Sexual Horns: The Anatomy and Metaphysics of Cuckoldry in European Folklore

Abstract

It seems remarkable how often we call “myths” the kind of arbitrary constructs in other peoples' worldview that we tend to attribute to the nature of things in our own case. Double standards may be involved, of course; but it could also be the case that one tends to miss the semiotic essence of the cultural construct one calls “reality.” As every anthropologist knows, one's most cherished cultural assumptions tend to remain implicit; otherwise put, worldview is largely unconscious. This paper explores the possibility of plumbing unconscious aspects of one's own culture in order to assess what some might call—regarding other cultures—the mythic underpinnings of worldview.