harken back to the mythology o f the primal androgyne
— Tantra, for instance, in both its Tibetan and Indian
manifestations, clearly participates in that tradition.
Possibly the rite o f subincision, practiced in Australia,
is similarly rooted in androgyne myth. Subincision is the
ritual slitting open o f the underside o f the penis to form
a permanent cleft into the urethra. T h e opening is
called the “ penis womb. ” Campbell notes that “T h e
subincision produces artificially a hypospadias resembling that o f a certain class o f hermaphrodites. ” 9
T he drive back to androgyny, where it is manifest, is
sacral, strong, compelling. It is interesting here to
170
Woman Haling
speculate on the incest taboo. The Freudian articulation
o f what the Oedipal complex is and means serves the
imperatives of a patriarchal culture, of Judeo-Chris-
tian morality, and remains largely unchallenged. But
the earliest
those of a Mother/Goddess and her Son/Lover. The
son is lover to the mother and is ritually sacrificed at a
predetermined time (mothers don’t have to be possessive). This sacrifice is not related to guilt or punishment—it is holy sacrifice which sanctifies the tribe, does honor to the offering, and is premised on cyclic fertility patterns of life, death, and regeneration. These rites, associated with the worship of the Great Mother
(the first corruption of the Great Original, or primal
androgyne) involved ritual intercourse between mother
and son, with the subsequent sacrifice of the son. At
one time both a son and a daughter were sacrificed, but
as the daughter became a mother-surrogate, the son
was sacrificed alone. This sacralized set, Mother/God-
dess-Son/Lover, and the rituals associated with it, are
postandrogyne developments: that is, men and women
experienced separateness (not duality) and attempted
to recreate symbolically the androgynous state of mind
and body through what we now call incest. If it is true
that the implications of the androgyny myths in terms
of behavior run counter to every Judeo-Christian, or
more generally sexist, notion of morality, it would follow that incest is the primary taboo of this and similar cultures because it has its roots in the sexually dynamic
androgynous mentality. Indeed, it is not surprising
to discover that early versions of the Oedipus story do
not end with Oedipus putting his eyes out. Sophocles
Androgyny: The Mythological Model
171
leaves Oedipus overcome with fear, guilt, and remorse,
blinded and ruined. In the earlier Homeric version,
Oedipus becomes king and reigns happily ever after.
