My
Account 
My
Wishlist
Shopping Cart Empty!!
Sex and repressionin savage society by Bronislaw malinowski
No Reviews
Book Overview
In Sex and Repression in Savage Society, Malinowski draws on his fieldwork among the Trobriand Islanders to question the universality of Sigmund Freud’s theory of the Oedipus complex. Freud had argued that children experience unconscious sexual rivalry with the same-sex parent and desire for the opposite-sex parent.
Malinowski shows that in Trobriand society, where kinship and authority are organized differently (with maternal uncles playing a dominant role rather than fathers), these psychological dynamics do not appear in the same way. This suggests that such patterns are not universal but are shaped by specific cultural and social structures.
The book therefore argues that culture plays a decisive role in shaping human sexuality, repression, and emotional life, challenging biologically deterministic or universalist theories.
