Abstract
BETTELHEIM’S UNMASKING OF MALE’S WOMB ENVY is as fundamentally profound to our society as Freud’s presentation of female penis envy. Yet Bettelheim’s discovery has met with resounding silence in our psychoanalytic community, and a few tut-tuts or titters in the anthropological community. Paul sets the intellectual record straight by demonstrating that the ethnographic data following Bettelheim’s book confirms it—a rare opportunity in the social sciences.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Allen, M. (1967). Male Cults and Secret Initiations in Melanesia. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press.
Allen, M. (1984). Homosexuality, male power, and political organization in North Vanuatu: A comparative analysis. In G. H. Herdt (ed.), Ritualized Homosexuality in Melanesia. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Beidelman, T. O. (1966). The ox and Nuer sacrifice: Some Freudian hypotheses about Nuer symbolism. Man NS1:453–467.
Bettelheim, B. (1954/1968). Symbolic Wounds: Puberty Rites and the Envious Male. New York: Collier Books.
Bettelheim, B. (1974). A Home for the Heart. New York: Knopf.
Brenner, C. (1982). The Mind in Conflict. New York: International Universities Press.
Burton, R. V, and Whiting, J. W. M. (1961). The absent father and cross-sex identity. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly of Behavior and Development 7:85–95.
Douglas, M. (1966). Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo. New York: Praeger.
Dundes, A. (1976). A psychoanalytic study of the bullroarer. Man NS 11:220–238.
Fried, M. N., and Fried, M. H. (1980). Transitions: Four Rituals in Eight Cultures. New York: Norton.
Freud, S. (1926/1959). Inhibitions, Symptoms and Anxiety. New York: Norton.
Gregor, T. (1985). Anxious Pleasures: The Sexual Lives of an Amazonian People. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Herdt, G. H. (1981). Guardians of the Flutes: Idioms of Masculinity. A Study of Ritualized Homosexual Behavior. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Herdt, G. (1987). Transitional objects in Sambia initiation. Ethos 15:40–57.
Hugh-Jones, S. (1979). The Palm and the Pleiades: Initiation and Cosmology in Northwest Amazonia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
LaFontaine, J. S. (1986). Initiation: Ritual Drama and Secret Knowledge Across the World. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Lidz, R. W. and Lidz, T. (1977). Male menstruation: A ritual alternative to the oedipal transition. The International Journal of Psychoanalysis 58:17–31.
Newman, P. L., and Boyd, D. J. (1982). The making of men: Ritual and meaning in Awa male initiation. In G. H. Herdt (ed.), Rituals of Manhood: Male Initiation in Papua New Guinea. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Paul, R. A. (1976). Did the primal crime take place? Ethos 4:311–352.
Paige, K. E. and Paige, J. M. (1981). The Politics of Reproductive Ritual. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Reik, T. (1946/1964). The puberty rites of savages. In Ritual: Four Psychoanalytic Studies. New York: Grove Press.
Robertson Smith, W. (1889/1972). The Religion of the Semites: The Fundamental Institutions. New York: Schocken Books.
Schafer, R. (1960). The loving and beloved superego in Freud’s structural theory. The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child 15:163–188.
Singer, P. and Desole, D. E. (1967). The Australian subincision ceremony reconsidered: Vaginal envy or kangaroo bifid penis envy. American Anthropologist 69:355–358.
Turner, V. (1967). The Forest of Symbols. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Walter, M. A. H. B. (1988). The fetal and natal origins of circumcision and other rebirth symbols. In G.N. Appell and T.N. Madan (eds.), Choice and Morality in Anthropological Perspective,pp. 213–237. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
Whiting, J. W. M., Kluckhohn, R., and Anthony, A. (1958). The function of male initiation ceremonies at puberty. In E. Maccoby, T. M. Newcomb, and E. L. Hartley (eds.), Readings in Social Psychology,pp. 359–370. New York: Henry Holt.
Young, E. W. (1962). The function of male initiation ceremonies: A cross-cultural test of an alternative hypothesis. American Journal of Sociology 67:379–391.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1992 Springer Science+Business Media New York
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Paul, R.A. (1992). Bettelheim’s Contribution to Anthropology. In: Szajnberg, N.M. (eds) Educating the Emotions. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-3316-0_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-3316-0_6
Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA
Print ISBN: 978-1-4613-6460-3
Online ISBN: 978-1-4615-3316-0
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive