The Family as a Subcultural Pattern of Social Interaction. --
It has been said that the family is an institution or part of culture.
To be sure, every culture has a family system. In so far as these sys-
tems differ they are largely cultural. In so far as they are the same
throughout mankind they are largely subcultural. Any cultural phase
of the family system may be expected to change, perhaps disappear.
But in so far as the family shows universal subcultural features we
can predict its permanence in human life. What, then, is subculturally
universal about the family system? There are five patterns of inter-
action or social structure which may be tentatively regarded as such:
(1) the heterosexual relationship, (2) some degree of permanence of
heterosexual relationship between two individuals, (3) some sexual
avoidances, (4) mother-child love and to some extent other love rela-
tionships between members of family, (5) the incest taboo.

Universal, Subcultural Patterns of the Family System: (1)
Heterosexuality. -- The predominant method of satisfying the sexual
drive in a mature individual is through copulation with a mature
individual of opposite sex, who is also at the time actuated by the
sexual drive. Lest this seem a needless statement of the obvious, it
would be well to remember that there are other methods by which
satisfaction is frequently obtained, such as masturbation. One of these
other methods could theoretically become the principal method, were
it not for the fact that there are certain universal, permanent condi-
tions which favor the normal method. This is what is meant by saying
that the normal method is subcultural rather than cultural.

This universal interaetional pattern of coitus involves certain uni-
versal behavior and personality patterns. First, most individuals de-
velop an attitude pattern in which the body of a person of opposite
sex becomes a supremely desired object, preferable to all other objects.
Second, through conditioning, the touch, smell, sound, or even sight
of such a body comes to produce certain forms of milder but more
continuous pleasure, and these non-genital pleasures derived from

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