The psycho-analytic study of the family

by J. C. Flugel

Supposing the tendency to incest to have been called into Causes of Incest Repression being and maintained by some such causes, or combination of causes, as we have considered in the last chapter, what are the influences that have brought about the inhibition and repression of this tendency—influences which, as we have already remarked, must be strong in proportion to the strength of the tendency itself? We find here, as was not the case with our discussion of the positive aspects of the tendency, that certain explanations have already been advanced, though these are for the most part obviously unsatisfactory, or at best incomplete.

(1) The reasons which are given by primitive peoples for their obedience to the rule of exogamy are various; sometimes Explanations of primitive peoples it is considered that harm would come to the pair who are guilty of the forbidden union, this perhaps being usually of the nature of some disease, or else very frequently, impotence or barrenness; sometimes it is the offspring of the guilty pair who will incur the penalty; quite often, however, the evil results of such a union are supposed to affect the whole community to which they belong and consist not uncommonly in general infertility of women, animals and plants. These reasons, though they no doubt exercise a powerful influence among those who hold them, are for the most part too obviously of the nature of superstitions, inventions or rationalisations to be taken at their face value; though the study of them on psycho-analytic principles would no doubt bring interesting and suggestive results.

Hardly much more satisfactory, if regarded as attempts at affording complete and ultimate explanations, are some of hypotheses that have been put forward by modern students of exogamy.

(2) Thus, Durkheim[246] suggests that exogamy arose as a Durkheim's Theory of the sanctity of blood result of the religious respect for blood, particularly menstruous blood; the divine totemic being is supposed to be resident in blood, hence blood is sacred, especially to those of the totem clan, and no man of this clan may trespass on the very spot where the sacred blood periodically manifests itself. Even if this theory should afford a satisfactory proximate explanation of exogamy, it is obviously very far from revealing the true ultimate biological and psychological factors that have led to the practice. Even apart from this, however, it gives rise to certain difficulties and objections (more especially connected with the lack of the close correspondence between exogamous classes and totemic clans which we should expect upon this theory) and has almost certainly at best but a very limited field of application[247].

(3) Westermarck[248] would explain exogamy and the avoidance Westermarck's theory of an innate aversion to incest of incest generally as due to the fact that there is an innate aversion to sexual intercourse between persons living together from early youth, and that, as such persons are in most cases related by blood, this feeling would naturally display itself in custom and law as a horror of intercourse between near kin[249].

As to the general existence of this horror there can be no doubt, and to assign to it an important part in framing human opinions and institutions with regard to incest is perfectly justifiable so long as we do not lose sight of the fact that this horror is only one side of the total human attitude towards the matter and that alongside of the horror there exists an attraction towards incest which corresponds in intensity to that of the horror itself[250]. An explanation in terms of this incest horror is not, however, that which we are seeking; it is, on the contrary, the very existence of this horror for which we are trying to account. We have to ask, what are the conditions in human life and mind that have brought about the widespread aversion resulting from the injurious effects of inbreeding to incest that is so generally manifested. According to Westermarck, these conditions are to be found in the process of natural selection; marriages between near kin are, he maintains, on the whole injurious to the species and, therefore, through survival of the fittest, the existing races of men show a marked aversion to such marriages.

In estimating the correctness of this theory, it is well to These effects by no means certain remember that the supposed ill effects of inbreeding in men and animals are by no means as yet universally admitted by those who have studied the subject, and that, even so far as their existence is admitted, they are not yet fully understood or accurately measured. It is indeed often a matter of considerable difficulty to discover any ill effects that may be due to this cause, especially in the case of slow breeding animals, such as Man, and the conclusions that have been arrived at with regard to the human race have to a great extent been derived by analogy from observations made upon lower animals. It would seem to be fairly generally agreed that such ill effects as may exist arise for the most part from the reinforcement or accentuation of hereditary weaknesses and defects that is liable to occur in inbreeding and that members of a perfectly healthy family might continue to mate with one another for several (perhaps for many) generations without evil consequences, though possibly a loss of vigour, strength or fertility might ultimately occur. In the case of the Ptolemies of Egypt and the Incas of Peru inbreeding of this kind has (as we have already observed in another connection) actually been practised and does not seem to have produced any conspicuously bad results. There is some evidence, too, that seems to point to the fact that the supposed ill effects of inbreeding are due to the results of continuously similar environment and conditions of life rather than to the physiological resemblance of the parents, or at any rate that any evil effects of the latter cause may be counterbalanced by a change of abode or of the mode of living[251].

East and Jones in their recent valuable survey of our present knowledge on the subject[252] conclude quite definitely that inbreeding is not in itself productive of ill effects, the results of inbreeding in any particular case depending entirely upon the hereditary qualities transmitted; so that, although in bad stock the intensification of undesirable qualities through inbreeding might soon bring about deterioration, in good stock inbreeding is the surest method of making the desirable qualities a stable and permanent characteristic of the race. Nevertheless there are, in the opinion of these writers, certain advantages of a general nature to be derived from outbreeding connected principally: (1) with the occurrence of heterosis or hybrid vigour as a result of outbreeding, (2) with the fact that outbreeding leads to greater variability between individuals than does inbreeding, thus giving greater scope for the action of selective agencies and therefore endowing the race with greater power of adaptation to a changing environment—a factor which is probably of very considerable importance and which indeed seems to have been overlooked in a number of previous discussions of the subject, especially by nonbiological writers.