Personality difficulties in both men and women have as their common origin the persistent, too little gratified hungers for the parent's exclusive love and protection. The male's break with this old receptive attitude, necessarily sharper than the female's, must be re-enforced by rigid codes for him to attain quickly and completely the aggressive and independent position demanded by social pressure. Hence, we find greater frequency and severity of castration anxiety in men than of phallic attitudes in women. It is suggested that men's higher death and suicide rates and their higher incidence of alcoholism and crime may be related to the rigid social demands made upon them.