In spite of the then significance and present extensiveness of incest, people have began to raise topics on whether is it wrong or right, taboo or legal, and acceptable or not. The modern society has a diversity of stands and opinions regarding incest, but it sure does have one verdict on incest.
Historically, there were only two people in the beginning of the world: Adam and Eve. Prior to the subsistence of the two, an act for reproduction existed long before humans which is by now we know as sex. Men have evolved with sexual instincts already being part of them and though sex is not as necessary as their daily needs, it has been very vital to humans as it preserves the human race. It's like breathing, eating, and drinking -- it's one of the primal desire that inspire men to keep doing these things, to keep them alive.
As the human thinking evolves, their living, needs and demands have also changed. People became materialistic and power-conscious, even to the point of prohibiting an outsider enter a certain family, thus resulting into sexual acts between relatives, now known as incest.
Incest is not inappropriate at the beginning of mankind’s history. God created Adam and Eve perfect and purposed that all humankind descend from them. (Gen. 1:28; 3:20) Obviously some marrying of close relatives, especially within the first few generations, would occur. Even after sin made its appearance, there was relatively little danger of marked deformities in the children during early generations, because the human race was much closer to the perfection that had been enjoyed by Adam and Eve. This is attested to by the longevity of people then. (Genesis 5:3-8; 25:7.) But about 2,500 years after Adam became a sinner, God prohibited incestuous marriage. This served to safeguard the offspring and it elevated the sexual morality of Jehovah’s servants above that of people around them who were then engaging in all manner of depraved practices.
Throughout history, societies have circumscribed certain forms of intimacy in the family setting. Transgression has been punished by force of ecclesiastical rules and government statutes. However, no single definition of incest is widely accepted, as the degree of kinship in which marriage is allowed and the age of consent varies. Fueled in part by the current emphasis on child abuse prevention, the reporting of incest is increasing. In spite of the then significance and present extensiveness of incest, people have began to raise topics on whether is it wrong or right, taboo or legal, and acceptable or not. The modern society has a diversity of stands and opinions regarding incest, but it sure does have one verdict on incest.
What is incest anyhow? Etymologically, the term incest is in fact closely akin to the word unchaste. It was borrowed from a Latin word “incestus”, a noun use of an adjective. The term is formed by putting together the prefix “in-“ and root word castus, which means “pure”. (New Webster’s Dictionary, 194) The derived adjective incestuous appears in the 16th century. (Hoad, 232) The definition of the term incest varies depending on the field of use. The Collins English Dictionary defines incest as the sexual intercourse between two persons commonly regarded as too closely related to get married (Collins, 2009) and sometimes those related through affinity, marriage and adoption. (Bittles, 178) All human cultures have norms regarding who is considered suitable and unsuitable sexual or marriage partners, and usually certain close relatives are excluded as possible partners. According to a cultural dictionary, incest is the “sexual relations between relatives who are forbidden by law to marry; for example, between father and daughter, or mother and son, and so on” (New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy)
Incest has two categories: covert and overt. Overt incest may come in different forms, and the most reported form is between an adult (father, mother, stepfather, etcetera) and a child. In a 1990 study of Decision-making of the District Attorney: Diverting or Prosecuting Intrafamilial Child Sexual Abuse Offenders, Fridell says that this type of incest is usually recognized as a form of child abuse. The most occuring type of adult-child incest is father-daughter incest wherein the most possible cause is the physical and emotional absence of mother causing the father to divert to his daughter instead. (Cole, 2182) According to the January-February 1993 issue of Psychology Today “Adult Sibling Rivalry: Sibling rivalry often lingers through adulthood”, sibling incest is most prevalent in families whose parents are almost always absent or unavailable thus enabling the older child to use his or her power to abuse the younger child who happen to show no sign of protesting. (Leder) Absence of refusal is due to disturbed emotions and beliefs, that such actions are normal. (Carlson, Maclol and Schenider 19-34) Because of this act, sibling incest is considered as another form of sexual abuse because it happens due to coercion and shows no presence of equality and consent. Meanwhile, Turner claims in his Encyclopedia of Relationships Across the Lifespan that in spite of the fact that this is a widespread form of incest, it is rarely reported due to the nescience of the victim. There is also incest between consenting adults or also known as consensual incest. Proponents of incest between consenting adults draw clear boundaries between the behavior of consenting adults and rape, child molestation, and abusive incest. This form of incest happens to be the broadest too, ranging from between adult siblings, between cousins, and between adult relatives. Among the three, cousin-cousin relationship is the most common even back in history. As of now, cousin-cousin incest is not much a big deal if the people involved are distant cousins. Consensual incest is thought to arise because of the so called genetic sexual attraction. (Hari) In some rare cases, people commit incest by accident -- completely unaware that the person they are romantically and sexually attached to is in fact biologically related to them. Accidental incest is again reported to be caused by genetic sexual attraction, a sexual attraction between close relatives, such as siblings, a parent and offspring, or first and second cousins, who first meet as adults.
Contrary to the definition the dictionary provides, covert incest is the second category of incest. In 2001, Jacobson’s Child Sexual Abuse and The Multidisciplinary Team Approach: Contradictions in Practice defined convert incest as an emotional abuse wherein a parent and a child engages in an inappropriate relationship but without any sexual contact. The child, feeling valued and loved, becomes an object of intense affection and passion and preoccupation by that parent. The boundaries between a parent and a child are distorted because the child fails to realize that he or she is already living to satisfy the parent’s needs than his or her own. Over time, the parent develops dependency to the child, whereas the “love” begins to feel more destructive than nourishing. Hence, the child becomes a surrogate partner and source of emotional support for the parent. (Morgan and Adams) Incest has existed long before the term is first used, and does it imply that back in history, it had been very significant.
What is the history of incest? In the book Cain and Abel in Text and Tradition: Jewish and Christian Interpretations of the First Sibling Rivalry, Byron claimed that from a religious context, the marriage of Cain to his sister Awan has been described by some writers as the first instance of incest. (27) Yet, there is no evidence of intense incest in humans resulting from Adam and Eve, nor are there such signs in all-animals-including-humans resulting from inbreeding after Noah's Ark. After creation, and after the flood, incest was rife and necessary, as part of God's plan for humans. In ancient times, tribal nations preferred endogamous marriage - marriage to one's relatives. The ideal marriage was usually that to a cousin, and it was often forbidden for an eldest daughter to even marry outside the family. (Jewish Encyclopedia) Marriage to a half-sister, for example, is considered incest by most nations today, but unknown to us is that it is a common behavior for Egyptian pharaohs; similarly, the Book of Genesis portrays Sarah as marrying Abraham, her half-brother, without criticizing the close genetic relationship between them.
The Egyptians, particularly of royalty, were probably the most significant exception to the incest taboo in the ancient times. Though it is massively seen on the royal bloodline, it is somewhat very rare during the Ptolemaic period in the common populace. To quote Diodorus in two different anthropological books, a Greek historian:
“The Egyptians also made a law, they say, contrary to the general custom of mankind, permitting men to marry their sisters, this being due to the success attained by Isis in this respect; for she had married her brother Osiris.” (Valesius, H., Rhodomannus, I., and Ursinus, F. 19-54) (Heinemann, 85)
The earliest ties of incest in history are found on religion. For example in Egyptian history, the sibling deities Shu and Tefnut were married and had two children, Geb and Nut, who in turn married and had offspring. (Adamson, 89) The Ptolemaic period is said to be the peak of royal incest in ancient Egypt. In this period, the first pure sibling incest in the royal bloodline involved Ptolemy II and Arsinoe. It is aforementioned that the main reason is to solidify the royal blood, to separate themselves from commonality and to breach the human boundary itself. Moreover, King Ptolemy II is said to have made incest “a major theme of propaganda” (Frandsen, 24) Many Ptolemies followed his actions; historians citing 7 out of 13 Ptolemies who came to throne as having full-sibling incest. This period housed the famous "Cleopatra" or known specifically as Cleopatra VII Philopator where she married Ptolemy XIII and Ptolemy XIV due to Egyptian customs. Given these instances, it can be seen that the royal inbreeding was encouraged. Royal incest became more and more practiced in the course of the Ptolemaic period. However, there have been no records on incest in the non-royal families. This led a historian to believe that is was only in the royal family. The Roman period marked the most prominent non-royal incest in ancient Egypt. The majority of the evidence came from documents such as marriage contracts, petitions, and census documents. Unlike the earlier periods where it requires cautions as to the Egyptian jargons, the Roman documents were precise, very practical, and posses a “technical character with indisputable precision” (Middleton, 606) (Wilkinson, 105) It was presumed that one-third, and maybe more, of all men who had a marriageable sister chose to marry them. It was then concluded that the practice was very common during those times.
The middle age is often recognized as the peak of incest in mankind’s history. This is stressed in the following words of documentary of Thomson:
John Burchard, the slightly biased servant and biographer of the Borgias, described the orgies in which, for instance, at a papal feast fifty naked prostitutes crawled round the floor for chestnuts. Both Alexander Borgia (1431-1503) and Sigismondo Malatesta (1417-68) were openly accused of incest. In 1514, under Pope Leo X, Rome boasted 7,000 official prostitutes. [... and elsewhere] the murdered Bishop Henry III of Liege had sixty-five bastard children; the priests of France had been forbidden to stay with their mothers and sisters because of the rise in incest. (157)
These highly confusing incidents are documented across multiple pages in the book of the author. Clearly, this isn't power-games incest; it is probably a case of culturally-accepted incest during a period of particular immorality for the Catholic world. During the middle age, many European monarchs were related due to political marriages, sometimes even resulting in distant cousins being married. (Halliday, 46-47) This was especially true in the Habsburg, Hohenzollern, Savoy and Bourbon royal houses. In his book Family Values and the New Society: Dilemmas of the 21st Century, Smith states that incestuous marriages were also seen in the royal houses of ancient Japan and Korea. (143) In addition to the practitioners of incest, The Risks and Rewards of Royal Incest includes Inca Peru, Ancient Hawaii, at times, Central Africa, Mexico, and Thailand. (National Geographic Magazine) Similar to the pharaohs of ancient Egypt, the Inca rulers married their sisters. Huayna Capac, for instance, was the son of Topa Inca Yupanqui and the Inca's sister and wife. The Hawaiians had the most frequence of incest issues in the middle ages. The Ali'i is the highest status level which included the high chiefs and the paramount chief. It was very important for them at those times to select a partner of high rank, for the child to have a high status level, too. In fact, it was so important for them that it became a necessity that these cultural obligations were pushed to the extreme. In the case of the first degree of the ali'i where they try to marry the closest possible relative, it was practiced to the extent where it led to the union of brothers and sisters. Even though it was prominent and very important, it only existed in the ali'i and was treated with reverence. If the siblings had an offspring, the baby would be treated that of a god. It is noted that Hawaiian myths had centered on incest, and it is showed that incest is related to the sacrificial system and kingship. Valeri notes that myths explain the beginning of kingship as the result of a process. (170)
Incest in modern history has been very popular in a weird way, Winchin Chala recognizing it as "very sensitive but off-the-charts." Incest taboo in modern times has been universal; it also acts as a kind of fetish that adds to the titillation of the concerned people, so much that it has been a popular topic for English erotic fiction. It is said that the number of these incestuous events in real life have been increasing, citing sibling incest case as the most common in these words:
“Previous studies have shown that harm caused by sibling sexual abuse parallels that inflicted by fathers and step-fathers and that sibling incest offenders typically perpetrate greater numbers of offence incidents, over a longer period of time than other adolescent sexual offenders."
(Sue Rayment-McHugh, Nisbet 2).
However, people began questioning the morality of incest. The topic of incest as to why it is right or wrong became remarkable nowadays. Certain precautions have also been set up by several governments. The certainty as to which incest should be criminalized also comprises major part of the issue about incest nowadays. People have been taking sides on the matter; some saying that it was just banned because people have always been coinciding it with child abuse and sexual assault; and some citing points as to which it should be banned, like it's not natural, it put risks unto the child, and it's just repugnant. The favoring side is mostly pointing out that "it is none of our business what two consenting adults wish to do (as long as no one else is harmed/involved without consent)" (Moosa, 1). Also, they have put up points about incestuous couples having "deformed" babies; some have noted that women above 35 also has significant risks to her upcoming baby, and as to why that is legalized and incest is not in that aspect. On the other hand, the opposing side argues that sexual abuse in the family would increase significantly and the act is against God, but these arguments are inaccurate and not religion-wise. The obverse has stressed the effects on the baby, “close genetic relatives run the risk of having offspring that have a reduced chance of surviving," Lieberman said. Because of the cited negative effects, people have also begun asking why there is incest and what causes it in the first place.
There is no definite reason to what wholly causes incest. Long ago, some of the societies and cultures just permit incest. This is viewed by some historian as a side effect of gender role blur, considering that Greece has bloomed in history along with its arts that produce effeminate men and even hermaphrodite public statues. In addition to that, anthropologists claim that wayward families and individuals have also supported incest in behalf of the blur. Over the years, some factors have been found to play a major role to its existence. Such factors include genetic sexual attraction, holy dogmas and power games.
History has shown that royal families did not hesitate to form very close bonds between them. While a marriage of cousin and cousin happened quite often, marriages between uncles and nieces are rare - but they happened, too. Documentarily, royal families of Europe believed that they are ordained by God to rule that country, not some family. Therefore, they believed that they must not spoil God’s so-called gift by marrying someone impure. They practiced incest and intermarried in order to keep their bloodline pure. (Thomson, 70) In his 1993 study, Thomson introduced another cause, which is the power game. When power is concentrated in a single ruling family, there has arisen in history a strong impetus for that family to avoid sharing power with outsiders by dictating who must marry who. Sometimes, nations engage in kinds of extended-family marriage-swap schemes, but often, these continue for too long resulting in increasing inbreeding amongst a class of inter-national royals. The ruling families of Egypt from the time of Ahmes, who ruled from 1580 to 1558CE, to the Cleopatras, saw incest as a royal tradition for power-game reasons, as did the Peruvian royalty. (23)
Science says that people tend to find an individual more attractive if they look alike, thus the reason behind genetic sexual attraction. The definition of genetic sexual attraction is more vividly elaborated in these words:
GSA is particularly noted in the case of adopted or separated children who are subsequently reunited with the biological parents or siblings of the opposite sex [who bear a close resemblance], seemingly because the normal bonding mechanism has been disrupted. It takes the form of an overpowering, almost electrical grip of emotion, associated with an inability to keep away from the other person and an almost primordial sense of having belonged together all their lives [and may lead to a sexual relationship].” (The Encyclopedia Of World Problems and Human Potential)
The term was coined by American Barbara Gonyo. In her book, she narrated her story and expressed her thoughts and feelings. Pregnant at 15 in the mid-1950s, Gonyo was forced to give her son Mitch up for adoption when he was born. The two found each other again around 1980, and Gonyo, then 42, was horrified to realize that she was feeling very attracted to her 26-year-old son. Even allowing for Mitch’s resemblance to his father, Gonyo’s first love, her reaction struck her as extreme and disgusting. Eventually, though, she came to terms with her feelings, attributing them to the lack of bonding in her son’s early childhood. Fortunately, her son did not reciprocate, and they did not pursue a relationship. However, GSA can be very overwhelming and intense as expressed by people who have directly felt the phenomenon. Harrison published a memoir entitled The Kiss in the 1990s regarding her four-year incestuous relationship with her biological father, whom she had not seen for almost 20 years prior to beginning of their relationship. The attraction is proved to be rare between people raised together in early childhood due to a reversed sexual imprinting known as the Westermarck effect. The Westermarck effect desensitizes two related people to late close sexual attraction. Thus, pointing out the role of proximity in prevalence of incest. (Lieberman, Tooby, and Leda 72)
The field of psychology also offers the causes of incest. As said earlier in the introduction of categories of incest, some people commit incestuous acts due to the emotional and physical absence of their significant other. Together with the genetic sexual attraction and emotional longing, the individual diverts his or her attention to someone closer, more available and related to him because as several studies have suggested, people are generally attracted to people who look like them (Locke and Horowitz) and they generally evaluate faces that exhibit features of their own ethnic or racial group as being more attractive. (Bereczkei) This typically leads to incest because family members and close relatives have the highest chance of obtaining the same features and looks. Miscellaneous causes include peculiar fetish, drug and liquor addiction, and so on.
As Bittles notes, the incest taboo is and has been one of the most endemic of all cultural taboos, both in present and in many past societies. Most modern societies according to him have established laws regarding incest or social restrictions on closely consanguineous marriages. (178-187) Laws regarding incest vary considerably between jurisdictions, and depend on the type of sexual activity and the nature of the family relationship of the parties involved, as well as the age and sex of the parties. Prohibition of incest laws may extend to restrictions on marriage rights, which also vary between jurisdictions.
Most European countries have laws against incest between lineal ancestors, descendants, and full siblings. Austria, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Republic of Ireland, Italy, Poland, Sweden, Romania, Switzerland and the United Kingdom are all against incest. In these countries, incest is strictly prohibited and each country has its corresponding punishment for people who commit incest. Under Germany's criminal code which dates back to 1871, vaginal sex between siblings or between (grand-) parent and child is a crime, punishable by up to three years in prison. Only vaginal intercourse is punishable, other forms of sexual activity remain exempt from punishment. Sex with a descendant is punishable by up to six years in prison while sex between siblings is punishable by up to two years in prison, as defined by the Danish penal code. (Section 210); Article 213 of the Swiss Penal Code prohibits incest, intercourse among siblings or other persons related by blood in direct line is punishable by up to three years imprisonment; In Poland’s Article 201 of the Penal Code it is punishable by imprisonment for no less than 3 months and no more than 5 years; In Finland, punishable from a fine up to 2 years in prison for "sexual act between close relative" but it will not be punished if the person in question has been under 18 years old when have performed the sexual act with parent or grandparent or the person have been forced or illegally persuaded to perform the sexual. Italy prohibits incest, too. Even if the individuals are adult, offenders convicted of incest will be punished up to 10 years and if one of the parties is a minor, it is punishable up to 25 years, and will be labeled as “sex offender”. In the United States, close-blood relatives that fall under incest includes relationship with father, mother, grandfather, grandmother, sister, brother, aunt, uncle, niece and nephew. Relationship between first-cousins is prohibited in some states. The period of jail imprisonment differs in each state. For example in California, the California Penal Code 285 states that persons being within the degrees of consanguinity within which marriages are declared by law to be incestuous and void, who intermarry with each other, or who commit fornication or adultery with each other, are punishable by imprisonment in the state prison. (American Prosecutors Research Institute) Though incest is legal in Russia, marriage of persons who are lineally related is prohibited under the Family Code of Russia. (Article 14) Offenders of the crime are punished by the Romanian law by up to 7 years in prison as stated in Article 203 of the 1969 Romanian Penal Code. If the committers are of age of consent, the punishment will be reduced to 5 years in prison. Considering again that in German law sex with a close relative is forbidden and punishable looks quite odd because incest is not illegal in many of Germany's neighbouring countries. In South Africa, incest is a statutory crime according to the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences and Related Matters) Amendment Act, 2007. In Asia, countries such as the Philippines, Malaysia, Hong Kong and People’s Republic of China and Taiwan, incest is deemed illegal. These countries specify the prohibited act and like the others, provide corresponding punishment upon commission of crime.
In some countries, incest can be illegal or legal based on the situation and condition of incest. For instance, sexual relationship with close relatives, even if involves consenting adults, is illegal with a punishment of 14- 20 years imprisonment in Hong Kong. However it is stated that it is only considered as a crime in male-and-female sexual intercourse. Therefore, same-sex incest is not illegal in Hong Kong.
Meanwhile, there are also countries wherein incest is accepted, practiced and legal. Countries in Latin America such as Argentina and Brazil have legalized it in recent years. It is stated in the Crimes Against Sexual Integrity of the Argentine Criminal Code that “incest is allowed if both individuals are above the minimum age of consent. The minimum age of consent is 13 years old and above regardless of the gender and sexual orientation.” Among the European countries, incest is legal in Netherlands, Russia, France, Belgium and Spain. (Planck, 29) In history, it is noted that Napoleon abolished France's incest laws in 1810, applying to Belgium as well. On January 27, 2010, France reinstated a new law against incest. The new law, however, defines incest as rape or sexual abuse on a minor "by a relative or any other person having lawful or de facto authority over the victim". In addition to this, it is guaranteed that consensual incest is not prohibited in the two countries. (Samuel) Though incest is legal in Russia, marriage of persons who are lineally related is prohibited under the Family Code of Russia. (Article 14) The Universality of Incest issue of The Journal of Psychohistory gives a vivid picture of incest in Japan, wherein it is considered as a tradition. Even in the past 20 years, incest in Japan is still alive. The most common is the father-daughter incest cases and this occurs when the mother dies, the father then will marry his own daughter. Another case of incest is the mother-son case, where the mothers commit sexual intercourse with their sons while their husbands are having out extramarital affairs. Also, the mothers offer their body to their son to excel in studies and discourage to have sex with teenage girls. (DeMause, 200-219)
Furthermore, some nations hold no specific prohibition of incest. The Max Planck Institute for Foreign and International Criminal Law claims neither is incest a crime in Luxembourg, Portugal, Spain and even in Asian countries like Turkey, Israel, and India. (29) Consensual incest is very much legal in Spain and Russia; however it is stated in the Article 14 of the Russian Family Code that “people who are lineally related may not marry.” The Committee on Elimination of Discrimination against Women says that incest is not specifically prohibited under the Portuguese law, thus implying it is neither legal nor illegal.
Consensual incest specifically between adults can be legal or prohibited depending on the legal system of one’s country or state. It is said that numerous legal systems make laws without a prohibition of consensual incest between adults. Some view consensual incest as a victimless crime, (Beirne) because by definition, a victimless crime is a crime that is consensual and non-predatory wherein there is no apparent victim and no apparent pain or injury. (Walsh, 7) However, the age of consent law is considered on whether consensual incest is legal or not. Age consent is the age in which a person may marry without a parental approval and wherein a female can be legally capable of agreeing to sexual intercourse without accusing the male of statutory rape. (The Gale Group) The 2004 study of Inbreeding, Incest, and the Incest Taboo: The State of Knowledge at the Turn of the Century also notes that in some societies where incest is illegal, consensual adult incest is seen by some as a victimless crime. (Wolf, Durham 169)
Though laws regarding sexual activity between close relatives and those related through affinity vary considerably, sexual relations with a first-degree relative (such as a parent or sibling) who share 50% DNA, is almost universally forbidden. (Rosman, Rubel, and Weisgrau 101)
Incest is a topic most people don't even want to talk about, or think about. However, we all want to know how, why, and when most modern societies made nearly everyone raised to believe that it is a horrible thing that shouldn't be considered. What reasons did most societies start seeing this as a "bad thing" that should be extremely frowned upon? Where does our aversion to incest come from — genetics or society — and what's so bad about it, anyway?
The sociology research as to why people develop that "ick" factor satisfies the question. There is a sociologist named Westermarck who explains that we create repulsion for sexual attraction to family members who we are too familiar with. Not just family members, but anyone. Basically, Westermarck claims that if two people grow up in the same house or a close environment while either party is between 1 - 8 or so, then they will instinctually develop repulsion for each other. This does not just apply to family members, but adopted siblings and children as well. The incest taboo therefore does not act as a restraint against something which humans are naturally inclined to do in the first place. As Westermarck clearly states in these words:
“Generally speaking, there is a remarkable absence of erotic feelings between persons living very closely together from childhood. Nay more, in this, as in many other cases, sexual indifference is combined with the positive feeling of aversion when the act is thought of.’ (80)
He then goes further to say, "aversions which are generally felt readily lead to moral disapproval and prohibitory customs and laws," (84) in an attempt to explain how the incest taboo could follow from such an aversion.
There are two well-researched cases that demonstrate this phenomenon, one in Taiwan, and the other in Israel. The work Ancient Egyptian Sibling Marriage and the Westermarck Effect presented the well-researched case in Taiwan, wherein there was an old practice of arranged marriage where the sim-pua, or little bride, was raised in her future husband's household from a very young age. She and her future husband were raised almost like brother and sister, until the time when they had to abruptly become husband and wife as adults. There was no taboo against this sudden change in their relationship, of course. Rather, it was demanded of them and it was often met with reluctance. The success of such marriages was significantly less than the success of other Taiwanese arranged marriages in which the future bride and groom met in adolescence. Marital success decreased proportionately with the decreasing age at which the girl met her future husband, beginning at ten and becoming especially low if they met when she was below the age of three. (Scheidel) A more dramatic example was of children brought up in Israeli kibbutzim. Children brought up in the same peer group of the same kibbutzim, though unrelated to one another, were around each other as children more than they were around even their own parents. They did everything together from a very young age. And although they were not discouraged from marrying, very few who were raised together in such a way did. They claimed that they saw each other as siblings and could not think of each other in any other way. Those few who did marry had often first met sometime after the first six years of their life. In the cases where the two had met before the age of six, they had not been in continuous contact during that time. (Shepher, 52)
The theory is widely accepted and proven. All of this implies that there is a critical period, sometime between infancy and the age of six or ten, during which time biological imprinting takes place which causes a later sexual aversion towards a person. Such imprinting would generally take place upon close relatives and prevent later inbreeding. However it is effective unless this sexual repulsion instinct is interrupted at an early age. In the case of siblings who start sexual contact with each other at a younger age by "accident" (experimenting with each other's bodies out of curiosity) or when an adult interferes with a child's natural sexual development (by force or coercing). When this happens, experts believe that the child's repulsion instinct might be broken down for that person. The adult who interferes should be shot in this statement; the other child who is curious can really not be responsible for his or her actions. This is what has actually created the "taboo" of incest and why 90% of the people in the world react negatively towards incest.
Physiologically, it became a taboo when people realized that sex between brothers and sisters and other similarly related relatives can frequently result in children that are deformed. If close relatives are permitted to have sex and offspring, the chance of genetic disorders is much higher. The benefits of sexual reproduction over asexual reproduction are erased by incest and inbreeding, the mating of closely related individuals. Inbreeding narrows the gene pool, reducing variety and therefore survival rates in a population. As it occurs between people with very similar genotypes, inbreeding can also cause the expression of harmful recessive mutations which might otherwise not have been expressed. (Bittles) The progeny of incestuous relationships therefore have a higher mortality rate than normal. An inbred, an individual produced from inbreeding, is said to have recessive genes that is responsible for the physical and health defects. In general, the closer the relationship of the parents of an individual, the higher the chance that the said individual will have defects that would cause premature death, congenital malformations, and disease. (Lieberman and Smith) This means that if an individual's parents are brother and sister, father and daughter or son and mother, chances are, it has a high probability that the individual would have health defects. The odds of the new-born child, who is the product of incest, that will have an early death, a serious birth defect or mental deficiency, reaches 50%. Therefore, consanguineous unions have a much higher likelihood of genetic defects due to much higher phenotypic expression of deleterious recessive genes. Genetic morbidity is present 4-5% more of the time in consanguineous unions that are non-consanguineous.
According to a research done in 2006, “6 percent of total births worldwide—are born with a serious birth defect of genetic or partially genetic origin.” (Christianson, Howson, and Modell) It cannot be known that all the birth defects were caused by recessive genes; birth defects can also be from maternal exposure to environmental agents (teratogens) such as alcohol, medicine and pollution that can harm a developing fetus. Birth defects can indeed be lethal, for those who managed to survive; these defects can cause lifelong mental, physical, auditory or visual disability. According to the study done in 2006, “at least 3.3 million children under five years of age die from birth defects each year and an estimated 3.2 million of those who survive may be disabled for life.” (Christianson, Howson, Modell , 2006 ) Birth defects is a global problem, but it is more serious in low – income countries rather than in high – income countries due to better maternal health and other factors. Five common birth defects of genetic or partially genetic origin were: congenital heart defects (1,040,835 births); (2) neural tube defects (323,904 births); (3) the hemoglobin disorders, thalassemia, and sickle cell disease (307,897 births);(4) Down syndrome (trisomy 21) (217,293 births); and (5) glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PD) deficiency (177,032 births).
With respect to all the information and facts presented, I will now lay the modern society’s perspective: incest is widespread and almost universally considered a cultural taboo.
We, people, tend to reject an idea or practice due to three reasons. First, it brings repercussions; second, we no longer find it vital, beneficial and nourishing and lastly, the drawbacks outweigh the benefits. As indicated in this research, people have began to raise topics questioning if incest is wrong or right when they noticed the downside of the act, such as physiological repercussions.
The physiological side effects of sexual activities between biologically related people aren’t immediately effective in the first generation. Arguing that incest is okay regardless of multiple generations being required to produce truly serious rates of morbidity, that's not the point. The point is that because such morbidity is an actual threat, even if it takes longer than most people think, evolution naturally developed aversive mechanisms to discourage them, which is why incest taboos exist virtually in every civilization that has ever existed with extremely rare exceptions.
Just as people are evolving, their needs and wants evolve too. Things in the society are subject to change with regards to the necessity and the time, and people are always after the things that are boon. Back then, men commit incest and intermarried because they find it necessary and beneficial in the maintenance of bloodline, power, and money. They try their best to maintain the bloodline pure for they believe that their genes are perfectly combined as a result of God’s ordinance to lead. People have come to realize that although inbreeding may preserve strong genes, it won't allow the creation and propagation of stronger combinations, which are even better for society overall. One line of explanation sees the incest taboo as a cultural implementation of a biologically evolved preference for sexual partners with whom one is unlikely to share genes, since inbreeding may have detrimental outcomes rather than progressive outcomes. Today, there is an existing general human preference for group exogamy. People have began to notice others outside their family line and thus moved out of the conformity. Normally, if an individual tries something out and did not like the outcome, he or she will not resort to it again. In this instance, it can be then concluded that people have seen the advantage of exogamy over endogamy, just as like animals have seen the advantage of sexual reproduction over asexual reproduction.
But then, one might ask, why would one need a taboo against something which people are not inclined to do in the first place? We have a natural aversion towards starving to death, yet no one finds it morally repugnant when someone doesn't eat. Perhaps we need the taboo because there are cases where the sexual aversion does not develop properly, and further reinforcement in the form of a taboo is necessary to prevent incest. But in that case, how can you say that the incest taboo is a conscious manifestation of the sexual aversion? It may simply be a reinforcement, rather, which has co-evolved with this innate aversion. The biological characteristic and the cultural taboo serve the same purpose: to prevent inbreeding. And yet while biological characteristics can be counted on to be hereditary, cultural evolution is a far more messy and unpredictable matter, that is why people nowadays have established the norms of intimacy among biologically related people.
I therefore conclude that majority of the modern societies regard incest as a taboo as a result of human evolution and intellectual progression. Although some of the nations accept, practice and legalized incest, majority of the nations still remain hostile to it just because of the mere fact that it brings repercussions to mankind.
