Investigating the origins of
the prohibition of incest, and arguing that it proceeds from the custom of
exogamy (or marriage outside the clan), and that this rests on certain
ideas about blood, which, again, are traceable to totemism,--a theory
which we need not here discuss,--Durkheim is brought face to face with the
group of conceptions that now concern us. He insists on the extreme
ambiguity found in primitive culture concerning the notion of the divine,
and the close connection between aversion and veneration, and points out
that it is not only at puberty and each recurrence of the menstrual epoch
that women have aroused these emotions, but also at childbirth. "A
sentiment of religious horror," he continues, "which can reach such a
degree of intensity, which can be called forth by so many circumstances,
and reappears regularly every month to last for a week at least, cannot
fail to extend its influence beyond the periods to which it was originally
confined, and to affect the whole course of life. A being who must be
secluded or avoided for weeks, months, or years preserves something of the
characteristics to which the isolation was due, even outside those special
periods. And, in fact, in these communities, the separation of the sexes
is not merely intermittent; it has become chronic. The two elements of the
population live separately." Durkheim proceeds to argue that the origin of
the occult powers attributed to the feminine organism is to be found in
primitive ideas concerning blood.
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