HORROR OF INCEST
A young man does not fall in love with his sister though she be the
most attractive girl he knows. Nor does her father fall in love with
her, nor the mother with the son, or the son with the mother. Not only
is there no sexual love between them, but the very idea of marriage
fills their mind with unutterable horror, and in the occasional cases
where such a marriage is made through ignorance of the relationship,
both parties usually commit suicide, though they are guiltless of
deliberate crime. Here we have the most striking and absolute proof
that circumstances, habits, ideas, laws, customs, can and do utterly
annihilate sexual love in millions of individuals. Why then should it
be so unlikely that the laws and customs of the ancient Greeks, for
instance, with their ideas about women and marriage, should have
prevented the growth of sentimental love? Note the modesty of my
claim. While it is certain that both the sensual and the sentimental
sides of sexual love are stifled by the horror of incest, all that I
claim in regard to ancient and primitive races is that the sentimental
side of love was smothered by unfavorable circumstances and hindered
in growth by various obstacles which will be described later on in
this volume. Surely this is not such a reckless theory as it seemed to
some of my critics.
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