You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
The anthropological insights of Géza Róheim are acknowledged by Stephens. But it is questionable whether the author's attentuated freudianism is preferable to antifreudianism. The general hypothesis, or series of hypotheses, is: 'Young boys—at least under optimal conditions—become sexually attracted to their mothers. This generates lasting sexual fears and avoidances. These fears are (at least in one instance) mediated by unconscious fantasies.' It should be noted that 'optimal conditions' are equated with those 'factors that make the mother more seductive—primarily the long postpartum sex taboo'; whereas 'in one instance' refers to the manifestations of castration anxiety reflected in menstrual taboos.
This investigation of the Oedipus complex is documented by correlational evidence from numerous primitive cultures. In Stephens' words, 'The probability is high that this hypothesis … is approximately valid'. The author's definition of the Oedipus complex 'has a very limited meaning—limited by what can be tested and measured here, and what can't be'. Unfortunately, he does not concern himself with the rivalry felt by the son toward the father, nor with the female Oedipus complex, nor with those negative aspects of the Oedipus complex by which the child (or adult) identifies himself with the parent of the opposite sex.