Less liable to open manifestation is the corresponding Love transfer of affect from parent to parent-in-law where the emotion concerned is love rather than hatred. Such a transfer may nevertheless occur in certain circumstances. In a positive form it may result in a high degree of veneration or affection for the parents-in-law (or one of them), which—especially if it should coincide with a high degree of parent love in the other partner to the marriage—may lead to the existence of very friendly and intimate relations of the younger couple with the elder; relations which may, however, in many cases, tend to undermine the initiative and independence of the younger pair. In a negative form (which is very liable to occur, since the vigorous repression of the original incestuous thoughts very easily extends to any fresh tendencies calculated to arouse them) a transfer of this kind may lead to frequent troubles, misunderstandings and frictions between the child-in-law and parent-in-law whom it concerns.

The third and last of our three factors which complicate Corresponding displacement on the part of the parents-in-law themselves the relations of children-in-law and parents-in-law consists in a similar displacement of affect on the part of the parents-in-law, in virtue of which they may direct towards their children by marriage the affection or hostility which they originally experienced in relation to their own children; a factor the significance of which may perhaps be more fully and easily appreciated after we have discussed the intimate nature of these original feelings of parents to their own children (cp. Ch. XIV below), and with regard to which perhaps it is therefore best to content ourselves with a mere passing reference here.

The relation between child-in-law and parent-in-law which Son-in-law and Mother-in-law has become notoriously the most difficult in recent times is that of son-in-law and mother-in-law. This relation too has been made the object of some special study by psycho-analysts[110], who have found in it all the factors which we have referred to above. Among the most important grounds for the hostility which so often marks this relationship have been observed the following:—

1. The conflict between the mother and the husband for the possession of the daughter and her belongings. The mother having in the majority of cases in the past enjoyed a greater or less degree of authority over the daughter, is loth to abandon this source of power, and seeks to retain it by exercising (through the frequent giving of advice, appeal to her own greater experience or otherwise) some sort of control over the daughter's household or mode of life. This interference on the part of the mother-in-law in the domestic arrangements of the younger couple is very apt to be resented by the son-in-law, either directly, because it appears to threaten his own supreme control over his own family, or indirectly, because he identifies himself with the daughter (his wife) who in her turn may not unnaturally object to the continuance of maternal supervision after her marriage. On the other hand, should the daughter display a marked tendency to be influenced by her mother or a high degree of veneration or affection for her, the son-in-law will again resent the interference of the latter, as threatening an encroachment on his wife's love and respect towards himself.

2. The husband's fear of losing (through too intimate contact with his mother-in-law) the sense of sexual attractiveness which his wife possesses for him. The mother-in-law reminds him of his wife, but is without her youthful beauty and this is apt to produce in him a dim sense of apprehension lest, as a result of seeing, as it were, the mother in the daughter, and of vaguely realising that the daughter may one day come to resemble the mother, the former may lose for him her charm and his whole marriage become thereby distasteful.

Of these two motives tending to produce disagreement between mother-in-law and son-in-law, the first is for the most part situated at or near the surface of consciousness, while the second can in many cases be brought to consciousness by the exercise of a little courageous introspection. Both motives, however (especially the second), are liable to be reinforced by two further motives, which remain for the most part buried in the Unconscious.

3. The mother-in-law may re-awaken in the son-in-law, in the manner we have already indicated, feelings which are incestuous in origin, being a displacement of those originally directed towards his own mother; the repression of these feelings of affection then giving place to their opposite—a feeling of repulsion or hostility—as a means of preventing the irruption into consciousness of the tabooed incestuous desires. As some indication of the reality of this factor, apart from the results of psycho-analysis, may be mentioned the fairly well recognised facts that it is possible for a man to be attracted to his future mother-in-law before he falls in love with his future wife, that he may hesitate as to whether he shall marry mother or daughter, or that he may fall back upon the mother should the daughter die or fail him in some other way. As further evidence too—on the negative side—we may refer to the extraordinarily numerous and widespread taboos and "avoidances" which affect the relations between son-in-law and mother-in-law among primitive peoples.

4. A corresponding displacement of incestuous desires, leading to a similar repression and reversal of emotion, may occur in the case of the mother-in-law herself, who, in virtue of this displacement, identifies her son-in-law with a son of her own (either real or imaginary); the one re-awakening in her incestuous tendencies originally aroused in connection with the other. Or again, the primary motive on the part of the mother-in-law may be unconscious sexual jealousy of her daughter, to whom she grudges the superior attractiveness of youth and the pleasures of dawning sexual life—a life which for the mother may be largely or entirely at an end. In this case she may unconsciously identify herself with her daughter, imagining, as it were, that it is she herself, and not her daughter, that is married to her son-in-law. In either case it is often the less tender and more sadistic elements of the mother-in-law's love which are directed to the son-in-law, since these are more easily reconciled with the maintenance of the requisite degree of repression than would be the case with the more gentle and affectionate components.

Only less important than the relations of child-in-law and Step-child and Step-parent parent-in-law are those of step-child and step-parent[111]; and such lesser degree of importance as these have is due rather to the lesser frequency of their occurrence than to any lesser significance which they possess for the individuals actually concerned. The generally outstanding feature of these relations is the manifestation of a more intense, or at any rate a more open, form of those feelings and tendencies which would normally exist between the child and the corresponding blood parent. A boy, for instance, who may successfully have displaced or repressed his original feelings of jealousy or hostility towards his own father, may often prove incapable of carrying out a similar re-adjustment in the case of a subsequently acquired step-father. The latter may have none of the glamour which belonged to the former in virtue of his position as head of the family (and therefore centre of the child's world) during the infancy of the child (cp. p. 55) and which may have helped to inhibit the original hostility experienced towards him through arousal of the opposite emotions of love, gratitude or admiration. The step-father, therefore, may easily re-awaken in his step-son any remnants of the hatred which the latter may have experienced towards his real father, without re-awakening in corresponding degree the compensating forces which kept the hate in check.

Furthermore, the boy's mother only marries the step-father after a period of widowhood during which the boy may have appeared to possess the sole, or at any rate the chief, claim upon her interest and affection. By her re-marriage she will probably seem to the boy's unconscious mind to have been, in a very real and poignant sense, unfaithful to himself, and to have rejected his own love for that of an outsider; an idea which may appear in consciousness in the rationalised form of an imputation of unfaithfulness towards the mother's previous husband—the boy's own father. It is a complex of feelings of this kind which, as Ernest Jones[112] has so convincingly shown, underlies and forms the principal psychological motive in "Hamlet" as a study of this relationship Shakespeare's tragedy of "Hamlet". It is this which is the cause of Hamlet's vacillation in regard to the contemplated murder of his step-father; the latter had only done what Hamlet himself would fain have done before him, but was inhibited from doing. The contemplation of Claudius's ill deeds serves dimly to call up the buried tendencies which at one time prompted Hamlet himself to commit a similar atrocity—the murder of the king (his father)—for a similar end—the possession of the queen (his mother)—and the paralysing effect of the arousal of such feelings makes itself felt as an inability to carry out the punishment of one with whom he thus has much in common, and whom he feels to be in a sense no worse than himself, the would-be punisher. Moreover, in virtue of his marriage with the queen, Claudius now really stands in the old king's place; in killing him, therefore, Hamlet is to his own unconscious mind becoming guilty of the very crime of Œdipus which had tempted him before his father's death; hence the resistance to the consummation of the act which hatred of the interloper prompts him to perform.

In the case of a girl, corresponding feelings may be called The wicked step-mother in fairy tales up towards her step-mother on the re-marriage of her father—feelings which have found expression in the very numerous and familiar myths and fairy tales (such as those of Cinderella, Snow White, Mother Holle), of the wicked step-mother who kills, beats, neglects, falsely accuses, drives out or otherwise ill-treats her step-daughter[113]. Here the feelings of the girl, like those of the boy under similar circumstances, are given free vent towards the step-mother, where they were formerly inhibited by emotions of an opposite character (or at least repressed by considerations of general or traditional morality) in the case of the girl's true mother; the step-mother thus serving as an object capable at once of arousing, and of becoming the recipient of, hostile and jealous feelings, which had hitherto successfully been held in check.

These feelings of hostility on the part of children to their The attitude of step-parents towards their step-children step-parents are of course bound to call up some degree of reciprocal feeling on the part of the step-parents themselves. The feelings thus aroused, however, are often reinforced by more direct causes of hostility, such as are liable to affect in any case the attitude of parent towards child (Cp. Ch. XVI). Here, however, the absence of the real bond of parenthood, with its accompanying incentives to tender feeling, may easily cause the hostile tendencies to meet with less resistance than usual so that genuinely cruel or neglectful behaviour is more likely to occur.

Although it is the displacement of hate which manifests The displacement of love on to step-parents itself most openly and strongly in the relations of step-children to step-parents, the displacement of love from the original dead parent to the new parent may also play an important (though nearly always more or less unconscious) part in these relations[114]. The taboo on incest works less powerfully in regard to the feelings towards the new parent than it did in regard to those towards the old. The new parent is, as a rule, no relative by blood, nor is the surviving real parent felt to have the same exclusive rights over his or her new partner as over the old; therefore the step-parent, when of the opposite sex to that of the child, is often made the object of a displacement of those feelings of tenderness and love which were formerly directed to the real parent of this sex; this state of affairs leading of course in the majority of cases to a corresponding re-awakening of jealousy or bitterness towards the surviving original parent. This love of step-child to step-parent (and particularly that of step-son to step-mother) and the contest between both of these and the remaining parent, is one which has indeed been used for ages as a mild form of displacement of the tendencies and affects originally aroused when both the child's parents were alive, and one which has found very frequent expression in myth, legend and literature[115].

All that we have here said as regards the feelings of Re-marriage after divorce children to their step-parents holds good to an even greater extent than usual in the case of the re-marriage of parents after a divorce or on their acquiring a fresh sexual partner after separation from their lawful husband or wife. Here indeed the feelings and emotions aroused are apt to be still further intensified by the fact that the children have been, in the nature of the case, more or less compelled to take sides in the previous struggle or disagreement that has taken place between the parents. A child's feelings of love and hate towards his parents are usually intensely stirred by all manifestations on their part of conjugal unhappiness or infidelity and when the barriers which prevent the full expression of these feelings towards the child's real parents are removed by the substitution of a step-parent, this new parent will often receive the full force of the love or hate which had hitherto been pent up.

In this chapter we have been concerned with the displacement of the parent-regarding emotions and tendencies on to persons who resemble the parents in that they are connected with the child by some close tie of family relationship. In the next chapter we shall proceed to discuss some of the other associative mechanisms through the operation of which this displacement may be effected.

CHAPTER XI

FAMILY INFLUENCES IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE
LOVE LIFE

The importance of the displacement here at work will be "Falling in love" more readily grasped, if we bear in mind that it constitutes one of the principal factors in the normal and all-important process of "falling in love," and particularly of that most striking but at the same time most mystifying aspect of that process which we call "love at first sight." Love and its causes have ever raised the wonder and curiosity both of the plain man and of the philosopher, but, apart from more or less unsatisfactory theory and vague speculation, neither has been able to bring forward any explanation of the sudden over-powering attraction which a young man or woman, boy or girl, may feel for some one member of the opposite sex; one whose charms may appear to more unbiassed eyes to be but little if at all superior to those of others of the loved one's age and situation. Thanks however to the work of the psycho-analytic school, psychology is at last beginning to cast a few rays of light upon the darkness which has hitherto surrounded this central problem of human life and feeling. Freud, in a recent article[116] summarizing the results of psycho-analysis in this direction, has divided loves into two main Two types of love:— types:—

(1) the narcissistic type,

(2) the dependence type.

In the first type the love is the result of a projection of The narcissistic type the lover's self on to some other person—the narcissistic love originally directed to the Self being thus displaced on to the person of the loved one—through some process of identification or some strong associative link. Love of this type is frequently manifested in ties of a homosexual nature, where the lover finds in one of his own sex a nearer copy of himself than would otherwise be possible. It is also manifested in some of the fervent affections of parents for their children, where the parents regard those whom they have produced as in a manner an extension of themselves (cp. below Ch. XIV). And finally it is manifested in some connections of a normal heterosexual kind; a man for example finds and admires in his wife those feminine qualities which are present in himself but to which, so long as they are in himself, he is unable (owing to repression of the feminine side of his nature) to afford full recognition or appreciation; or a woman finds attractive in a man those qualities of boyishness and masculinity which she herself possessed in some degree before the time of puberty but which she has since sacrificed to make way for a more pronounced development of her "womanly" characteristics.

In love of the second type the affection is more genuinely The dependence type and primarily "object-love." The lover is here attracted towards his object because he finds in it something that is essential to the fulfilment of his own bodily or mental needs. It is this love which, as we have seen, is under normal circumstances first aroused in connection with the parents (and especially the mother), by whom the first primitive requirements of the infant are fulfilled. It is this love too which, in its displaced form, we have seen to be so frequently directed on to brothers, sisters or other near relatives, and which, by a further process of displacement, in the course of normal development eventually flows on to persons unconnected with the lover by any bond of relationship. The repression, as a result of which this latter displacement has occurred, as a rule, brings it about that the associative links that connect the newer with the older love are not perceptible to the lover himself; the bond is an unconscious one. Nevertheless, this bond is often sufficiently clear to any keen observer, whose eyes have once been opened to the fact of its existence. In other cases however it may be of a more obscure nature, so as to require a deeper study of the personality of the lover and of his psychological history (such as can often only be obtained by employment of the psycho-analytic method) before the nature of the association becomes apparent.

The fact that in the personality of the loved object there The repression of the incestuous basis of affection, as shown in myth and legend often lies hidden, as it were, the buried image of a brother, sister, parent or other object of incestuous affection in the past, would seem to play an important part in the formation of a type of story of world-wide occurrence, of which the Cupid-Psyche myth and the Lohengrin legend are perhaps the best known examples[117]. In these stories a marriage or love affair takes place between partners, one of whom is usually of mysterious (sometimes divine) origin and consents to enter upon the alliance only upon the condition that no question shall be asked as to his (or her) name, parentage or home; or upon the erection of some other prohibition, such as one which forbids the use of vision or of speech (either generally or under specified circumstances); upon the infringement of which conditions the mysterious partner vanishes, leaving the remaining member of the pair to lament the loss that has been thus foolishly incurred through curiosity. Here the prohibition would seem to be imposed with a view to concealing the fact that the union is based ultimately upon the foundation of an incestuous affection, or is itself incestuous in nature: a recognition of this fact would spoil the pleasure of the union by arousing the repressions connected with incestuous love and must therefore (as in the case of the marriage between Œdipus and Jocasta in the Œdipus myth, where Jocasta—in Sophocles' play—strenuously opposes all efforts at investigation) be prevented by the most rigorous prohibitions, the breaking of which involves the permanent dissolution of the union.

Among associations other than those of family relationship Similarity as a basis of displacement by means of which the process of displacement is brought about, those depending on mental or physical similarity are probably the most important; of all the available methods of transference, they are too, in many respects, the easiest, most natural and the least liable to cause pathological aberrations of development. There can be little doubt, too, that the frequent occurrence of the displacement of the love impulse along these lines constitutes a factor of very considerable sociological and historical importance. The tendency to choose a mate resembling in some essential aspects—mental or physical—one's Its biological significance own nearest relatives, must, for good or evil, act as a potent means of preserving the purity of individual types and of family, national or racial qualities; especially when, as may often happen, there is added to the influence of this factor that of the narcissistic element of love to which we have already referred. So long as the associative link which conditions the displacement is one that has some correspondence to reality, the closer the unconscious identification of the sexual partner of adult life with the object loved in infancy, the more likely will it be for this partner to possess hereditary qualities similar to those of the lover himself, and the greater therefore, in all probability, the resemblance of the ensuing offspring to their parents.

Among the similarities of a less essential kind which may Name assist in the process of displacement, those of name are apt to play an important but subtle part and one that is very liable to be overlooked or where observed, ascribed to coincidence rather than (as it more often should be) to the operation of unconscious mental factors[118]. They are in some respects a source of danger, inasmuch as they are concerned with relatively superficial characteristics[119] which have little to do with the real nature of the person selected, thus making easy the choice of otherwise unsuitable objects of affection.

Similarities with the parents as regards age often exercise Age some influence in early years and in the early stages of displacement, but in later life are less operative than, in view of the intensity of the parent fixation in some individuals, might perhaps be expected. This is probably due, to a large extent at any rate, to the fact already referred to, that the unconscious parent love of adult life has as its object the image of the parents as they appeared to the child in infancy; these image-parents being therefore of a considerably younger age than that which the real parents have actually attained by the time the child has reached maturity.

The similarities as regards general or special circumstances may also on occasion be important in determining the direction of transference and in cases where the process of displacement has suffered an arrest at a comparatively early stage, may cause serious difficulties or restrictions in the choice of object.

Thus it may happen that, just as the child's love activities Falling in love with those who are already married or betrothed in relation to its earliest love object were impeded by the fact that this object was already bound by affection, law or both, to a third person (i. e. the parent of the same sex as that of the child), so in adult life the individual's choice may fall only on objects who are similarly not at liberty in the disposal of their affections[120]. There are indeed some men and women who can only fall in love with married or betrothed persons, and who are doomed therefore either to become dangerous enemies to the harmonious married life of others or else themselves to suffer successive repetitions of the unsuccessful love of their childhood[121]. Marriage in such cases may bring no relief, because the object of their affection may cease to exercise attraction as soon as its possession is undisputed and unhindered. The widespread occurrence and intensity of the unconscious ideas underlying this kind of aberration is shown by the frequent treatment of the subject in legend and literature (Cp. Tristan and Iseult, Paolo and Francesca, Pelleas and Melisande, Don Carlos and his step-mother, Casandra and a host of other examples in which the expression and fulfilment of a great love are prevented by the fact that one of the lovers is already married or affianced to a third person, usually a relative, and one who on analysis can easily be shown to represent the parent who stood in the way of the first love of the child.)[122].

In a number of other cases stress is laid not so much on The desire for obstacles in the way of love the unfree condition of the loved object, but, more generally, on the barrier raised by the incestuous nature of the desired relationship. This factor will of course in the majority of cases merely add its force to those demanding previous marriage or betrothal to another as a necessary qualification of the loved object, but will sometimes manifest itself alone as a felt need for the occurrence of some sort of hindrance to the consummation of love, the lover being unable to derive full satisfaction from the union or to remain permanently attracted to his chosen object in the absence of such hindrance[123]. Here it will usually be found that the loved object is unconsciously identified with the parent or with some other near relation.

In other cases the desire for some kind of obstacle may manifest itself in a tendency to keep secret the existence and the circumstances of the love. With persons subject to this tendency (which would seem to be found more especially among women) a love affair may lose a great part—or perhaps the whole—of its attractiveness as soon as it is made public and is openly admitted, as by the act of marriage.

Since the thought of the sexual relations of the parents The rescue phantasy is, both on account of jealousy and on account of the repression of incestuous cravings, one that is usually extremely distasteful to the child, the latter often likes to imagine that the loved parent enters into such relations unwillingly and under compulsion. Such a belief can arise most easily in a boy's mind as regards his mother: it then in its turn gives rise to the idea of rescuing the mother from the unwelcome and tyrannical attentions of the father[124]; a phantasy which has found expression in the many stories and legends (of which that of Andromeda and that of St. George are perhaps the most widely known examples) in which a distressed and beautiful maiden is delivered by a young knight or hero from the clutches of a tyrant, giant or monster[125]. This phantasy is sometimes found too in a sublimated form in which, for instance, great enthusiasm may be aroused by the effort to deliver a small or helpless race or nation from the dominion of a larger and more powerful people[126], or again by the struggle for the liberation of an oppressed section of a community from the tyranny of a ruling class[127].

The idea of rescue has too, as has recently been discovered, The symbolic meaning of the rescue a further symbolic meaning, which may be present to the Unconscious[128]. To rescue means to save from death, i. e. to present with life, and thus comes to be equated with the notion of begetting or bringing to life. In this way the rescue of the mother may signify to the Unconscious a begetting, i. e. a process of cohabitation with her, the boy thus putting himself in the place of his father and fulfilling in a symbolic manner his incestuous desires. As a further determinant of the rescue phantasy in this sense there is sometimes to be found an obscure notion of self-begetting—the creation of oneself without the co-operation of the parent of one's own sex, all obligation to and connection with this parent being thus repudiated. Such a repudiation of the undesired parent may also find expression in the phantasy of rescuing this parent from death—an idea which is not infrequent in legend and folklore: the obligation that the child had incurred through the gift of life by the parent being now cancelled by the incurring of a similar obligation on the part of the parent towards the child.

Freud has drawn attention to the occurrence of a curious Hatred and contempt of the mother for permitting the advances of the father case of displacement—not infrequent among men and of very considerable importance for subsequent sexual life—which seems to depend to some extent at any rate, upon an arrest in the Unconscious at the stage of secondary mother hatred or contempt to which we referred on p. 59[129]. In such cases the mother is not pitied for having to suffer unwelcome advances from the father, but hated and despised for permitting or encouraging these advances. The father, being, according to the estimation of the child's Unconscious, a partner altogether undesirable, one who would under no circumstances be preferred to the child himself by any woman of good taste, the mother is regarded as a person quite lacking in such taste, a woman who indeed might give herself to anybody (a view which of course also encourages the hope that she may some The mother regarded as a prostitute day give herself to the child). If this view should persist in the Unconscious, the mother may come subsequently to be regarded as a sort of prostitute.

Now although such a sequence of ideas in the Unconscious may lead to contempt of the mother, it has not deprived her of her original power of attracting love and admiration; it The dissociation of sexual attractiveness and esteem leads rather to a mental splitting up of these original attractive attributes, the more purely and directly sexual ones being separated from the other characteristics in virtue of which she stands as an example of all that is morally desirable in womanhood. These two different aspects of the mother attributes are then in later life sought and found in different individuals—the sexual attributes in prostitutes or in women of inferior morality, education, intelligence or social station; the other attributes—objects of tender love and admiration—in women of a higher standing, towards whom however no physically sexual attraction can be felt.

This dissociation of purely sexual attraction from tenderness, esteem and the other components of fully developed love, is, The importance of this dissociation if we take account of its presence in minor as well as in major degrees, of such frequent occurrence, that it has been regarded by some as a normal feature of the sex impulse in the human male. It is at the same time a feature which cannot but be productive of harm in a monogamous society, so that if Freud's explanation of its origin should prove to be one that is at all generally valid, this aberrant process of development must be regarded as one that entails very serious consequences of an ethical and sociological as well as of a psychological nature, and one therefore to whose incidence, genesis, growth and history a little further consideration may perhaps not unprofitably be devoted here.

The dissociation between the more purely sexual constituents Influences in later life which are liable to reinforce it of love and the elements of esteem, reverence and tenderness which is originally brought about in the manner indicated by Freud, probably owes much of its prevalence and importance in later life to the fact that, once established, it is very apt to be strengthened and maintained by certain of the conditions under which the development of a youth's sexual knowledge is liable to occur. Among the most important of these conditions are the two following:

(1) The first actual experience of acute sensory pleasure of Masturbation a sexual kind about the time of puberty is very frequently associated with the act of masturbation, which in its turn is often accompanied by visual phantasies in which the rôle of sexual partner is played by women or girls known to the boy. As masturbation itself is usually carried on in the face of considerable psychic opposition, being looked upon as sordid, disgusting or injurious to health, there is not unnaturally a reluctance to bring into connection with this manifestation of the sexual impulse any woman or girl who is sincerely and profoundly loved, esteemed or honoured; those introduced into the masturbation phantasies being therefore such who, while not devoid of superficial sexual attractiveness, nevertheless display some real or supposed inferiority (as regards beauty, virtue, social standing or what not), as a result of which they make no appeal to the boy's sense of higher moral values. Through frequent repetition of this process, women of an inferior type come to be firmly associated with the more directly sexual aspects of love, from which women who are looked upon with tenderness or veneration are correspondingly dissociated, lest these dear objects of affection should be sullied by being brought into contact with what the boy regards as dishonourable, lewd or filthy[130].

(2) At a later stage of development the original dissociation Prostitution thus reinforced is frequently still further strengthened by the association (in thought or deed or both) of sexual practices with prostitutes—a class of women whom the youth is himself prepared to condemn because of the already existing connection in his mind between inferiority and sex, and as regards whose condemnation from the moral point of view he, as a rule, finds ample corroboration in the opinions expressed or implied by those around him.

The moral degradation of the sexual object thus receives Effect of the dissociation on marriage its final confirmation, and when later in marriage the young man endeavours to unite esteem and tenderness with sexual passion, he may find that the dissociation between these elements of love has grown too wide and fundamental to be overcome, so that one or other of these requisites of a complete and happy married life has necessarily to be sacrificed. As a result of this, a man may marry a woman whom he is prepared indeed to cherish, honour and esteem, but towards whom (for this very reason) he feels himself but little attracted in a purely sexual sense; in which case he will often be tempted after a while to seek a more complete degree of sexual satisfaction elsewhere. Or else, should the directly sexual trends prevail, he may select a partner who is inferior to him in some important intellectual, moral or social respect, thus paving the way for a married life in which many of his more sublimated tendencies, desires and aspirations are doomed to suffer permanent lack of gratification[131].

There can be little doubt that women are, on the whole, The liability of women to a corresponding dissociation less liable to suffer from this kind of dissociation than are men. With women the directly sexual elements of love are more frequently aroused together with the elements of tenderness and esteem, than is the case with men. Thus many women experience sexual desire or gratification only in relation to men to whom they are bound also by feelings of deep affection, admiration or respect. This difference between the sexes is perhaps to some extent a constitutional one, the elements in question being by nature more intimately fused and integrated in one sex than in the other[132]. Some part of the difference is however due, beyond all reasonable doubt, to environmental and educational factors.

Of the three principal factors we have enumerated as liable to bring about a high degree of dissociation between sexual attraction and esteem in men, it seems probable that the first—that due to the child's contempt for the (otherwise) loved parent for yielding to the sexual advances of the hated parent—is almost if not quite as potent with women as with men. The subsequent reinforcement of the dissociation by the two remaining factors is however to a considerable extent inoperative with women. The influence of masturbation is in nearly all respects less marked in women than in men, partly perhaps because at the important age, at or about the time of puberty, the practice is less frequent with girls than with boys, but principally because for a variety of reasons it meets with less violent psychic opposition, arouses less violent moral conflicts and is to a much lesser extent liable to become the cause of self-contempt or self-reproach[133]. Nor again is the association of sexual activity with prostitution (although the act of prostitution itself may be regarded with considerable repulsion) so deeply ingrained in women as in men.

In spite, however, of the lesser operation of these factors in the case of women and in spite of any possible closer connection (through innate organization) of the elements of the love impulse which are liable to dissociation, it is nevertheless true that a very considerable number of women do suffer from some degree of this dissociation[134].

Such women will often be attracted to two kinds of men—one Manifestations of the dissociation in women of which (frequently physically inferior) may arouse sympathy, respect, devotion or tenderness, while the other (frequently of a morally, socially or intellectually inferior type, but often physically superior[135]) will alone be capable of arousing sexual desire. Quite often the attraction to an inferior person is combined with the desire for clandestinity to which we referred above; the whole complex finding its most satisfying and appropriate expression in a furtive love affair of such a kind as to be contrary to the moral or social standards of the woman's upbringing and environment. It is obvious that the difficulties which bar the way to a completely successful marriage for such women are but little if at all inferior to those existing in the case of men who suffer from a corresponding condition of dissociation[136].

In a certain number of cases there is to be observed a Combination of the prostitute and rescue phantasies combination of the original prostitute phantasy (the remoter consequences of which we have been here considering) with the rescue phantasy to which we referred above. Such a combination of motives may give rise to the enthusiasm for "rescue work" as displayed by such persons as John Storm in Sir Hall Caine's novel "The Christian" or, more generally, may bring about the desire to lead the prostitute, fallen or abandoned woman (mother substitute) to a better way of life (Cp. Hamlet and his mother)[137]. In women too this combination of motives may not infrequently be observed, manifesting itself most often as a desire to effect the regeneration of some drunkard, ne'er-do-well or criminal or of some class of men of this description; sometimes leading even to marriage with a person of this kind, with a view to the better attainment of this end (though in these cases the superior sexual attractiveness of such men is of course usually an additional—though not always a recognised—motive).

In still other cases again the intensely disagreeable feeling The desire for chastity that is associated with the idea of the mother giving herself to the father may lead to an overwhelming desire for the strictest previous chastity in any woman that may be selected as bride or sexual partner; the virginity of the later love serving as a recompense for the supposed impurity and faithlessness of the earlier object of affection, and to some extent no doubt (through the process of identification) bringing about—so far as the unconscious mind of the lover is concerned—a purification of this former object. Such feelings as these, working in the Unconscious, are probably among the most powerful factors which determine the behaviour of that not inconsiderable number of men whose affection and general attitude towards a woman are completely changed by the merest suspicion that she has experienced sexual relationships with any but themselves, however great the extenuating circumstances connected with such relationships; who are utterly unable to entertain the idea of marriage with any such woman (Cp. Angel Clare in Thomas Hardy's "Tess of the d'Urbervilles") or who in temporary or venal intercourse will go to much trouble or expense to secure a virgin for their partner[138].

The brief review which we have undertaken in this The importance of displacement in the love life chapter of the displacement of the love impulse from persons of the immediate family environment to objects selected from a wider circle, is sufficient to show that the whole nature and course of the love life of an individual is to a very large extent dependent on the way in which this displacement is achieved[139]. There is little doubt but that the further advance of psychological science will reveal more intimately the working of those mechanisms with which we have here been dealing, and of whose nature and importance we are now beginning to gain some rough preliminary understanding. In view of the desirability of a satisfactory direction of the love impulse, as well from the point of view of national and racial well-being as from that of individual happiness and family prosperity, it is to be expected that the further enlightenment which we may hope for on this subject, will be, both practically and theoretically, as important as any which the science of Psychology will bring us.

CHAPTER XII

FAMILY INFLUENCES IN SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT

Certain forms of love displacement, it is true, necessarily imply, to some extent, correlative forms of hate displacement; as in the case (studied in the last chapter) of the transfer of love exclusively to married or betrothed persons or in the case of the rescue phantasy. In these cases the rival with whom the lover competes for the possession of the loved object or the tyrant from whose clutches the captive lady is snatched by the skill or daring of the youthful hero, are (in the light of psycho-analytic knowledge) manifest substitutes for the original rival or tyrant who existed in the person of the father. The intensity of hostile feeling of which these representatives become the objects may however vary very considerably from one instance to another, according as the emphasis of the whole phantasy is laid upon the elements of hatred or of love. Sometimes the hostile rival may be present only in a vague and shadowy form, constituting little more than a necessary background; as, for instance, in cases where the existence of some kind of opposition is essential to the arousal or enjoyment of love. In other cases, however, the hate element may be equal in importance to the love element, or may even constitute the predominant motive of the whole displacement.

In these latter cases it will usually be found that the The development of hate hostility brought about secondarily as the result of jealousy has been powerfully reinforced by hatred of a more direct and independent kind, arising as a reaction against a more general interference with the child's aspirations or desires on the part of a tyrannous parental authority (or one that is considered to be such). The presence, in some degree, of this form of reaction is very prevalent, and this is not surprising when we bear in mind the fact that the child has, during its early years, to be continually moderated, guided, stimulated or restrained in its actions, or tendencies to action, by the exercise of parental or of delegated parental authority[140].

The exercise of such restraint or guidance, even within necessary and desirable limits and with all the care, refinement and regard to the child's own natural course of development which modern methods of training may dictate, is bound to give rise to some feeling of resentment, especially in children of self-willed, obstinate or independent character or in those with whom the tendencies in need of guidance or restraint are unusually vigorous or persistent. Much more so even is this liable to be the case where (as may often happen) the child's upbringing is carried out with but little regard for, or understanding of, its own feelings, susceptibilities or tendencies. In all such cases the hostile sentiments aroused by the conflict of parental authority with the impetuous desires of childhood may be such as to outlast the period of early life to which they properly belong and to furnish a basis for a pathological fixation at the stage of parent-hatred, as a result of which this hatred may constitute an important—and usually maleficent—component of the individual's character throughout his life.

We have already, in the earlier chapters, discussed the Displacement of hate on to parent substitutes manner in which parent hatred of early origin (together with most other aspects of the young child's attitude towards its parents) should, in the course of normal development, be overcome. We have already seen, however, that certain of the secondary hatreds consequent upon incestuous love are in many individuals incapable of being completely and satisfactorily resolved in any of the normal ways, but become, instead, displaced on to parent substitutes in the same way as the love impulses which they accompany. The same fate of displacement awaits, in most cases, those more direct and primary hatreds which are consequent upon the parent's interference with the child's more general wishes and desires. In the course of the individual's life, the authority over his expressions, activities and general mode of living originally exercised by the parents, passes in succession, wholly or partly, to a number of other persons; to whom the feelings directed to the parents in virtue of the exercise of this authority is then transferred. Among those to whom such transference most frequently and regularly takes place are to be found—nurses, teachers, school prefects, police officers, employers, professional or military superiors, or persons occupying general positions of command, such as magistrates, statesmen or kings.

There can be little doubt that much of the general This displacement may lead to rebellion against authority and the persons who exercise it resistance to, and intolerance of, authority, that may be exhibited by certain individuals, or at times by whole sections of a community (or even by whole peoples) derives its motive power from a persistence in the Unconscious of parent hatreds of this kind. A very considerable proportion of criminal actions in the individual are also due to the same unconscious source, the still existing desire to resist the authority of the parents finding outlet in a displaced form in infringements of the laws, conventions, or regulations imposed by the authority of society or of the State. Particularly is this true of crimes against persons who embody or exercise this authority—emperors, kings and other persons in high places, and it would seem probable indeed that many cases of regicide or of attempts on the lives of official personages have been committed by those suffering from insufficiently controlled parent hatreds of unusual strength. Bearing in mind the dangers that beset a community in which tendencies to anarchy, lawlessness or unreasonable opposition to governmental authority are widespread, it is obvious that the frequent occurrence of violent and persistent parent hatreds in children, leading, as they so often do, to displacements of this kind, is a matter of very serious sociological and political importance[141].

These same persons in authority, who thus become the Displacements of respect and esteem recipients displaced enmity towards the parents, may however also serve in later life as substitutes for those aspects of the parents in virtue of which these latter were in childhood reverenced as the possessors of unlimited power, wisdom, virtue or knowledge (Cp. above p. 54). Especially is this the case perhaps with regard to ecclesiastical authorities; the priest, as the interpreter of wisdom that transcends earthly knowledge and the transmitter of commands that transcend earthly authority, being peculiarly suitable as an object of this emotional attitude. The head of the Roman Catholic Church has indeed, through the doctrine of infallibility, been explicitly endowed (with reference to a certain sphere of thought) with the character of perfect knowledge and perfect wisdom, which the young child with the sense of its own immense inferiority in these respects, is liable to attribute to its parents. The teacher too, in his position of moral and intellectual authority, frequently becomes the recipient of similar feelings; the additional influence which he possesses over his pupils through the latter's childish over-estimation of his knowledge and capacity often receiving frank acknowledgment in the fact of his unwillingness ever to appear to have been mistaken or to have been ignorant with regard to any matter, lest the realisation of his fallibility should detract from the suggestive power that he has hitherto enjoyed.

The displacement on to medical advisers and attendants Medical practitioners as parent-substitutes originally directed to the parents, has frequently been recognised. Here again, it is more particularly the attribute of benevolent omniscience that is liable to be transferred. Three factors contribute especially to this result:—(1) The physician's knowledge on matters of the highest interest and importance, about which others are relatively ignorant (particularly perhaps "medical" matters, in the sexual sense of that euphemism); (2) the fact that the situations in which his assistance is called in, for the most part urgently demand some kind of action which he alone can adequately perform; the sense of helplessness which others feel in these situations being similar in many respects to that frequently experienced in early years when, as children, we were dependent upon the efforts of our parents in many of the important affairs of life; (3) the fact that this sense of helplessness and the general attitude of suggestibility are still further increased in the case of the patient by the general regression to a relatively childish state of mind which illness so frequently brings in its train. The physician's capacity to stimulate and maintain the power of suggestion, which he possesses in virtue of this attitude on the part of those who consult him, is undoubtedly the secret of much real success in medical practice, inasmuch as the mental factors in disease—the importance of which is now becoming fully recognised, although their nature is not yet always clear—are to a large extent directly affected by the patient's belief in his doctor's ability to understand and cure the complaint from which he suffers.

This suggestive power plays of course a specially prominent The rôle of parent-regarding tendencies in suggestion and hypnosis part in dealing with disorders of a directly psychopathic nature[142] and peculiarly so where a condition of enhanced suggestibility is deliberately induced and utilised with a view to the cure of such disorders, as in the practice of hypnotism. The work which has been directed to the study of hypnotism from the psycho-analytic point of view has brought out very clearly the similarities between the condition in hypnosis and some of the mental characteristics of early childhood; and has led to the conception of the hypnotic trance as a regression to a relatively infantile state of mind, the rapport between operator and subject being regarded as, in certain important respects, a repetition or revival of the relations which had previously existed between parent and child. Ferenczi[143] has gone so far as to regard the different methods of inducing hypnosis as depending upon a revival in a displaced form of the child's typical attitude towards its father or its mother respectively; the stern, commanding, confident tone, adopted by some operators, tending to bring about a relationship between them and their subjects that constitutes a revival of the former relationship between father and child, the calming, soothing, soporific methods of others serving to recall the attitude of the child towards its mother, as when in early infancy it was lulled to sleep by its mother with the aid of a very similar procedure.

In the practice of psycho-analysis, too, the displacement of "Transference" in psychoanalysis emotional attitudes originally adopted with reference to the parents has been shown to play an important part, though the therapeutic effect of the method is not, as has sometimes erroneously been supposed, due to the simple action of suggestion[144]. Psycho-analysis aims at producing a state of greater co-ordination in the patient's mind by giving him an understanding of the nature and direction of his unconscious mental trends, thus putting him in a position to bring about a state of relative harmony between the different impulses which formerly, by their mutual antagonisms, were responsible for the production of the neurosis. A mere understanding of the nature of the unconscious processes involved is however, as has frequently been shown, powerless to effect the desired result, unless the conative and affective sides of these processes are also loosened from their fixations in the Unconscious and made available for use in other directions. It is here that the transference of tendencies originally directed to the parents becomes important. Just as, in the first unfolding and development of the child's emotional capacities, the direction of the love impulses on to the parents was the means of bringing the child beyond the primitive stages of auto-erotism and narcissism, so now in the emotional re-education that psycho-analysis involves, the further process of displacement of the parent love on to new objects is one of fundamental importance and is often an essential condition of the necessary readjustment and integration of the emotional life. Not of course that the parent-love is the only impulse requiring displacement in this way, but, inasmuch as the Œdipus Complex is (as Freud has put it) the nuclear complex of the neuroses, it is just the emotions that centre round the parents that usually constitute the most fundamental and far-reaching, as well as in themselves the most massive and weighty, of those that need readjustment as regards their object. In this process of readjustment, the analyst himself—as is now well recognised—usually plays a highly important, though a transitory, rôle; the emotions loosened from their fixations by the process of analysis being temporarily displaced on to his person, (on their way to more suitable and permanent objects) both because he is the first available object, and because his position of authority as the conductor of the analysis naturally suits him for the part[145].

It is principally because a displacement of this sort can be Transference and the cure of neuroses much more easily produced in certain kinds of neurosis than in others, that neuroses differ from one another markedly in their amenability to treatment; what Freud has called the Transference Neuroses[146] (such as Hysteria or Obsessional Neurosis), in which the patient, though unable to adjust his emotions to the level required for satisfactory adult life, has nevertheless for the most part attained—and retained—the stage of object-love, comparing very favourably in this respect with the Narcissistic Neuroses (such as Paranoia), in which the patient has regressed beyond the stage of object-love to the relatively infantile level at which his emotional outlets are sought only in, or in connection with, his own person.

All the displacements with which we have been hitherto The displacement of parent-regarding feelings, on to objects other than individuals concerned have at least this one important feature in common, that the feelings and tendencies originally directed to the parents are transferred to definite individuals. There are, however, certain forms of displacement, of very considerable sociological importance, in which this is no longer the case, the parent substitutes being found, not in any individual persons, but in groups, places, societies and institutions.

Thus in many cases the home, as the place in which the Home parents lived and in which the feelings of love, tenderness and admiration towards the parents were first developed, acquires and retains throughout life a peculiar attractiveness, in which piety, tenderness and pride are intermingled and which is, it would seem, to a very large extent derived from the emotional attitude of the child towards the parents themselves. The attachment to the home in this sense frequently manifests itself in home-sickness whenever the individual is compelled to leave his native place or native land; those who suffer from home-sickness to an unusual degree or for an unusual length of time being in most cases burdened with an overstrong attachment to and dependence on their family, or certain members of it, having failed to free themselves adequately from their infantile fixations in this direction.

In certain persons again—especially in members of an Family or Clan aristocratic caste or in others who are able to trace their descent through a long line of ancestors—some important aspects of the parent-love come to be attached to the idea of the whole family of which they form a part; the tendencies to esteem, obedience, admiration or idealisation originally aroused by the child's immediate parents being transferred to the family or clan regarded as a social group, which has existed in the past, exists now in those of its members who happen to be living and will continue to exist in their descendants. This kind of transference may constitute a sublimation of considerable value, inasmuch as it may afford a powerful motive to the individual for not falling below the level of attainment or civic worth that is expected of the family, and generally for doing all that may enhance, and avoiding all that may degrade, the family reputation; on the other hand, it may sometimes be productive of an undue tendency towards conservatism and may lead to the stifling of individual effort, independence and initiative, through the imposition of a too uniform standard of conduct and achievement or a too close adherence to tradition.

In many persons, again, the school, as the centre of School influence that succeeds in time (and often in importance) to that constituted by the family circle, naturally draws to itself many of the emotions which had hitherto found their exclusive outlet in the family; loyalty and obedience to school traditions, together with respect, tenderness, pride and admiration for the school as a collective body replacing to some extent the corresponding feelings which had previously been experienced principally or solely in relation to the parents.

At a later age, these same feelings may be again displaced University on to a College or University; the term Alma Mater, so frequently applied to the latter, bearing witness to the extent to which a University is habitually endowed with maternal attributes—being regarded as a kindly mother (often of venerable age and experience) who imparts to her sons the learning and wisdom that she possesses, and generally equips them for the tasks and trials of life in the outer world.

Towns[147] may also become the recipients of parentally, and Town especially maternally, directed feeling; those who love and admire a town often referring to it in terms which would be more directly appropriate to a woman; a woman behind whom the mother image can usually be discovered. The emotions aroused by the besieging, attacking or capturing of towns in warfare are also in part derived from the same source.

The same feeling too is often directed to houses, ships, Other objects churches (and especially to the institution of the Church; cp. the phrase "Mother Church"); also to trees, woods, mountains, lakes, rivers, the sea and other natural objects.

Probably the most important displacement of this kind The attitude of the individual to the state: from the sociological point of view is that in which parental attributes are transferred to the community, state, or country. The mental ties that bind the individual to the community are of course complex in nature, comprising emotional and intellectual factors belonging to a variety of psychic levels. Among the most fundamental and deep seated of these factors are, as Ernest Jones[148] has pointed out, those that take their origin in feelings that regard the self, the mother and the father respectively.

The self-regarding tendencies are enlisted in the service Self-regarding tendencies of patriotism;—on the conscious, intellectual level, through a recognition of the community of interest between the individual and the state; on the more primitive, emotional and unconscious level, through a process of identification of the individual with the state, as a result of which the former participates in the successes and failures of the latter in much the same way as if they affected him directly and principally in his own person. In these latter respects the feelings of the individual towards the state are similar in many ways to those that are involved in a corresponding identification of the self with the family, the school or any other group with whose prosperity and honour the well-being and self-respect of the individual is bound up.

The displacement of the mother-regarding feelings on to Mother regarding tendencies state is, it would seem, chiefly connected with the ideas of being nourished, trained and protected, on the one hand, and of actively protecting, on the other. Thus we tend to regard our native land as a great mother who brings into being, nourishes, protects and cherishes her sons and daughters and inspires them with respect and love for herself and her traditions, customs, beliefs and institutions; in return for which her children are prepared to work and fight for her—and above all, to protect her from her enemies; a good deal of the horror and disgust which is inspired by the idea of an invasion of one's native land by a hostile army being due to the unconscious tendency to regard such an invasion as a desecration and violation of the mother.

In the displacement of the father-regarding feelings on to Father-regarding tendencies the state, the tendencies connected with the attitude of respect, obedience and loyalty to the paternal authority are usually the most prominent. Great importance is moreover almost invariably attached to the head of the state as its embodiment and its supreme authority, the country over which he rules being looked upon as his possession or estate, which it is the duty of his children to uphold, to protect or to enlarge. Kings, as we have already seen, are habitually identified in the Unconscious with the father, as are other persons in positions of authority, and it is interesting to note that the evidence of language and of certain common appellations applied to these persons fully endorses the conclusions of Psycho-Analysis in this respect. Thus, as Rank[149] and Jones[150], following Max Müller, have pointed out, the word king is ultimately derived from the Sanskrit root gan, meaning to beget, ganaka being Sanskrit for father. The Czar of Russia was until recently called the "Little Father," the same title as the Hunnish Attila (diminutive of Atta = father). The title "Landesvater" is commonly used in Germany just as the Americans still call Washington the Father of his Country. The ruler of the Roman Catholic Church is called the "Holy Father," or by his Latin name of "Papa[151]" (from the root pa to protect, nourish). Similarly, the word "queen" comes from the Sanskrit ganí, which means mother (Greek [Greek: gynê], Gothic quinô)[152] and a queen who has had children, is the mother of the reigning monarch or has merely attained to a certain age, is frequently spoken of as the "Queen Mother."