154 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 



been accustomed to the analysis of motive in various 

 branches of medicine, actually admitted that they had 

 felt the very emotions of sex jealousy I have indicated 

 as yet existing in modern society. Moreover, on consult- 

 ing a lady, herself no mean anthropologist, she declared 

 the phenomenon, whether understood or not, was known 

 to all women by experience or report, and that it was 

 not infrequently hinted at in private feminine conversa- 

 tion. The more observations I have made the more I 

 have been convinced that the facts are as stated, and it 

 was from the hypothesis that even now large numbers of 

 men, without any desire of possession apparent to them- 

 selves, are sexually jealous as to their female children, 

 that I deduced the same conclusion that Atkinson had 

 reached by the opposed but complementary hypothesis 

 of avoidance. It may here be remarked that the common 

 sex coldness between members of the same family is thus 

 not due to being brought up together, as commonly 

 supposed, but that it is the last result of the system of 

 avoidance become instinctive in boys and girls by long 

 ages of inheritance, in which the penalty of infraction of 

 parental law was death. Such a conclusion, it may be 

 remarked, is against the view that the young men sought 

 their wives at any time in the camp from which they 

 had been extruded. 



It should, however, be made quite clear that these 

 ancient surviving instincts are not so vocal or so clamour- 

 ous as to speak clearly in those who now retain them. 

 The most jealous parent of the kind may not have the 

 slightest notion of the reasons moving him. As far as 

 each successive suitor is concerned, it is to him a case of 

 " Dr. Fell," and there is an end of it. But many are 

 distinctly conscious of the facts, though such conscious- 



