illustrate the almost universal fact that even under the sanction of
marriage the sexual embrace was taboo at certain times, as for example
before the hunt or battle.

We are now prepared to admit that throughout the ages there has existed
a strongly dualistic or "ambivalent" feeling in the mind of man toward
woman. On the one hand she is the object of erotic desire; on the other
hand she is the source of evil and danger. So firmly is the latter
feeling fixed that not even the sanction of the marriage ceremony can
completely remove it, as the taboos of intercourse within the marital
relationship show.

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