Although the taboos which are based on the idea of ownership are somewhat aside from the main theme of our discussion, they nevertheless reinforce the other taboos of the seclusion and segregation of woman as unclean. Moreover, as will be shown in a later chapter, the property idea has certain implications which are important for the proper understanding of the status of woman and the attitude toward her at the present time.
In the face of the primitive aversion to woman as the source of contamination through sympathetic magic, or as the seat of some mystic force, whether of good or evil, it may well be asked how man ever dared let his sexual longings overcome his fears and risk the dangers of so intimate a relationship. Only by some religious ceremonial, some act of purification, could man hope to counteract these properties of woman; and thus the marriage ritual came into existence. By the marriage ceremonial, the breach of taboo was expiated, condoned, and socially countenanced.[[1, p.200]] This was very evident in the marriage customs of the Greeks, which were composed of purification rites and other precautions.[[55]] The injunctions to the Hebrews given in Leviticus illustrate the almost universal fact that even under the sanction of marriage the sexual embrace was taboo at certain times, as for example before the hunt or battle.
We are now prepared to admit that throughout the ages there has existed a strongly dualistic or "ambivalent" feeling in the mind of man toward woman. On the one hand she is the object of erotic desire; on the other hand she is the source of evil and danger. So firmly is the latter feeling fixed that not even the sanction of the marriage ceremony can completely remove it, as the taboos of intercourse within the marital relationship show.
There are certain psychological and physiological reasons for the persistence of this dualistic attitude in the very nature of the sex act itself. Until the climax of the sexual erethism, woman is for man the acme of supreme desire; but with detumescence the emotions tend to swing to the opposite pole, and excitement and longing are forgotten in the mood of repugnance and exhaustion. This tendency would be very much emphasized in those primitive tribes where the corroboree with its unlimited indulgence was common, and also among the ancients with their orgiastic festivals. In the revulsion of feeling following these orgies woman would be blamed for man's own folly. In this physiological swing from desire to satiety, the apparent cause of man's weakness would be looked upon as the source of the evil—a thing unclean. There would be none of the ethical and altruistic element of modern "love" to protect her. Students agree that these elements in the modern sentiment have been evolved, "not from the sexual instinct, but from the companionship of the battlefield."[[56]] It is therefore probable that in this physiological result of uncontrolled sex passion we shall find the source of the dualism of the attitude toward sex and womanhood present in taboo.
BIBLIOGRAPHY FOR CHAPTER I
Crawley, A.E. The Mystic Rose. 492 pp. Macmillan. London, 1902.