The psycho-analytic study of the family

by J. C. Flugel

Now, as we have seen, the normal conditions of family life necessarily give rise to some extent to the situations which arouse these emotions. Through the mere exercise of ordinary parental authority and care, and more especially through the process of elementary moral training and education, the parent invariably interferes in some ways with the primitive desires and tendencies of the child, and threatens the child with punishment in the event of his transgressing the parental prohibitions; the conditions are therefore present for the arousal in the child's mind of anger and fear towards the parent, should the child be at all susceptible to these emotions.

We have seen that the hate attitude is sometimes and Jealousy as a necessary consequence of marriage to some extent brought about indirectly as a consequence of jealousy aroused in connection with the love attitude (jealousy being caused by interference with the successful function of the love impulses), sometimes more directly by a more general hostility between parent and child. In so far as the first case is concerned, the hate attitude is obviously dependent upon the existence of sexual rivalry between the child and one of the parents. Granted the existence of the love impulse of the child towards the parent of the opposite sex, the conditions of this rivalry are to be found whenever the two parents live together—in fact wherever there is marriage, and more especially wherever there is monogamy. Now marriage of some sort would seem to exist in practically every human community—both primitive and cultured—that has as yet been subjected to any degree of careful study or investigation; in fact there is every reason to regard it as an institution fundamentally characteristic of the human race and of immemorial antiquity. It is therefore not surprising that we find evidence of sexual jealousy between parents and children in many early myths and customs and in the legends and beliefs of many peoples, both cultivated and uncivilised. There is good ground for supposing that parent hatred based on jealousy has been called into existence in innumerable successive generations and has thus had ample opportunity to impress itself on the forms, traditions and institutions of human society.

In those societies which have developed or maintained a and especially of monogamy relatively strict monogamy we should expect that this kind of parent hatred would be more easily and extensively developed than in those in which the marriage tie is looser, wider or more elastic, since in the former case the hatred bred of jealousy would necessarily be directed on to a single individual, whereas in the latter it might lose in intensity through diffusion over a number of different persons. Now it is a feature of that relatively early stage of culture which with Wundt[217] we may perhaps call the Totemic age that the family ties are as a rule relaxed in favour of those wider bonds that unite together the different members of the tribe or clan. In this age we often find that some form of group marriage exists or shows evident traces of having existed; in distinction to the more or less strictly monogamous unions that are characteristic both of those races of mankind which are at a more primitive level of development and of those that have reached a more advanced stage of culture. We might imagine therefore that this Totemic Parent-child jealousy perhaps less pronounced in the Totemic Age age was distinguished by a lessening of the parent jealousy which must probably have existed both in the earlier and in the later societies of a more strictly monogamic kind. We have seen indeed that a reconciliation between fathers and sons is one of the motives which finds expression in the initiation ceremonies—ceremonies that arise and flourish principally at the Totemic stage of culture. The men's clubs—one of the institutions most typical of this age—would again seem to point to the existence of a tendency to do away with the hostility between man and man by establishing a community of interest and affection between the members of the clubs, who are brought into more intimate contact with one another than would be the case if they remained each more strictly within the confines of their own families. A similar result is no doubt to some extent achieved by the corresponding throwing together of the women, who are freed from the more intimate dependence on the male that is fostered in a more closely knit family system. At the same time the relative sexual freedom that is frequently permitted, especially before marriage, affords an unfavourable environment for the development of jealousy; as is shown by the absence of this passion so frequently exhibited both within and without the marriage bond. Indeed there would seem to be almost necessarily some degree of correspondence between the strictness of the marriage relationship and the development of jealousy. So long as men and women regard themselves as possessing certain exclusive rights and privileges over one or more members of the opposite sex, they are bound to resent any conduct which might appear to constitute an infringement or challenge of these rights; freedom from jealousy can only be obtained under these circumstances by perfect confidence that no such attempt will be made, or, if made, will be unsuccessful—a condition of mind which requires a more complete adaptation to the married state on the part of all concerned than can usually be secured. On the other hand, if no such exclusive privileges as are implied in the strict observance of the marriage bond are demanded or expected, there is no ground or occasion for the development of any high degree of jealousy. Monogamy, the strictest and most exclusive form of marriage, is thus most especially liable to bring jealousy in its train, since here all sexual tendencies and privileges are centred round one person, who has to be guarded at whatever cost against the advances of all other suitors[218].

The Totemic age, characterised as it is by a recession in importance of the family ties as compared with those of a wider social unit, would appear then in one of its aspects to have been marked by a strong tendency to get rid of jealousy, which differs in this respect both from preceding and succeeding ages together with certain other of the passions which are aroused in connection with, or centre round, the family. It differs thus from the more strictly monogamic condition, which, according to our most recent knowledge, would seem to exist among the really primitive races of mankind[219]. It differs also, perhaps even more markedly, from the conditions of the patriarchal family—that form of family which seems on the whole to be characteristic of the post-Totemic stage of culture[220]. At this latter stage the family—now however often in an enlarged form comprising several smaller family groups and several generations—once more becomes the predominant social unit; societies based on the tribal or clan system having apparently proved themselves more unstable or less capable of expansion and development than those based upon the more fundamental unit of the family. The decline of jealousy and of the hatreds based thereon was therefore, we may suppose, at the close of the Totemic age replaced by a recrudescence of that more vigorous hostility between father and son, mother and daughter, between brothers and between sisters, which is to some extent inevitable in a closely united monogamic family—a hostility which has continued to exist uninterruptedly until the present day.

Much the same is also true, no doubt, as regards those aspects of intra-family hostilities which are not based on jealousy. In the monogamic families of primitive man these Similar differences as regards other aspects of intra-family hatred latter aspects of hostility had no doubt free scope within certain limits. In the looser family conditions of the Totemic age it seems probable that passions based on mutual interference of different members of the family with each other's interests and desires would be a good deal less developed. In the patriarchal family of the later epoch conditions would seem however to become favourable once again to the development of hostility of this kind, particularly to that between father and son. The close and permanent organisation of the family under the patriarchal system brings it about that the interests of father and son continue to be to some extent antagonistic long after the son has reached maturity, whereas in the state more nearly resembling that of nature the son would usually be free from paternal tutelage as soon as he had attained to full growth.

The family life of most modern civilised nations is less The hate-producing causes are still potent in modern civilisation closely organised than that of the patriarchal family at its full development; children as a rule becoming relatively or completely free from parental jurisdiction, if not before, at least as soon as, they have married and founded a home of their own. Nevertheless the lessening of antagonism that is brought about by this relaxation of the family organisation is often to some extent counterbalanced by the increasing social and economic dependence of children on their parents that is apt to arise in advanced and complex societies, specially among the higher and wealthier classes (cp. above p. 58). The irksomeness of parental restrictions is apt to be increased too, as civilisation advances, by the fact that the rules of conduct and of morals inculcated by the parents tend to become in many respects increasingly remote from the behaviour to which the young child's primitive tendencies naturally impel him; so that a more violent friction is likely to arise between the authority of the parents and the will of the children in their early years[221].

For these reasons the antagonism between parents and children remains, as we know, strong even in present day civilisation, though there are grounds for thinking that it may perhaps have been stronger in those earlier stages of society in which a more complex patriarchal system flourished.

As regards the negative or reactionary aspects of the hate Negative aspects of the hate attitude attitude, it is pretty clear that the influences which tend to produce repression or inhibition of the hate are in the main of two kinds:—(1) "moral" influences, such as the acceptance of a code of ethics, or of a tradition, with which parent hatred is incompatible; (2) the co-existence with the hate of a genuine love, admiration or respect towards the parent who is hated.