Note 263 — Chapter XVII · ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE FAMILY TENDENCIES—THE REPRESSION OF LOVE

That some such factors as these are probably really operative in addition to the more specific sexual inhibitions that compose the incest barrier proper, is shown by a consideration of cases in which no such specific inhibition exists, e. g. that of husband and wife. In spite of the fact that sexual relations between husband and wife are not only permitted but enjoined and that mutual sexual attractiveness has usually played some considerable part in bringing about the union, there can be little doubt that in very many cases a husband and wife, after a certain period of married life, tend to find—superficially at any rate—greater sexual attractiveness in strangers than in one another. The reasons for this (in the absence of any other adequate cause) are often fairly clearly of the kind described—first, the fact that their associations with one another are largely connected with the "humdrum" activities of everyday life in which non-sexual instincts are principally concerned (whereas with strangers the sexual feelings may constitute the predominant, or perhaps the only, bond); secondly the fact that through the very intimacy of their connection there are (as in the case of blood relatives) a number of matters as regards which the husband and wife are competitors or have conflicting interests, thus leading to a certain degree of (usually more or less repressed) hostility on either side.