ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the development of masculinity in terms of an opposition to mother, and the development of femininity in terms of a submission to father. Consequently there is an essential difference between the two: that whereas femininity develops as a compromise, masculinity develops as a triumph. If masculinity is based on a matricidal act, at the point of the dissolution of the Oedipus complex, and if the paternal super-ego, by instituting repression, becomes the protector against persecution by the undead mother, then the father becomes a key figure for the son. Femininity, in relation to primitive masculinity, appears as both life and death, as both power and powerlessness, narcissistic wholeness and castration—the one being the underside of the other. The death-bearing mother and the life-giving mother are one and the same, as if life itself were the arch-enemy. The relation of masculinity and femininity to the death instinct is asymmetrical and unequal.
