i66 TABOO AND GENETICS 



was in 1736, when one Jane Wenham was found 

 guilty of conversing familiarly with the devil 

 in the form of a cat. (33.) 



The connection between the witchcraft delu- 

 sion and the attitude toward all women has 

 already been implied. (34.) The dualistic 

 teaching of the early church fathers, with its 

 severance of matter and spirit and its insistence 

 on the ascetic ideal of life, had focussed on 

 sexuality as the outstanding manifestation of 

 fleshly desires. The contact of the sexes came 

 to be looked upon as the supreme sin. Celibacy 

 taught that through the observance of the taboo 

 on woman the man of God was to be saved from 

 pollution. Woman was the arch temptress who 

 by the natural forces of sex attraction, rein- 

 forced by her evil charms and incantations, 

 made it so difficult to attain the celibate ideal. 

 From her ancestress Eve woman was believed 

 to inherit the natural propensity to lure man 

 to his undoing. Thus the old belief in the un- 

 cleanness of woman was renewed in the minds 

 of men with even greater intensity than ever 

 before, and in addition to a dangerous adven- 

 ture, even within the sanction of wedlock the 

 sex act became a deed of shame. The following 

 quotations from the church fathers will illustrate 

 this view : 



Jerome said, " Marriage is always a vice ; all 

 we can do is to excuse and cleanse it. . . . In 



