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Having no prior knowledge of Juliet Mitchell’s pioneering work on psychoanalysis and feminism, I set out to review her latest book, ‘Fratriarchy: the sibling trauma and the law of the mother’, with little more than a curiosity about the title. Just a few pages in, I became somewhat daunted by the task ahead of me. Even though there were times whilst reading this book that I felt that I was wading through theory thicker than treacle, I can promise that both the journey and destination offer many rewards. What emerges in Mitchell’s volume is a fascinating exploration of how the toddler’s experience of being usurped by the new baby (in reality or phantasy) is a rite of passage in early childhood that provides the structural foundation of lateral relationships within society.
Central to Mitchell’s theory is the concept of the ubiquitous foundational trauma, the ‘Law of the Mother’ (as opposed to the developmentally later Oedipal ‘Law of the Father’). The toddler is overwhelmed by the urge both to love the new baby sibling to the point of assimilation (incest) and to exterminate it (murder). Under this Law, the mother prohibits the toddler against murder and incest with a new sibling through threats of abandonment if her Law is not adhered to. The ‘Law of the Father’ lies on the vertical axis between generations, whereas in the ‘Law of the Mother’:
‘do not bite the breast’ - moves to the horizontal family where a new requirement - ‘do not bite your sister or brother who is my new baby’ morphs into what will become a dramatic prohibition. The mother’s vertical family authority, her rules and regulations and her lateral social prohibitions are all enjoyed under her all-prevalent task of introducing reality. In psychoanalytic thinking, because inducing reality is the providence of the mother, the importance of reality was, for a long time, missed … the mother’s crucial role … was, and is, omitted. (p. 43)