Primal man figured out he could improve his lot by working together with others. We can suppose families were the first unit, founded, Freud believes, when the male decided to keep the female around for more sexual gratification, and the female agreed to remain close to her progeny and protected. The will of the father reigned supreme until sons discovered they could band together and have enough strength to overthrow the tyranny of the father. But they had to accept restrictions on each other in this new state of affairs and this became rights and law. Communal life had a twin foundation: compulsion to work and the power of love. Civilization was a large group of people living together. The only way it could have worked is if the inhabitants were happier with this arrangement than before.

Freud believes sexual gratification was the strongest experience of satisfaction, and in fact became the prototype of all happiness. But it also exposed him to the greatest danger: by focusing his attention on his lover, he placed his happiness outside himself and became open to great suffering if she rejected him.  

A few are able to direct their love towards mankind rather than single objects. While not as intense, they can achieve a steadfast affectionate feeling, an inner sense of happiness. It is perhaps this that we can connect with the feeling of religion.

Freud sees two objections to this view: indiscriminate love of everyone ends up forfeiting its own value, and some people just aren’t worthy of love.  The love that founded the family continues to operate in its sexual form and in a friendship form. Sexual love forms families. Friendship love is valuable in a cultural standpoint because it doesn’t have to be exclusive. But over time, the relationship of love to civilization loses its unambiguity;  comes into opposition to the interests of civilization, and civilization threatens love with substantial restrictions. This rift is unavoidable.

There is also a conflict between the family unit and the larger civilization to which the individual belongs. The main point of civilization is to bring together large groups of people. But the family doesn’t want to give up the individual so easily. Detaching oneself from the family is a task that every young person faces, and society helps through means of puberty and initiation rites.

The demands of civilization will take away from energy the individual could put towards sexual activity, so there is a tension there. Society will want energy put towards its needs and therefore restrict individual sexual desires. This starts with childhood and the insistence of heterosexual love, then moves to restrict sexual love to monogamy and then to forbid perversions. Finally it leads to a general sense that sexuality as a source of pleasure is itself bad and sex is only tolerable for procreation. This cutting off of enjoyment leads to a sense of injustice.