the descriptive portion of our task is now completed. we recapitulation have traced, with such degree of detail as the scope of this book has permitted, the growth within the individual mind of some of the more important of those feelings and tendencies which owe their origin and development to the relations of the individual to the other members of his family. we have seen how these feelings and tendencies are of fundamental importance in the formation of individual character and how they have also exercised a vast influence on social life and social institutions. we have seen also that, throughout their multitudinous transformations and ramifications, the tendencies originally connected with the family preserve some likeness to their primitive character, being ultimately reducible upon analysis to a series of displacements of a very few original trends and impulses. these original impulses fall naturally into two main groups:—those which bind the individual to the family (or to one or more of its members) through a relationship of love, esteem or dependence; and those which are based on a relationship of hate or fear; the trends falling within each of these groups being manifested either in a direct and positive, or in a reactionary and negative form; the latter being assumed as the result of a conflict between one of the trends in question and some other trend of an opposite, or at any rate a different, character (very often one of the family trends belonging to the opposite group).
since these groups of impulses have shown themselves to play a part of such importance in human mind and human conduct,[176] it is not unnatural that, having completed our review of the theoretical treatment of our subject and its difficulties their manifestations, we should feel some curiosity as to the manner in which they have come to play this part in the course of the past history of the human race and as to the nature of the influence which they have exerted on this history. unfortunately in the present state of our knowledge it would not seem possible to gratify this curiosity except in a very partial, unsatisfactory and uncertain manner. the psychological mechanisms with which we have been dealing have themselves, for the most part, been too recently discovered to have as yet been adequately correlated, or brought into connection, with the relevant facts of anthropological, ethnographical or biological science. the data from these latter sources are moreover, in spite of much diligent research in recent years, still in many important respects too incomplete to afford a satisfactory basis for such correlation. as a consequence of these conditions, it is to be feared that any attempt that we may make to exhibit the psychical tendencies with which we have been concerned, in their bearings upon early human history, or to explain their origin in the light of this history or of the general conditions of human life and mind, will result in little more than a restatement of our psychological principles from a slightly different point of view. nevertheless the attempt may be worth making. a summary of some of the main implications of our psychological knowledge in this field may perhaps not seem amiss—especially in view of the astonishing and unlooked-for character of much of this knowledge—and if we succeed in establishing a few connections between our psychological data and the related facts of anthropology or biology, these may perhaps serve as starting points—to be either proved or else corrected—for subsequent enquiries based on a more sound foundation. the reader will understand therefore that, in so far as in the present and the two succeeding chapters there is anything that is not—explicitly or implicitly—contained in what we have already said, we shall have left the region of comparative certainty afforded by the results of observation and induction, and shall be travelling for the most part on the unsure ground of speculation—speculation that can be justified only on the plea of natural curiosity, and by the hope of opening up a few vistas which may[177] be more fully surveyed by better equipped workers in the future.
of the two main groups of tendencies to which we have the hate tendencies to some extent inevitable above referred—which we may briefly call the love and hate groups—the former opens up a number of problems in this connection which would seem to be in some significant respects deeper, more important and more complex than those raised by the latter. the hate tendencies are, indeed, as regards the cause and nature of their origin and development, in the main not so very difficult to understand. psychologists are pretty well agreed as to the circumstances which give rise to anger and fear—the emotions which chiefly underlie the attitude of hate. anger arises when the activities, tendencies or wishes of the individual are interfered with or when the individual is unwillingly forced to undergo some disagreeable or undesirable experience, and it is directed to the object from which such interference or such infliction of undesired experience is forthcoming. fear arises when harm is threatened to the individual or to that which he possesses or holds dear, and is directed to the threatening object[216].
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.
[178]
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[179] 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[180] 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[181] 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].
[182]
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.
as regards the ultimate psychological nature of the first "moral" influences of these factors, we are face to face with a problem concerning which there is at present no very great degree of certainty or unanimity, i. e. the problem of the general nature of the forces of repression which inhibit the immoral or anti-social tendencies of the mind. freud[222] is inclined to lay stress upon the impulses centering round the self (though more especially in connection with the repression of the sexual trends); others, like mccurdy[223] trotter[224] and hart[225], emphasize the importance of the gregarious tendencies in this connection. whatever may be their ultimate basis in the mind, there can be little doubt however that these moral forces on the whole increase with advancing culture, thus tending always to substitute an indirect or negative for the more primitive direct or positive expression of the hate attitude towards the parents.
as regards the second factor, the arousal of love in opposition love that conflicts with and represses hate to hate is evidently dependent partly (a) upon the child's[183] own innate capacities for affection, tenderness and gratitude; partly (b) upon the extent to which these capacities are awakened and called into play by a kind and loving attitude on the part of the parent towards the child. as regards these factors it seems very difficult to say in the present state of our knowledge whether there has been any considerable or lasting change during the later period of human development. the extent to which tender feelings have been aroused between parents and children of the same sex (for it is of course with the relations between these that we are chiefly concerned here) has naturally varied from age to age and from one family system to another; the intensity and frequency of these feelings being as a rule in inverse proportion to the intensity of the hate attitude. thus it is that those times and places which have produced the minimum of hatred between parents and children have also probably on the whole tended to bring about the greatest degree of repression of such hatred as did still exist—the repression being due to the influence of love tendencies which were opposed to those of hate. nevertheless it is not easy to bring forward any evidence to show a general tendency towards increase of the tender feelings with which we are here concerned. savage parents in many cases appear to exhibit a very considerable degree of affection towards their children, while the children are in their turn often not backward in their manifestations of love and respect. parents in civilised communities, on the other hand, have often shown themselves (under a veneer of kindness or consideration) singularly brutal and selfish in the treatment of their children; the latter not infrequently manifesting a corresponding lack of genuine affection for their parents. under these circumstances it would seem that we are perhaps justified in attributing the undoubted increase in the repression of the hate attitude to the more efficient operation of the "moral" factors, rather than to any growth of tenderness between parent and child which might have served more effectually to counter-act the hostile tendencies.
