CHAPTER XI
FAMILY INFLUENCES IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE
LOVE LIFE
When the original object-love, at first directed to the The more advanced stages of love displacement parent, has been successfully transferred to some more remote relative in the manner studied in the last chapter, the course of normal development now requires that a further transference should take place by means of a similarity or association of some kind between this latter relative and some other person totally unconnected by family relationship. In consequence it is often possible to trace in the selection of the object of love the influence of similarity, or of some other connecting link, between this object and the lover's sister, brother, cousin or other relative. Here, however, the emancipation from the original object is carried too far for the underlying motive determining the direction of affection to be regarded as in any sense pathological or abnormal or as indicating an undue degree of fixation at an infantile stage of development; except in cases where this motive is so strong as to bring about the direction of love upon an object which is totally unsuitable, through the overlooking of defects which would otherwise be patent. Rather is this act of transference, when free from any such exaggeration, to be looked upon as the final stage of the whole process of development we have been following and as an indication of the attainment of maturity as regards the direction of the love impulse.
The importance of the displacement here at work will be "Falling in love" more readily grasped, if we bear in mind that it constitutes one of the principal factors in the normal and all-important process of "falling in love," and particularly of that most striking but at the same time most mystifying aspect of that process which we call "love at first sight." Love and its causes have ever raised the wonder and curiosity both of the plain man and of the philosopher, but, apart from more or less unsatisfactory theory and vague speculation, neither has been able to bring forward any explanation of the sudden over-powering attraction which a young man or woman, boy or girl, may feel for some one member of the opposite sex; one whose charms may appear to more unbiassed eyes to be but little if at all superior to those of others of the loved one's age and situation. Thanks however to the work of the psycho-analytic school, psychology is at last beginning to cast a few rays of light upon the darkness which has hitherto surrounded this central problem of human life and feeling. Freud, in a recent article[116] summarizing the results of psycho-analysis in this direction, has divided loves into two main Two types of love:— types:—
(1) the narcissistic type,
(2) the dependence type.
In the first type the love is the result of a projection of The narcissistic type the lover's self on to some other person—the narcissistic love originally directed to the Self being thus displaced on to the person of the loved one—through some process of identification or some strong associative link. Love of this type is frequently manifested in ties of a homosexual nature, where the lover finds in one of his own sex a nearer copy of himself than would otherwise be possible. It is also manifested in some of the fervent affections of parents for their children, where the parents regard those whom they have produced as in a manner an extension of themselves (cp. below Ch. XIV). And finally it is manifested in some connections of a normal heterosexual kind; a man for example finds and admires in his wife those feminine qualities which are present in himself but to which, so long as they are in himself, he is unable (owing to repression of the feminine side of his nature) to afford full recognition or appreciation; or a woman finds attractive in a man those qualities of boyishness and masculinity which she herself possessed in some degree before the time of puberty but which she has since sacrificed to make way for a more pronounced development of her "womanly" characteristics.
In love of the second type the affection is more genuinely The dependence type and primarily "object-love." The lover is here attracted towards his object because he finds in it something that is essential to the fulfilment of his own bodily or mental needs. It is this love which, as we have seen, is under normal circumstances first aroused in connection with the parents (and especially the mother), by whom the first primitive requirements of the infant are fulfilled. It is this love too which, in its displaced form, we have seen to be so frequently directed on to brothers, sisters or other near relatives, and which, by a further process of displacement, in the course of normal development eventually flows on to persons unconnected with the lover by any bond of relationship. The repression, as a result of which this latter displacement has occurred, as a rule, brings it about that the associative links that connect the newer with the older love are not perceptible to the lover himself; the bond is an unconscious one. Nevertheless, this bond is often sufficiently clear to any keen observer, whose eyes have once been opened to the fact of its existence. In other cases however it may be of a more obscure nature, so as to require a deeper study of the personality of the lover and of his psychological history (such as can often only be obtained by employment of the psycho-analytic method) before the nature of the association becomes apparent.
The fact that in the personality of the loved object there The repression of the incestuous basis of affection, as shown in myth and legend often lies hidden, as it were, the buried image of a brother, sister, parent or other object of incestuous affection in the past, would seem to play an important part in the formation of a type of story of world-wide occurrence, of which the Cupid-Psyche myth and the Lohengrin legend are perhaps the best known examples[117]. In these stories a marriage or love affair takes place between partners, one of whom is usually of mysterious (sometimes divine) origin and consents to enter upon the alliance only upon the condition that no question shall be asked as to his (or her) name, parentage or home; or upon the erection of some other prohibition, such as one which forbids the use of vision or of speech (either generally or under specified circumstances); upon the infringement of which conditions the mysterious partner vanishes, leaving the remaining member of the pair to lament the loss that has been thus foolishly incurred through curiosity. Here the prohibition would seem to be imposed with a view to concealing the fact that the union is based ultimately upon the foundation of an incestuous affection, or is itself incestuous in nature: a recognition of this fact would spoil the pleasure of the union by arousing the repressions connected with incestuous love and must therefore (as in the case of the marriage between Œdipus and Jocasta in the Œdipus myth, where Jocasta—in Sophocles' play—strenuously opposes all efforts at investigation) be prevented by the most rigorous prohibitions, the breaking of which involves the permanent dissolution of the union.
Among associations other than those of family relationship Similarity as a basis of displacement by means of which the process of displacement is brought about, those depending on mental or physical similarity are probably the most important; of all the available methods of transference, they are too, in many respects, the easiest, most natural and the least liable to cause pathological aberrations of development. There can be little doubt, too, that the frequent occurrence of the displacement of the love impulse along these lines constitutes a factor of very considerable sociological and historical importance. The tendency to choose a mate resembling in some essential aspects—mental or physical—one's Its biological significance own nearest relatives, must, for good or evil, act as a potent means of preserving the purity of individual types and of family, national or racial qualities; especially when, as may often happen, there is added to the influence of this factor that of the narcissistic element of love to which we have already referred. So long as the associative link which conditions the displacement is one that has some correspondence to reality, the closer the unconscious identification of the sexual partner of adult life with the object loved in infancy, the more likely will it be for this partner to possess hereditary qualities similar to those of the lover himself, and the greater therefore, in all probability, the resemblance of the ensuing offspring to their parents.