The psycho-analytic study of the family

by J. C. Flugel

(6) A potent set of influences calculated to inhibit tendencies Fear of the consequences of parental jealousy to incest are those connected with sexual jealousy. A boy's love towards his mother, as we have seen, almost necessarily brings him to some extent into conflict with his father, while a girl's affection to her father is similarly calculated to bring about the jealousy of her mother. This arousal of jealousy on the part of the parents may produce repression of the incest tendency in the child in a variety of ways; of which perhaps the most frequent and important are:—

a. fear of punishment at the hands of the jealous parent, and

b. unwillingness to cause injury or sorrow to this parent because of genuine affection being felt towards him (or her)—affection which of course may quite well co-exist with very considerable jealousy and rivalry. Both these motives appear prominently in psycho-analytic investigations of the conditions underlying the repression of the Œdipus complex in normal and neurotic persons of the present day, and both have been operative for long ages in the past wherever the family has existed in a monogamous form in which the parents lived together for a considerable period after the birth of their children. Very similar motives may also co-operate in the repression of incest tendencies as between brothers and sisters, the jealousies in this case being for the most part those between brothers or between sisters respectively.

(7) There can be little doubt that there exists a certain Strong family ties conflict with social development degree of antagonism between the development of strong and permanent ties within the family and the development of those sentiments and feelings which bind the individual to the larger social groups, such as the tribe or nation, or those which make him a prominent, useful and agreeable member of society—in that family affections conflict in some degree with gregariousness. This antagonism can be observed in society to-day in such cases as those in which dependence on, and attachment to, the family will prevent an individual from easily adapting himself to the wider environment of school, college or club life, or from becoming "at home" in the circle of his business, sporting or professional acquaintances. Similarly, undue concentration of interest or affection on the family will very frequently prevent the formation of those wider sublimations, some of which we studied in Chapter XIII, sublimations upon which the successful working of a large community may often depend. The individual who finds the satisfaction of all his emotions and desires within the circle of his family is unlikely to develop to the full those wider interests in his fellow men and in the social conditions of his age and place, without which all higher political progress and development become impossible.

At an earlier stage of human society the conflict was very possibly much more acute. Man, as we have seen, was probably in origin a family, rather than a social, animal; nevertheless it is the gregariousness of man which is responsible for the most characteristic features of the progress in culture which has led to civilisation. Gregariousness has therefore proved itself a very precious biological possession and natural selection would be likely to ensure its retention and development in the human mind, thus affording a strong influence in favour of the repression of those family affections which might threaten it. It is to some extent in this way perhaps that there came about that great revulsion against the monogamic family which is manifested in the totemic age—an age in which the ties connecting the individual with other members of a larger social group were developed at the expense of those which attached him to his family, and an age which elaborated the most complex, far-reaching and intense barriers against the incest tendencies which are shown in the various systems of exogamy.

At a later stage of human development, when the foundations of society were more securely settled, circumstances seem to have permitted something in the nature of a relaxation of the restrictions on family ties and family affections, the exogamic rules becoming less strict or less far-reaching and the family becoming more firmly knit together; this change being perhaps made possible by the fact that the larger and more complex social groups of a more developed society no longer came into such direct conflict with the family as an alternative social unit—the larger group being now of sufficient size and strength to tolerate the co-existence of the smaller (or, more strictly speaking, to include the smaller within itself) without fear of competition or disruption.

Thus, though the urgency of the pressure may very well have varied in different times and places, it would seem probable that the claims of social life have constantly exercised some influence in restricting the interests and affections which centre round the family and have therefore probably constituted one of the forces which have helped to bring about that inhibition of the incest tendencies for which we are here trying to account.

(8) There exists a very similar antagonism between a high They conflict also with individual development degree of family attachment and the claims of individual development. We have seen in the earlier chapters the way in which the full unfolding of the individual's capacities—his ability to maintain himself by his own efforts, his power of self reliance, of initiative and of independent thought and action—demand a relaxation of the ties that bind him to his family. It is true that the relations of an individual to his family which are here in question are not primarily the erotic ones; still they are everywhere in contact with these erotic aspects of the family relationship and would seem to be highly correlated with them—so much so that it is often a matter of great difficulty to decide where the erotic elements end and the purely dependence relationships begin[262]. In virtue of this correlation it would seem that the incest tendencies, when developed or retained in a high degree, must be inimical to the free growth of individual capacity; in other words, that those communities in which the incest tendencies have flourished would, other things equal, consist of less energetic, self-reliant, and efficient individuals than those in which these tendencies had been kept within more moderate bounds. Natural selection would therefore, we might expect, ensure the continuation of those communities in which the incest tendencies were more repressed. Similarly, as regards the individuals themselves, it would seem likely that, in virtue of their greater efficiency, those would survive and prosper who were able to control and to sublimate their incest tendencies rather than those in whom these tendencies had free and unrestricted play.

Under the last heading (7) we saw that the repression Both greater integration and greater differentiation of society is thus secured of incest would on the whole lead to the greater integration of human society through a more developed gregariousness and the establishment of firmer ties of interest and affection between the individual and the community. Under the present heading we have seen that the repression of the incest tendencies would also lead to greater differentiation through a more thorough development of individual characters, abilities and differences. If, with Herbert Spencer, we agree that the progress of society (like evolution generally) involves both integration and differentiation, it is easy to see how the inhibition of the tendencies to incest may have thus contributed in two distinct but complementary ways to the advance of human civilisation.