Note 161 — Chapter XII · FAMILY INFLUENCES IN SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT

We may briefly mention here a few of the main lines along which the evidence for the identification of regicide and parricide proceeds:—

(1) The very person who performs the deed of murder is frequently the one who succeeds to the throne; taking this in combination with the fact that it is usually the son or some other near relative who is the recognised successor, it is evident that there exists a natural tendency for the murderer to belong to the murdered king's own family.

(2) The birth of a son is very frequently associated with the idea of danger to the father. This danger would appear to be the principal motive for the widespread custom of killing the king's son, which seems to be regarded as, in many respects, an alternative to the killing of the king himself (see Frazer, "The Dying God," Ch. VI, 160 ff.) Cp. the very frequent legends (of which the story of Œdipus is one) in which a kingly father, to avoid threatened danger to himself, exposes or otherwise attempts to murder his young son. See Rank, "The Myth of the Birth of the Hero."

(3) There exist many cases in legend, and some in actual fact, in which the son fights with his father for the privileges of chieftainship; while in at least one case (Frazer, "The Dying God," 190) the king is made to abdicate as soon as his son is born.

(4) In the many quaint practices of the Carnival type, which, as Frazer has shown ("The Dying God," 205 ff.), usually represent, in one at least of their aspects, the murder of the king in the shape of the spirit of vegetation, the death of the old monarch is usually followed, immediately or after an interval, by general rejoicing at the coming to power of his successor (cp. the well known phrase, "Le roi est mort, vive le roi") showing that the idea of the superseding of an outworn potentate is a prominent underlying feature of the whole type of ceremony.

(5) Festivals of this kind, and indeed those connected with the succession of kings generally, are usually associated with some kind of sexual orgy, in which the relaxation of the usual prohibitions, especially those which relate to incest, is often a prominent feature; this fact seems to point to the existence of some connection between incest and succession to the kingship, such as that which is manifested in the myth of Œdipus.

(6) This connection is indicated even more clearly by the widespread custom of the new king taking over the wife of the king whom he has succeeded, even if she should be his own step-mother, or in some cases perhaps his real mother (See Frazer, "The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings," II, 283 ff., "The Dying God," 193 ff.). Where (as seems to have happened not infrequently) this is combined with the murder, deposition or defeat of the old king, we get both elements of the Œdipus complex in intimate association, and openly expressed.

(7) Among the prohibitions and conditions to which a king is subject during his tenure of office, not the least burdensome are those connected with his sexual life. On the one hand his sexual activities are often restricted, permitted only under certain circumstances and conditions or even forbidden altogether; while on the other hand any failure or weakness of sexual power may be made the reason for his deposition or execution. If the sexual jealousy, which is such an important constituent of the Œdipus complex, plays an active part in the attitude habitually adopted towards kings (especially by those who are likely to become their successors), such restrictions on the king's sexual activity or such a utilisation of any sexual failing on his part as an excuse for his deposition or execution are only what we might expect to find.

In bringing forward these arguments in favour of the operation of the Œdipus complex in the treatment accorded to kings, we must not of course shut our eyes to the co-operation of other important motives belonging to the later and more conscious levels of the mind, such as that emphasised by Frazer, according to whom the king is regarded as the embodiment of natural fertility, so that, if he were to become old or enfeebled, Nature (in virtue of the principles of homoeopathic magic) would suffer from a corresponding weakness and produce less abundantly; this belief naturally leading to the desire to kill the king while he is still in his prime, lest in age or disease he should endanger the sustenance of the community. Such a motive as this (and perhaps still others) may very well co-exist with the motives connected with the Œdipus complex, in virtue of the psychological mechanism of over-determination, just as—as Silberer, Rank, and others have shown—many myths, legends and neurotic symptoms may give direct or symbolic expression at the same time to two or more distinct sets of tendencies.