There are certain psychological and physiological reasons for the persistence of this dualistic attitude in the very nature of the sex act itself.  Until the climax of the sexual erethism, woman is for man the acme of supreme desire; but with detumescence the emotions tend to swing to the opposite pole, and excitement and longing are forgotten in the mood of repugnance and exhaustion.  This tendency would be very much emphasized in those primitive tribes where the corroboree with its unlimited indulgence was common, and also among the ancients with their orgiastic festivals.  In the revulsion of feeling following these orgies woman would be blamed for man’s own folly.  In this physiological swing from desire to satiety, the apparent cause of man’s weakness would be looked upon as the source of the evil—­a thing unclean.  There would be none of the ethical and altruistic element of modern “love” to protect her.  Students agree that these elements in the modern sentiment have been evolved, “not from the sexual instinct, but from the companionship of the battlefield."[56] It is therefore probable that in this physiological result of uncontrolled sex passion we shall find the source of the dualism of the attitude toward sex and womanhood present in taboo.

BIBLIOGRAPHY FOR CHAPTER I

1.  Crawley, A.E.  The Mystic Rose. 492 pp.  Macmillan.  London, 1902.

2.  Jevons, F.B.  History of Religion. 443 pp.  Methuen & Co.  London, 1896.

3.  Tylor, E.B.  Early History of Mankind, 3d. ed. 388 pp.  J. Murray.  London, 1878.

4.  Frazer, J.G.  The Golden Bough:  Part I, The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings. 2 vols.  Macmillan.  London, 1911.

5.  First published in Anthropological Essays presented to E.B.  Tylor in honour of his 75th birthday.  Oct. 2, 1907. 416 pp.  The Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1907.

6.  Sumner, W.G.  Folkways. 692 pp.  Ginn & Co.  Boston, 1907.

7.  Boas, Franz.  The Mind of Primitive Man. 294 pp.  Macmillan.  N.Y., 1911.

8.  Wallace, Alfred Russel.  Narrative of Travels on the Amazon and Rio Negro. 541 pp.  Reeve & Co., London, 1853.

9.  Williams, Thomas, and Calvert, James.  Fiji and the Fijians. 551 pp.  Appleton.  N.Y., 1859.

10.  Ploss, Dr Hermann H. Das Weib. 2 vols.  Th.  Grieben’s Verlag.  Leipzig, 1885.

11.  Greiger, Ostiranische Kultur.  Erlangen, 1882.  Quoted from Folkways [6], p. 513.

12.  Robertson Smith, W. Religion of the Semites. 508 pp.  A. & C. Black.  Edinburgh, 1894.

13.  Thompson, R.C.  Semitic Magic. 286 pp.  Luzac & Co.  London, 1908.

14.  Ellis, A.B.  Tshi-speaking Peoples of the Gold Coast of West Africa. 343 pp.  Chapman & Hall.  London, 1887.

15.  Powers, Stephen.  Tribes of California.  Contributions to North American Ethnology, Third Volume.  Washington, 1877.

16.  Morice, Rev. Father A.G.  The Canadian Denes.  Annual Archeological Report, 1905.  Toronto, 1906.  Quoted from Frazer, Taboo and the Perils of the Soul.