Oedipus Loved His Mother

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Oedipus was a figure in Greek mythology who was prophesied to kill his father and marry his mother.  Abandoned on a mountainside by the order of his father the king, Oedipus was rescued and raised by a shepherd.  He learned from the oracle at Delphi that he would kill his father and marry his mother, so he left his home to avoid this fate.  In doing so, Oedipus encountered and killed a stranger who would turn out to be his biological father King Laius. He continued his journey to Thebes where he defeated the Sphinx and married Queen Jocasta, his biological mother.  Unbeknownst to Oedipus, he had fulfilled the prophecy of killing his father and marrying his mother. The Oedipus complex is a concept introduced by Sigmund Freud in 1899 where a child may possess an unconscious sexual desire for the opposite-sex parent.