Page:The International Journal of Psycho-Analysis II 1921 3-4.djvu/78

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I ^oo OWEN BERKELEY-HILL

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which the sons foolishly squander the wealth laboriously gained by their fathers. Ernest Jonesi remarks : ' One can distinguish two varieties of even the positive aspect of the "giving out" type according to what is done with the product ; with the one variety the person's aim is to eject the product on to some other object, living or not, while with the other the aim is to manipulate the product further and to create something out of it. To the former type belongs the impulse to stain or contaminate by throwing ink, acids or chemicals at people'. This impulse is typified in the Hindu cere- mony of Holi, a kind of Hindu Saturnalia. It is marked by rough sports in which the worshippers eidier sprinkle each other with red or yellow powder, or squirt red or yellow fluid at each other with squirts. Probably painting the forehead with the ' caste-mark ' in variously coloured pigments, a procedure followed by all ortho- dox Hindus, has its origin in the same impulse. Another and very prominent manifestation of the infantile level of Hindu thought and behaviour finds expression in certain aspects of their love-life which is almost entirely subordinated to the act of giving and receiving. This may indeed be partly accounted for by the fact that most marriages among Hindus are between immature and pre-genital boys and girls, hence a further factor in the custom of wooing through presents of money, jewels, etc. As Ernest Jones ^ observes, this type of wooing is only to be observed amongst Europeans who are relatively impotent or anaesthetic. The desire for marriage, i. e. to impregnate, which is contributed to by this complex is, among Hindus, a veritable passion. To a Hindu marriage is the most important and most engrossing event of his life ; it is a sub- ject of endless conversation and of the most prolonged preparations. An unmarried man is looked upon as having no social status. He is not usually consulted on any important point and no work ol any consequence may be given to him. Women cannot under any circumstances take vows of celibacy. The marriage of girls before puberty and the prohibition to widows to remarry are doubtless both expressions of 'the pollution complex' which, as has been ob- served already, is the keystone of the Hindu hierarchy of ideas. The desire to manipulate the product further finds its commonest sublimation among mankind in industrial and artistic creations such as metal-moulding and sculpture. Both these occupations have

' Ernest Jones: op. cit ' Idem: op. cit.