Social Contact Versus Bodily Contact: A Qualitative Difference Between Father and Mother for the Son’s Masculine Identity

The relative influence of father and mother on the son’s acquisition of masculine identity was studied by examining one hundred eleven sample societies from Whiting’s (1964) data. The practice of circumcision was seen as a rectifying mechanism to let boys acquire a masculine identity, and its presence was considered an indication of mother-oriented personality de-velopment among them. The result suggests that the father is influential when he sleeps in the hut where the son sleeps, and the mother is influ-ential when the son sleeps in her bed. There is a qualitative difference between father and mother; the father’s influence on the son is through social contact, the mother’s influence through bodily contact. [Accepted for publication: February 1978.] There are several studies which try to explain circumcision of males at puberty in terms of exclusive mother-son sleeping arrangements during the son’s infancy (Burton & Whiting 1961