cial life in
which there can be traced a persistence into modern times of a primitive
form of control which in a pre-rational stage of group life made
possible the comparatively harmonious interplay of antagonistic forces.
This form of control is called Taboo. A student of the phenomenon, a
recognized authority on its ethnological interpretation, says of it: "To
illustrate the continuity of culture and the identity of the elementary
human ideas in all ages, it is sufficient to point to the ease with
which the Polynesian word _tabu_ has passed into modern
language."[1, p.16]

We shall attempt to show that at least one form of taboo, the
Institutionalized Sex Taboo, is co-extensive with human social
experience, and exists to-day at the base of family life, the socialized
form of sex relationship. The family as a social institution has been
scarcely touched until a very recent historical period by the
rationalizing process that has affected religious and political
institutions. Economic changes resultant upon the introduction of an
industrial era which showed the importance of women in diverse social
relations were causes of this new effort at adaptation to changing
conditions. It became apparent that taboos in the form of customs,
ceremonials, beliefs, and conventions, all electrically charged with
emotional content, have guarded the life of woman from change, and with
her the functions peculiar to family life. There has doubtless been
present in some of these taboos "a good hard common-sense element." But
there are also irrational elements whose persistence has resulted in
hardship, blind cruelty, and over-standardization.

In order to comprehend the attitude of early man toward sex and
womanhood, and to understand the system of taboo control which grew out
of this attitude, it is only reasonable to suppose that the prehistoric
races, like the uncivilized peoples of the present time, were inclined
to explain all phenomena as the result of the action of spiritistic
forces partaking of both a magical and religious nature. This
supernatural principle which the primitive mind conceived as an
all-pervading, universal essence, is most widely known as _mana_,
although it has been discussed under other names.[A]

Certain persons, animals and objects[B] are often held to be imbued to
an unusual degree with this _mana_, and hence are to be regarded as holy
and held in awe. Inasmuch as man may wish to use this power for his own