Reich's sociology III

Although the father being the symbolic head of the family (as opposed to the maternal uncle) is the precondition of the castration complex and very well may have occurred in isolated incidences when the uncle was the symbolic head it is key not to look for absolutes. In other words, it is never all children experience the castration complex in patriarchy and previously none did. It is always a matter of emphasis.

This is where academic thinking stops because it can only view things in this either/or way.

To enter into patriarchy then, we have the men who have experienced, and received a fixation at, the castration complex taking positions of power and introducing rituals which will indoctrinate others into their way of thinking. This is where sex enters back into the picture and the elite either strike fear into the heart of youths in sexual matters or the frustrations experienced in abstinence are used for identifications with the aggressor:

Mehinaku boys are secluded for two to three years to achieve their full growth as adults. Enforcing the taboos associated with seclusion is the master of the medicines, an invisible being that lives alongside the boy in seclusion. What really stirs up the medicine spirit’s wrath is sexual relations. [They are told that a] boy who slips out at night to have sexual relations with a girl will group up ridiculously stunted. 145AP

The solidarity of the boys in seclusion is further reinforced by their separation from women… the boys’ comradery is also buttressed by aggression towards women. As soon as the most stringent phrases of fasting associated with the ritual are over, the boys set to work making large numbers of wax-tipped arrows. When the arrows are ready, one of the boys keeps watch from a small slit window in the wall of the house. ‘Now!’ he calls, and suddenly a volley of arrows descends upon a group of women unlucky enough to be caught in the plaza. Women are fair game during the piercing seclusion and shooting at them is the boy’s principle sport 187 AP