the electra complex

freud also used another figure from Greek mythology, Electra.  this is the female version of Oedipus complex.  girls between the ages of four and six envy their father for possessing a penis AND she is thought to blame the mother, and thus transfer her affections from the mother to the father.  according to Freud both boys and girls value the penis AND THEREFORE, daughters choose there fathers as the primary love object.  He does after all posses a penis they lack.  As they realise the unequal struggle to posses the father they must reject these feelings and identify with their mother.  This is the underlying problem.  IN THE OEDIPUS COMPLEX, Boys renounce their feelings for the mother because of the fear of castration yet Freud suggested that this would not be the case in girls, who had already been castrated by their mother.  Freud suggested that the Electra complex would simply fade away as girls realised that they would never posses their father.  However, because the threat of punishment through castration is not present for girls, they are not under the same pressure to renounce these feelings and identify with the standards felt of the mother.  The consequences of this, Freud , would be that girls develop a weaker superego and are therefore seen as morally deficient.