222 TABOO AND GENETICS 



strong erotic nature requires a kind of sexual 

 relationship different from one whose interests 

 are predominantly in her children. And both 

 the sexual and maternal types require different 

 situations than the woman who combines the 

 two instincts in her own personality for a normal 

 expression of their emotional life. 



According to social tradition, sexual activity 

 (at least in the case of women) is to be exercised 

 primarily for the reproduction of the group. 

 Thus the institutions of marriage and the family 

 in their present form provide only for the 

 woman who possesses both the sexual and 

 maternal cravings. Contraceptive knowledge 

 has enabled a small number of women (which 

 is rapidly growing larger) to fit into these 

 institutions in spite of their lack of a desire 

 for motherhood. There have been a few hardy 

 theorists who have braved convention to the 

 extent of suggesting the dehberate adoption 

 of unmarried motherhood by women who are 

 consumed by the maternal passion but have 

 no strongly erotic nature. Whether their pro- 

 blem will be solved in this manner, only the 

 course of social evolution in the future can 

 show. 



Besides the differences in natural instinctive 

 tendencies which make it difficult for many 

 women to fit into a uniform type of sexual 

 relationship, modern society, with its less rigid 



