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14 May 1912, Vienna, IX. Berggasse 19
Dear friend,
It will surely come as no surprise to you that your conception of incest is still unclear to me. Sometimes I have the impression that it is not far removed from what we have thought up to now, but this can only be clarified by a more detailed discussion. As for your arguments, I have three observations to make; they are not refutations but should be taken merely as expressions of doubt.
Many authors regard a primordial state of promiscuity as highly unlikely. I myself, in all modesty, favour a different hypothesis in regard to the primordial period—Darwin's.1
Mother right2 should not be confused with gynaecocracy. There is little to be said for the latter. Mother right is perfectly compatible with the polygamous abasement of woman.
It seems likely that there have been father's sons at all times. A father is one who possesses a mother sexually (and the children as property). The fact of having been engendered by a father has, after all, no psychological significance for a child.
But I am writing today for another reason. None of the recent critiques has made more impression than Kronfeld's3 (on me, I am sorry to say, none).
One of our members, Gaston Rosenstein—good mind, mathematician by profession, philosopher, etc.—has now taken the trouble to refute this shamelessly prejudiced paper in detail.4 A good deal of his counter-critique strikes me as excellent; other things in it are of course no more intelligible to me than Kronfeld's attack, because I do not