TABOO AND GENETICS 221 



formity, however ; a great many sexual activi- 

 ties are tolerated in the male that would be 

 unsparingly condemned in the female. Thus 

 the sex problem becomes in large measure a 

 woman's problem, not only because of her 

 peculiar biological specialization for reproduc- 

 tion, which involves an enormous responsibility 

 but also because her life has for so many genera- 

 tions been hedged in by rigid institutionalized 

 taboos and prohibitions. 



The traditional conception of marriage and 

 the family relation implies that all women are 

 adapted to as well as specialized for mother- 

 hood. In reaUty, if the biological evidence of 

 intersexuality be as conclusive as now appears, 

 there are many women who by their very 

 nature are much better adapted to the activities 

 customarily considered as pre-eminently mascu- 

 line, although they are still specialized for 

 childbearing. There is no statistical evidence 

 of any high correlation between the sexual and 

 maternal impulses. Indeed, a great many traits 

 of human behaviour seem to justify the inference 

 that these two tendencies may often be entirely 

 dissociated in the individual life. Dr Blair 

 Bell (as noted in Part I, Chapter III) believes 

 that it is possible to differentiate women possess- 

 ing a maternal impulse from those lacking such 

 tendencies by the very anatomical structure. 

 It is obvious that a woman endowed with a 



