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Traversing the same ground as Freud and the psycho-analysts, I have yet tried to keep clear of the subject of sex, partly in order to emphasize the sociological aspect in my account, partly in order to avoid moot theoretical distinctions as to the nature of mother-and-child attachment or the ‘libido’. But at this stage, as the children begin to play independently and develop an interest in the surrounding work and people, sexuality makes its first appearance in forms accessible to outside sociological observation and directly affecting family life.^[1] A careful observer of European children, and one who has not forgotten his own childhood, has to recognize that at an early age, say, between three and four, there arises in them a special sort of interest and curiosity. Besides the world of lawful, normal and ‘nice’ things, there opens up a world of shame-faced desires, clandestine interests and subterranean impulses. The two categories of things, ‘decent’ and ‘indecent’, ‘pure’ and ‘impure’, begin to crystallize, categories destined to remain throughout life. In some people the ‘indecent’ becomes completely suppressed, and the right values of decency become hypertrophied into the virulent virtue of the puritan, or the still more repulsive hypocrisy of the conventionally moral. Or the ‘decent’ is altogether smothered through glut in pornographic satisfaction, and the other category develops into a complete pruriency of mind, not less repulsive than hypocritical ‘virtue’ itself.

In the second stage of childhood which we are now considering, that is according to my scheme from an age of about four to six years, the ‘indecent’ centres round interests in excretory functions, exhibitionism and games with indecent exposure, often associated with cruelty. It hardly differentiates between the sexes, and is little interested in the act of reproduction. Anyone who has lived for a long time among peasants and knows intimately their childhood will recognize that this state of affairs exists as a thing normal, though not open. Among the working classes things seem to be similar.^[2] Among the higher classes ‘indecencies’ are much more suppressed, but not very different. Observations in these social strata, which would be more difficult than among peasants, should, however, be urgently carried out for pedagogical, moral and eugenic reasons, and suitable methods of research devised. The results would, I think, confirm to an extraordinary degree some of the assertions of Freud and his school.^[3]

How does the newly awakened infantile sexuality or infantile indecency influence the relation to the family? In the division between things ‘decent’ and ‘indecent’, the parents, and especially the mother, are included wholly within the first category, and remain in the child’s mind absolutely untouched by the ‘indecent.’ The feeling that the mother might be aware of any prurient infantile play is extremely distasteful to the child, and there is a strong disinclination to allude in her presence or to speak with her about any sexual matters. The father, who is also kept strictly outside the ‘indecent’ category, is, moreover, regarded as the moral authority whom these thoughts and pastimes would offend. For the ‘indecent’ always carries with it a sense of guilt.^[4]

Freud and the psycho-analytic school have laid great stress on the sexual rivalry between mother and daughter, father and son respectively. My own opinion is that the rivalry between mother and daughter does not begin at this early stage. At any rate, I have never observed any traces of it. The relations between father and son are more complex. Although, as I have said, the little boy has no thoughts, desires or impulses towards his mother which he himself would feel belong to the category of the ‘indecent’, there can be no doubt that a young organism reacts sexually to close bodily contact with the mother.^[5] A well-known piece of advice given by old gossips to young mothers in peasant communities is to the effect that boys above the age of three should sleep separately from the mother. The occurrence of infantile erections is well known in these communities, as is also the fact that the boy clings to the mother in a different way from the girl. That the father and the young male child have a component of sexual rivalry under such conditions seems probable, even to an outside sociological observer. The psycho-analysts maintain it categorically. Among the wealthier classes crude conflicts arise more seldom, if ever, but they arise in imagination and in a more refined though perhaps not less insidious form.

It must be noted that at this stage when the child begins to show a different character and temperament according to sex, the parents’ feelings are differentiated between sons and daughters. The father sees in the son his successor, the one who is to replace him in the family lineage and in the household. He becomes therefore all the more critical, and this influences his feelings in two directions: if the boy shows signs of mental or physical deficiency, if he is not up to the type of the ideal in which the father believes, he will be a source of bitter disappointment and hostility. On the other hand, even at this stage, a certain amount of rivalry, the resentment of future super-session, and the melancholy of the waning generation lead again to hostility. Repressed in both cases, this hostility hardens the father against the son and provokes by reaction a response in hostile feelings. The mother, on the other hand, has no grounds for negative sentiments, and has an additional admiration for the son as a man to be. The father’s feeling towards the daughter—a repetition of himself in a feminine form—hardly fails to evoke a tender emotion, and perhaps also to flatter his vanity. Thus social factors mix with biological and make the father cling more tenderly to the daughter than to the son, while with the mother it is the reverse. But it must be noted that an attraction to the offspring of the other sex, because it is of the other sex, is not necessarily sexual attraction.

In Melanesia, we find an altogether different type of sexual development in the child. That the biological impulses do not essentially differ, seems beyond doubt. But I have failed to find any traces of what could be called infantile indecencies, or of a subterranean world in which children indulge in clandestine pastimes centring round excretory functions or exhibitionism. The subject naturally presents certain difficulties of observation, for it is hard to enter into any personal communication with a savage child, and if there were a world of indecent things as amongst ourselves, it would be as futile to inquire about it from an average grown-up native as from a conventional mother, father, or nurse in our society. But there is one circumstance which makes matters so entirely different among these natives that there is no danger of making a mistake: this is that with them there is no repression, no censure, no moral reprobation of infantile sexuality of the genital type when it comes to light at a somewhat later stage than the one we are now considering—at about the age of five or six. So if there were any earlier indecency, this could be as easily observed as the later genital stage of sexual plays.

How can we then explain why among savages there is no period of what Freud calls ‘pre-genital’, ‘anal-erotic’ interest? We shall be able to understand this better when we discuss the sexuality of the next stage in the child’s development, a sexuality in which native Melanesian children differ essentially from our own.

[1]

The reader who is interested in infantile sexuality and child psychology should also consult A. Moll, Das Sexualleben des Kindes (1908); Havelock Ellis’s Studies in the Psychology of Sex (1919 ed., pp. 13 seqq., also vol. i, 1910 ed., pp. 36 seqq. and 235 seqq. and passim). The books of Ploss-Renz, Das Kind in Brauch und Sitte der Völker (Leipzig, 1911-12); Charlotte Bühler, Das Seelenleben des Jugendlichen (1925); and the works of William Stern on Child Psychology are also important.

[2]	That conscientious sociologist, Zola, has provided us with rich material on the subject, entirely in agreement with my own observations.

[3]

Freud’s contentions of the normal occurrence of premature sexuality, of little differentiation between the sexes, of anal-eroticism and absence of genital interest are, according to my observations, correct. In a recent article (Zeitschrift für Psycho-Analyse, 1923), Freud has somewhat modified his previous view, and affirms, without giving arguments, that children at this stage have, after all, already a ‘genital’ interest. With this I cannot agree.

[4]

The attitude of the modern man and woman is rapidly changing. At present we studiously ‘enlighten’ our children, and keep ‘sex’ neatly prepared for them. In the first place, however, we must remember that we are dealing here with a minority even among the British and American “intelligentsia”. In the second place, I am not at all certain whether the bashfulness and awkward attitude of children towards their parents in matters of sex will be to any great extent overcome by this method of treatment. There seems to exist a general tendency even among adults to eliminate the dramatic, upsetting, and mysterious emotional elements out of any stable relationship based on every-day intercourse. Even among the essentially ‘unrepressed’ Trobrianders the parent is never the confidant in matters of sex. It is remarkable how much easier it is to make any delicate or shameful confession to those friends and acquaintances who are not too intimately connected with our daily life.

[5]

Since this was first written in 1921, I have changed my views on this subject. The statement that ‘a young organism reacts sexually to close bodily contact with the mother’ appears to me now absurd. I am glad I may use this strong word, having written the absurd statement myself. I have set forth what appears to me the adequate analysis of this phase in infantile psychology later on, Part IV, Chapter IX.