le progeny by
the jealous patriarch, the mother's feelings and instincts
would be increasingly lacerated and outraged. Her agonised
efforts to retain at least her last and youngest would be
even stronger than with her first born. It is exceedingly
important to observe that her chances of success in this
case would be much greater. When this last and dearest son
approached adolescence, it is not difficult to perceive that
the patriarch must have reached an age when the fire of
desire may have become somewhat dull, whilst, again, his
harem, from the presence of numerous adult daughters, would
be increased to an extent that might have overtaxed his once
more active powers. Given some such rather exceptional
situation, where a happy opportunity in superlative mother
love wrestled with a for once satiated paternal appetite in
desire, we may here discern a possible key of the
sociological problem which occupies us, and which consisted
in a conjunction within one group of two adult males."

In the next paragraph the author presents the situation which in this
way might have arisen--

"We must conceive that, in the march of the centuries, on
some fateful day, the bloody tragedy in the last act of the
familiar drama was avoided, and the edict of exile or death
left unpronounced. _Pure maternal love triumphed over the
demons of lust and jealousy._ A mother succeeded in keeping
by her side a male child, and thus, by a strange
coincidence, that father and son, who, amongst all mammals,
had been the most deadly enemies, were now the first to join
hands. So portentous an alliance might well bring the world
to their feet. The family would now present for the first
time, the until then unknown spectacle of the inclusion
within a domestic circle, and amidst its component females,
of an adolescent male youth. It must, however, be admitted
that such an event, at such an epoch, demanded imperatively
very exceptional qualities, both physiological and
psychological, in the primitive agents. The new happy ending
to that old-world drama which had run so long through blood
and tears, was an innovation requiring very unusually gifted
actors. How many failures had doubtless taken place in its
rehearsal during the centuries, with less able or happy
interpr