Paul assesses Bruno Bettelheim's contribution to anthropology by discussing his study of the Israeli kibbutz, Children of the Dream. He thinks the book will probably never be regarded favorably by anthropologists because of Bettelheim's misunderstanding of Spiro's book on the same subject. However, Paul focuses mainly on

Symbolic Wounds, arguing that more recent research in Melanesia and in Amazonian Brazil strongly supports Bettelheim's proposition that men mimic menstruation and envy the procreative powers of women. The author concludes that Bettelheim's position enhances rather than replaces either Freud's, or Burton and Whiting's, explanations of genital mutilation in the context of male initiation rites at puberty.