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Seidenberg states in the Foreword that he writes in the spirit of science and attempts to label frankly some of the social issues and forces of mating and other human affinities. Nine of the fifteen chapters have appeared elsewhere in various journals. There is some repetition and unevenness, but basically the book is well written by an analyst who admires the novelist's skill. In essence, Seidenberg
offers some interesting vignettes blending comments from his practice and from belles-lettres. He does not attempt an over-all analytic or sociological view of the developmental stage of marriage. Seidenberg feels that man has yet to gain the maturity to live more happily and effectively in the marital state. At each step of psychosexual development, the psyche has a new chance for further integration and growth, as well as for chaos and regression. The material presented in this book highlights pathology and an inability to master the task of marriage.
A weakness of the book, as I see it, is that Seidenberg presents a polemic, but with humor, of what he believes to be the degraded and exploited state of women. He writes as if he were a member of the Women's Liberation Movement. 'The inequalities in what is advertised as the ecstasy of love lead not only to the degradation of the victim, but to the inevitable corruption of character of the dominant male who gains ascendancy and power through inheritance and custom, rather than earned worthiness. This corruption erodes morality in the same manner that white racism has corrupted Caucasians.' Seidenberg gives credit to Freud for his basic contributions, but he feels that analysts, at least 'mainstream analysts' as he says, are antifeminine. He does not make it clear, or seem to appreciate, that analysts, as well as analytic theory, do not view the female as inferior, but as different. Castrated or not castrated is the way the child at the phallic phase views the sexes. At the resolution of adolescence, a cle