y
one.

PART II

THE INSTITUTIONALIZED SEX TABOO

BY

IVA LOWTHER PETERS, PH.D.

CHAPTER I

THE PRIMITIVE ATTITUDE TOWARD SEX AND WOMANHOOD

Primitive social control; Its rigidity; Its necessity; Universality of
this control in the form of taboos; Connection between the universal
attitude of primitive peoples towards woman as shown in the
Institutionalized Sex Taboo and the magic-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.

A study of the elaborate, standardized, and authoritative systems of
social control found among all primitive peoples gives a vivid
impression of the difficulty of the task of compelling man to die to
himself, that is, to become a socius. The rigors and rituals of
initiation ceremonies at adolescence impressed the duties of sociality
at that impressionable period. The individual who refused to bow his
head to the social yoke became a vagabond, an outcast, an excommunicate.
In view of the fierceness of the struggle for food and the attitude
toward the stranger among all primitives, the outcast's life chances
were unenviable. It was preferable to adapt one's self to the social
order. "Bad" traits were the more easily suppressed in return for the
re-enforcement of power which was the striking feature of group life;
power over enemies, power over nature, and a re-enforcement of the
emotional life of the individual which became the basis on which were
built up the magico-religious ceremonies of institutionalized religion.

It is the purpose of this study to consider a phase of so