Taboo and Genetics - A Study of the Biological, Sociological and Psychological Foundation of the Family

Phyllis Maryknight Blanchard, Phyllis Mary Blanchard, Melvin Moses Knight, Iva Lowther Peters

Informations

• Publié par: volud
• Publié le: 08 décembre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 69
• Langue: English

Extrait

The Project Gutenberg eBook, Taboo and Genetics, by Melvin Moses Knight, Iva Lowther Peters, and Phyllis Mary Blanchard This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net Title: Taboo and Genetics Author: Melvin Moses Knight, Iva Lowther Peters, and Phyllis Mary Blanchard Release Date: December 11, 2004 [eBook #14325] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 ***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TABOO AND GENETICS*** E-text prepared by Michael Ciesielski, Dave Macfarlane, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team Transcriber's Note: The irregular footnote markers in this text [numbers] refer to the reference book the author used, and not always to the specific page numbers. These reference books are listed numerically at the end of each chapter. The footnotes are marked with [letters] and the referenced footnotes are contained within the text, near to the footnote marker. Therefore, occasionally the numerical footnote markers are out of sequence. TABOO AND GENETICS A STUDY OF THE BIOLOGICAL SOCIOLOGICAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL FOUNDATION OF THE FAMILY BY M. M. KNIGHT, PH.D. IVA LOWTHER PETERS, PH.D. PHYLLIS BLANCHARD, PH.D. Author of The Adolescent Girl London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., Ltd. New York: Moffat, Yard & Co. 1921 DEDICATED TO OUR FRIEND AND TEACHER, FRANK HAMILTON HANKINS PREFACE Scientific discovery, especially in biology, during the past two decades has made necessary an entire restatement of the sociological problem of sex. Ward's so-called "gynæcocentric" theory, as sketched in Chapter 14 of his Pure Sociology , has been almost a bible on the sex problem to sociologists, in spite of the fact that modern laboratory experimentation has disproved it in almost every detail. While a comparatively small number of people read this theory from the original source, it is still being scattered far and wide in the form of quotations, paraphrases, and interpretations by more popular writers. It is therefore necessary to gather together the biological data which are available from technical experimentation and medical research, in order that its social implications may be utilized to show the obsoleteness of this older and unscientific statement of the sex problem in society. In order to have a thoroughly comprehensive survey of the institutions connected with sexual relationships and the family and their entire significance for human life, it is also necessary to approach them from the ethnological and psychological points of view. The influence of the primitive sex taboos on the evolution of the social mores and family life has received too little attention in the whole literature of sexual ethics and the sociology of sex. That these old customs have had an inestimable influence upon the members of the group, modern psychology has recently come to recognize. It therefore seems advantageous to include these psychological findings in the same book with the discussion of the sex taboos and other material with which it must so largely deal. These fields—biology, ethnology, and psychology—are so complicated and so far apart technically, although their social implications are so closely interwoven, that it has seemed best to divide the treatment between three different writers, each of whom has devoted much study to his special phase of the subject. This leads to a very simple arrangement of the material. The first part deals with the physical or biological basis of the sex problem, which all societies from the most primitive to the most advanced have had and still have to build upon. The second part deals with the various ideas man has developed in his quest for a satisfactory adaptation of this physical basis to his own requirements. Part three attempts to analyze the effect of this long history of social experimentation upon the human psyche in its modern social milieu. In the social evolution of the human mind, the deepest desires of the individual have been often necessarily sacrificed to the needs of the group. Sometimes they have been unnecessarily sacrificed, since human intelligence is, unfortunately, not omniscient. Nevertheless, the sum total of human knowledge has now become great enough so that it is at least well to pause and take account of its bearing on the age-old problem of family life, in order that our evolution henceforth may be guarded by rational control rather than trial and error in so far as is possible. Such a summarization of our actual knowledge of the biology, sociology and psychology of the foundations of the family institution this book aims to present, and if it can at the same time suggest a starting point for a more rationalized system of social control in this field, its purpose will have been accomplished. THE AUTHORS. CONTENTS PART I BY M. M. KNIGHT, PH.D. THE NEW BIOLOGY AND THE SEX PROBLEM IN SOCIETY I. THE PROBLEM DEFINED What is sex? A sexual and mixed reproduction. Origin of sexual reproduction. Advantage of sex in chance of survival. Germ and body cells. Limitations of biology in social problems. Sex always present in higher animals. Sex in mammals—the problem in the human species. Application of the laboratory method. II. SEX IN TERMS OF INTERNAL SECRETIONS Continuity of germ plasm. The sex chromosome. The internal secretions and the sex complex. The male and the female type of body. How removal of sex glands affects body type. Sex determination. Share of the egg and sperm in inheritance. The nature of sex—sexual selection of little importance. The four main types of secretory systems. Sex and sex instincts of rats modified by surgery. Dual basis for sex. Opposite sex basis in every individual. The FreeMartin cattle. Partial reversal of sex in human species. III. SEX AND SEX DIFFERENCES AS QUANTITATIVE Intersexes in moths. Bird intersexes. Higher metabolism of males. Quantitative difference between sex factors. Old ideas of intersexuality. Modern surgery and human intersexes. Quantitative theory a Mendelian explanation. Peculiar complication in the case of man. Chemical life-cycles of the sexes. Functionalreproductive period and the sex problem. Relative significance of physiological sex differences. IV. SEX SPECIALIZATION AND GROUP SURVIVAL Adaptation and specialization. Reproduction a group—not an individual problem. Conflict between specialization and adaptation. Intelligence makes for economy in adjustment to environment. Reproduction, not production, the chief factor in the sex problem. V. RACIAL DEGENERATION AND RATIONALIZATION OF THE MORES THE NECESSITY FOR Racial decay in modern society. Purely "moral" control dysgenic in civilized society. New machinery for social control. Mistaken notion that reproduction is an individual problem. Economic and other factors in the group problem of reproduction. PART II BY IVA LOWTHER PETERS, PH.D. THE INSTITUTIONALIZED SEX TABOO I. THE PRIMITIVE ATTITUDE TOWARD SEX AND WOMANHOOD Primitive social control. Its rigidity. Its necessity. The universality of this control in the form of taboos. Connection between the universal attitude of primitive peoples toward woman as shown in the Institutionalized Sex Taboo and the magico-religious belief in Mana. Relation of Mana to Taboo. Discussion of Sympathetic Magic and the associated idea of danger from contact. Difficulties in the way of an inclusive definition of Taboo. Its dual nature. Comparison of concepts of Crawley, Frazer, Marett, and others. Conclusion that Taboo is Negative Mana. Contribution of modern psychology to the study of Taboo. Freud's analogy between the dualistic attitude toward the tabooed object and the ambivalence of the emotions. The understanding of this dualism together with the primitive belief in Mana and Sympathetic Magic explains much in the attitude of man toward woman. The vast amount of evidence in the taboos of many peoples of dualism in the attitude toward woman. Possible physiological explanation of this dualistic attitude of man toward woman found in a period before self-control had in some measure replaced social control, in the reaction of weakness and disgust following sex festivals. II. FROM THE DAWN OF HISTORY: WOMAN AS SAINT AND WITCH Taboos of first chapter indicate that in the early ages the fear of contamination by woman predominated. Later emphasis fell on her mystic and uncanny power. Ancient fertility cults. Temple prostitution, dedication of virgins, etc. Ancient priestesses and prophetesses. Medicine early developed by woman added to belief in her power. Woman's psychic quality of intuition: its origin —theories—conclusion that this quality is probably physiological in origin, but aggravated by taboo repressions. Transformation in attitude toward woman in the early Christian period. Psychological reasons for the persistence in religion of a Mother Goddess. Development of the Christian concept. Preservation of ancient woman cults as demonology. Early Christian attitude toward woman as unclean and in league with demons. Culmination of belief in demonic power of woman in witchcraft persecutions. All women affected by the belief in witches and in the uncleanness of woman. Gradual development on the basis of the beliefs outlined of an ideally pure and immaculate Model Woman. III. THE DUALISM IN MODERN LIFE: THE INSTITUTIONAL TABOO The Taboo and modern institutions. Survival of ideas of the uncleanness of woman. Taboo and the family. The "good" woman. The "bad" woman. Increase in the number of women who do not fit into the ancient classifications. IV. DYSGENIC INFLUENCES OF THE INSTITUTIONAL TABOO Taboo survivals act dysgenically within the family under present conditions. Conventional education of girls a dysgenic influence. Prostitution and the family. Influence of ancient standards of