TABOO AND GENETICS 249 



freedom of women and the constant association 

 of the sexes in the educational and business 

 world as well as in the social life. This free 

 companionship of men and women has done 

 much to destroy the illusions about each other 

 which were formerly supposed to be so necessary 

 a component of romantic love, but it has also 

 created the basis for a broader sympathy and a 

 deeper comradeship which is easily carried over 

 into the married relation. 



The new ideal of love which is being thus 

 developed combines complete understanding and 

 frankness with erotic attraction and the tender- 

 ness of romanticism. It implies a type of marital 

 relationship in which there is preservation of 

 the personality and at the same time a harmony 

 and union of interests that was often absent 

 from the old-fashioned marriage, when the wife 

 was supposed to be more limited in her interests 

 than her husband. It may well be that the 

 evolution of this new ideal of love, which grants 

 personal autonomy even within the marriage 

 bond, will solve a great deal of the present con- 

 flict between the individualistic impulses and the 

 exercise of the erotic functions as permitted 

 by the group. 



It is, of course, an open question as to how 

 far the interests of the individual and the group 

 can be made to coincide. Group survival 

 demands that the most vital and intelligent 



