TABOO AND GENETICS 183 



comes into existence through the social 

 recognition of a relationship which is considered 

 especially dangerous and can only be recognized 

 by the performance of elaborate rites and 

 ceremonies. It is taboo for men and women 

 to have contact with each other. Contact may 

 occur only under ceremonial conditions, guarded 

 in turn by taboo, and therefore socially recog- 

 nized. The girl whose Hfe from puberty on has 

 been carefully guarded by taboos, passes through 

 the gateway of ceremonial into a new life, which 

 is quite as carefully guarded. These restrictions 

 and elaborate rituals which surround marriage 

 and family hfe may appropriately be termed 

 institutional taboos. They include the property 

 and division of labour taboos in the survival 

 forms already mentioned, as well as other 

 rehgious and social restrictions and prohibitions. 

 The foundations of family life go far back 

 of the changes of recent centuries. The family 

 has its source in the mating instinct, but this 

 instinct is combined with other individual 

 instincts and social relationships which become 

 highly elaborated in the course of social 

 evolution. The household becomes a com- 

 plex economic institution. While the processes 

 of change may have touched the surface of these 

 relations, the family itself has remained to the 

 present an institution established through 

 the social sanctions of communities more primi- 



