These two papers argue that the menstruation-complex is the nuclear part of the Oedipus-complex. The boy on first becoming aware of the smell of his mother, when menstruating, is intensely sexually excited; the knowledge of her bleeding then fills him with a double fear according to his stage of development. The one fear is of being eaten, the other is of being castrated. The jealousy, fear and hatred of his father is now directed against his mother as the object from which sexual temptation arises.

Phylogenetically, the father of the primal horde punished any attempt to copulate with his females by killing and devouring the offender. After the young males had killed the primal father, they fought to the death for the females in rut, until in order to prevent bloodshed, it was forbidden to