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Oedipus and castration determined inhibitions of sexual capacity are exhibited in varying degrees by men and women alike. Frigidity, the
feminine counterpart of impotence, appears to depend largely upon dread of masochistic tendencies. Maternal and sexual capacity do not always go together: under certain conditions they may be incompatible. The splitting of libido, described by Freud, which leads in the male to two-fold object choice (tender, and degraded 'prostitute' mother) has its parallel in feminine psychology with the difference that, in the woman, it is the ego and not the object which is divided. The ego is torn between rival urges, to be 'motherly' or to be erotic. The two extremes are personified by Balzac in Deux Femmes, in which both characters at times reveal the latent urges openly exhibited by the other.
Maternal feeling will come to the fore to the exclusion of sexuality: (1) where strong pre-Oedipal fixation to the mother gives a homosexual direction to the libido which tends to render the 'father' negligible; (2) where masochistic libidinal tendencies are so fully satisfied in maternity (mater dolorosa) that sexual gratification recedes into the background; and (3) where phantasies of 'parthenogenesis' dominate the unconscious. Parthenogenetic theories evade the incestuous guilt associated with intercourse but are also a protection against masochism. Motherliness in such instances often takes a displaced form, not involving physical motherhood. The case-history of a professional midwife is given to illustrate this point. Miguel de Unamuno's Gante Tula is an excellent portrayal of another variant of this type.