Incest Avoidance and the Incest Taboos
Incest Avoidance and the Incest Taboos

Author: Arthur P. Wolf

Publisher: Stanford University Press

Published: 2014-04-16

Total Pages: 188

ISBN-13: 0804791694

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Why do most people never have sex with close relatives? And why do they disapprove of other people doing so? Incest Avoidance and Incest Taboos investigates our human inclination to avoid incest and the powerful taboo against incest found in all societies. Both subjects stir strong feelings and vigorous arguments within and beyond academic circles. With great clarity, Wolf lays out the modern assumptions about both, concluding that all previous approaches lack precision and balance on insecure evidence. Researchers he calls "constitutionalists" explain human incest avoidance by biologically-based natural aversion, but fail to explain incest taboos as cultural universals. By contrast, "conventionalists" ignore the evolutionary roots of avoidance and assume that incest avoidant behavior is guided solely by cultural taboos. Both theories are incomplete. Wolf tests his own theory with three natural experiments: bint'amm (cousin) marriage in Morocco, the rarity of marriage within Israeli kibbutz peer groups, and "minor marriages" (in which baby girls were raised by their future mother-in-law to marry an adoptive "brother") in China and Taiwan. These cross-cultural comparisons complete his original and intellectually rich theory of incest, one that marries biology and culture by accounting for both avoidance and taboo.

Inbreeding, Incest, and the Incest Taboo
Inbreeding, Incest, and the Incest Taboo

Author: Arthur P. Wolf

Publisher: Stanford University Press

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 240

ISBN-13: 0804751412

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Why is incest widely prohibited? Why does the scope of the prohibition vary from society to society? Why does incest occur despite the prohibition? What are the consequences? To reexamine these questions, this book brings together contributions from the fields of genetics, behavioral biology, primatology, biological and social anthropology, philosophy, and psychiatry.

Incest Avoidance and the Incest Taboos
Incest Avoidance and the Incest Taboos

Author: Arthur Wolf

Publisher: Stanford Briefs

Published: 2014-04-16

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780804789677

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Why do most people never have sex with close relatives? And why do they disapprove of other people doing so? Incest Avoidance and Incest Taboos investigates our human inclination to avoid incest and the powerful taboo against incest found in all societies. Both subjects stir strong feelings and vigorous arguments within and beyond academic circles. With great clarity, Wolf lays out the modern assumptions about both, concluding that all previous approaches lack precision and balance on insecure evidence. Researchers he calls "constitutionalists" explain human incest avoidance by biologically-based natural aversion, but fail to explain incest taboos as cultural universals. By contrast, "conventionalists" ignore the evolutionary roots of avoidance and assume that incest avoidant behavior is guided solely by cultural taboos. Both theories are incomplete. Wolf tests his own theory with three natural experiments: bint'amm (cousin) marriage in Morocco, the rarity of marriage within Israeli kibbutz peer groups, and "minor marriages" (in which baby girls were raised by their future mother-in-law to marry an adoptive "brother") in China and Taiwan. These cross-cultural comparisons complete his original and intellectually rich theory of incest, one that marries biology and culture by accounting for both avoidance and taboo.

Incest
Incest

Author: Jonathan H. Turner

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2015-12-03

Total Pages: 271

ISBN-13: 1317257677

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Throughout history humans have been fascinated with incest. Stories, fables, literature, philosophers, church officials, and scientists have explored this mysterious topic. The taboo is critical to human survival, as incest threatens the species and patterns of human social organization. Drawing upon the rich legacy of theory, empirical data, and speculation about the origins of the incest taboo, this book develops a new explanation for, not only the emergence of the taboo in hominid and human evolutionary history, but also for the varying strength of the taboo for the incestuous dyads of the nuclear family, the different rates of incest of these dyads, and the dramatic differences the psychological pathology incest has on its younger victims. Synthesizing findings from biology, sociobiology, neurology, primatology, clinical psychology, anthropology, and sociology, the authors weave together a scenario of how natural selection initially generated mechanisms of sexual avoidance; and then, as the nuclear family emerged in hominid and human evolution, how sociocultural selection led to the development of the incest taboo.

Totem and Taboo
Totem and Taboo

Author: Sigmund Freud

Publisher: Vintage

Published: 2012-01-04

Total Pages: 225

ISBN-13: 0307813487

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In this brilliant exploratory attempt (written in 1912–1913) to extend the analysis of the individual psyche to society and culture, Freud laid the lines for much of his later thought, and made a major contribution to the psychology of religion. Primitive societies and the individual, he found, mutually illuminate each other, and the psychology of primitive races bears marked resemblances to the psychology of neurotics. Basing his investigations on the findings of the anthropologists, Freud came to the conclusion that totemism and its accompanying restriction of exogamy derive from the savage’s dread of incest, and that taboo customs parallel closely the symptoms of compulsion neurosis. The killing of the “primal father” and the consequent sense of guilt are seen as determining events both in the mistry tribal pre-history of mankind, and in the suppressed wishes of individual men. Both toteism and taboo are thus held to have their roots in the Oedipus complex, which lies at the basis of all neurosis, and, as Freud argues, is also the origin of religion, ethics, society, and art.

Sexual Attraction and Childhood Association
Sexual Attraction and Childhood Association

Author: Arthur P. Wolf

Publisher:

Published: 1995

Total Pages: 561

ISBN-13: 9780804724265

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In 1891, the anthropologist Edward Westermarck proposed that early childhood association inhibits sexual attraction and that this aversion was manifested in custom and law as the basis of the universal incest taboo. Then, in 1910, in the essays later published as Totem and Taboo, Sigmund Freud challenged the "Westermarck hypothesis" on the ground that "the earliest sexual excitations of youthful human beings are invariably of an incestuous character." The incest taboo only existed, Freud argued, because of this natural propensity. Freud's challenge carried the day and became the standard view throughout the social and biological sciences. Consequently, the question was: why do all societies repress this natural inclination? Biologists argued that the incest taboo protected us from dangers of inbreeding; sociologists argued that it was necessary to prevent sexual rivalry that would destroy the family; and anthropologists saw the real purpose of the taboo as forcing families to exchange women in marriage. The book uses a wide range of research - from studies of nonhuman primates to reports of incestuous child abuse - from African divorce practices to animal behavior - to demonstrate that Westermarck was right and Freud wrong. It shows that there is a critical period in human development - approximately the first thirty months of life - during which association permanently inhibits sexual attraction. It concludes that the incest taboo is unnecessary and cannot be explained in functional terms, and that encouraging early association between father and daughter is probably the best way of preventing sexual abuse.

Incest and the Medieval Imagination
Incest and the Medieval Imagination

Author: Elizabeth Archibald

Publisher: OUP Oxford

Published: 2001-05-24

Total Pages: 313

ISBN-13: 0191540854

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Incest is a remarkably frequent theme in medieval literature; it occurs in a wide range of genres, including romances, saints's lives, and exempla. Historically, the Church in the later Middle Ages was very concerned about breaches of the complex laws against incest, which was defined very broadly at the time to cover family relationships outside the nuclear family and also spiritual relationships through baptism. Medieval writers accepted that incestuous desire was a widespread phenomenon among women as well as men. They are surprisingly open about incest, though of course they disapprove of it; in many exemplary stories incest is identified with original sin, but the moral emphasizes the importance of contrition and the availability of grace even to such heinous sinners. This study begins with a brief account of the development of medieval incest laws, and the extent to which they were obeyed. Next comes a survey of classical incest stories and their legacy; many were retold in the Middle Ages, but they were frequently adapted to the purposes of Christian moralizers. In the three chapters that follow, homegrown medieval incest stories are grouped by relationship: mother-son (focusing on the Gregorius legend), father-daughter (focusing on La Manekine and its analogues), and sibling (focusing on the Arthurian legend). The final chapter considers the very common medieval trope of the Virgin Mary as mother, daughter, sister and bride of Christ, the one exception to the incest taboo. In western society today, incest has recently been recognized as a serious social problem, and has also become a frequent theme in both fiction and non-fiction, just as it was in the Middle Ages. This interdisciplinary study is the first broad survey of medieval incest stories in Latin and the vernaculars (mainly French, English and German). It situates the incest theme in both literary and cultural contexts, and offers many thought-provoking comparisons and contrasts to our own society in terms of gender relations, the power of patriarchy, the role of religious institutions in regulating morality, and the relationship between life and literature.

Behaviour, Development and Evolution
Behaviour, Development and Evolution

Author: Patrick Bateson

Publisher: Open Book Publishers

Published: 2017-02-20

Total Pages: 125

ISBN-13: 1783742518

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The role of parents in shaping the characters of their children, the causes of violence and crime, and the roots of personal unhappiness are central to humanity. Like so many fundamental questions about human existence, these issues all relate to behavioural development. In this lucid and accessible book, eminent biologist Professor Sir Patrick Bateson suggests that the nature/nurture dichotomy we often use to think about questions of development in both humans and animals is misleading. Instead, he argues that we should pay attention to whole systems, rather than to simple causes, when trying to understand the complexity of development. In his wide-ranging approach Bateson discusses why so much behaviour appears to be well-designed. He explores issues such as ‘imprinting’ and its importance to the attachment of offspring to their parents; the mutual benefits that characterise communication between parent and offspring; the importance of play in learning how to choose and control the optimal conditions in which to thrive; and the vital function of adaptability in the interplay between development and evolution. Bateson disputes the idea that a simple link can be found between genetics and behaviour. What an individual human or animal does in its life depends on the reciprocal nature of its relationships with the world about it. This knowledge also points to ways in which an animal’s own behaviour can provide the variation that influences the subsequent course of evolution. This has relevance not only for our scientific approaches to the systems of development and evolution, but also on how humans change institutional rules that have become dysfunctional, or design public health measures when mismatches occur between themselves and their environments. It affects how we think about ourselves and our own capacity for change.

Consanguinity in Context
Consanguinity in Context

Author: Alan H. Bittles

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2012-05-24

Total Pages: 325

ISBN-13: 1107376939

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An essential guide to this major contemporary issue, Consanguinity in Context is a uniquely comprehensive account of intra-familial marriage. Detailed information on past and present religious, social and legal practices and prohibitions is presented as a backdrop to the preferences and beliefs of the 1100+ million people in consanguineous unions. Chapters on population genetics, and the role of consanguinity in reproductive behaviour and genetic variation, set the scene for critical analyses of the influence of consanguinity on health in the early years of life. The discussion on consanguinity and disorders of adulthood is the first review of its kind and is particularly relevant given the ageing of the global population. Incest is treated as a separate issue, with historical and present-day examples examined. The final three chapters deal in detail with practical issues, including genetic testing, education and counselling, national and international legislation and imperatives, and the future of consanguineous marriage worldwide.

The Original Sin
The Original Sin

Author: W. Arens

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Published: 1986

Total Pages: 216

ISBN-13:

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Arguing against the conventional view--that the incest taboo developed in response to the act of incest--The Original Sin presents biological and anthropological evidence to demonstrate the innate avoidance of incest as a feature of pre-cultural organization. Arens shows how the taboo evolved as a unique human social mechanism to control the practice among certain social classes, thus drawing the conclusion that incest, rather than its prohibition, is the cultural invention. Arens directly confronts the origin and definition of incest while seeking to uncover the particular and general meaning of this negative form of behavior.