The Oedipal Origins of The Law

Abstract

The law and language are inextricably connected. The human individual’s first encounter with language—and, thus, the law—occurs early in life, through what the psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud calls the Oedipus Complex. It seems that the law, as we colloquially understand the term, bears roots in the human individual’s experience of the Oedipus Complex. In what follows, I argue that the law not only bears Oedipal origins, but also that it seems the law is the only possible way that we might establish relations with others.