to hold the child which will ultimately grow there. In the midst of this preparatory growth menstruation, the cyclical ebb and flow of fecund woman, starts in earnest. In a few months the child stands just within the portal of physical maturity. The little girl now again (for the first time since infancy) begins to experience rather strong sexual feelings, and she reacts to them with some anxiety. She may start once more to masturbate clitorally, although this time the act is accompanied by guilt feelings and with apprehension. As I have pointed out, these feelings of apprehension can be thought of as fully justified. Her sexuality is going to lead to motherhood, and this in turn means that she is going to have to face the dangers of pregnancy and childbirth, the biological need of putting her child’s welfare ahead of her own. In effect, as we have seen, she is going to suspend the law of self-preservation as it applies to her own person. The little girl knows this; she knows it with her body and mind, for even the most prudishly reared child cannot be prevented from finding out the facts of life. If her parents have not told her she will soon find out all there is to know from her girl friends.