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According to Friedrich Engels (1820–95), monogamous marriage was the historical downfall of the feminine sex, degrading women to slavery (Sexism 1) and making them slaves of the lust of males (Sexuality) and mere instruments for the bearing of children. In response, he put forward three demands: (1) women should be reintroduced into public industry (Work 7); (2) prostitution should be ended and monogamy made a reality for both men and women; and (3) the raising and education of children should b…

For centuries theologians used the term “libido” to refer to the largely evil element of desire. During the 19th century A. Moll (1862–1939) introduced it to the field of medicine, and S. Freud (1856–1939) eventually made it the central concept in his doctrine of desire (Psychoanalysis). Freud distinguished between the source, partially from impulses in erogenous zones in the body, and the goal, a release of libidinous energy, though with a possible switch from activity to passivity. The object of libido is a variable entity that constitutes what Freud called the destinies…

Although the Eng. term “empathy” was coined only in the early 20th century, the Ger. equivalent Einfühling was developed much earlier by J. G. Herder (1744–1803). It played a great role in the metaphysical-aesthetic speculations of Romanticism. In 1903 T. Lipps subjected it to an incisive description and analysis. In the United States it was taken up in a sociopsychological context as a method of sensit…

H. Ellis (1859–1939) first coined the term “narcissism” in psychiatry to denote homosexuality, then regarded only as sexual perversion (Sexuality). The idea was that of people loving their own reflection, like Narcissus in the Greek myth (Love). S. Freud (1856–1939) distinguished between primary narcissism as a general stage in psychological ¶ development (§2), in which subject and object are symbolically united, and secondary narcissism, by which psychological energies (Libido) are deflected from the object and possess the self, as is often observed in psychosis (e.g., in Fre…