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I understand that this is a hot-button topic for many discussing it, but the NPOV of this article seems severely at risk.

• Where is this idea that the incest taboo is purely an invention of modern society coming from? That is simply untrue. Not only many (most?I have no numbers immediately available) human societies frown on incestual sex, many animal societies structure their mating in such a way as to diminish the risk. Additionally, it is a well-researched fact (by actual scientists, not Internet people with a high speed connection and an axe to grind) that, among humans, sexual attraction to those one spends certain formative years in close contact with diminishes very severely, regardless of level of blood relation. Several posters seem to be advocating the view that the incest taboo is some kind of cultural imposition. That is patent nonsense.

I mean no offense, but I have the distinct impression that people with no real knowledge in this area are playing fast and loose with the facts.

The bonobo chimps, very, if not, more closer related as regular chimps, regularily mate with all family members. The only taboo, as far as I know, with this species is son/mother after the son reaches puberty. --ShaunMacPherson 07:06, 19 Apr 2004 (UTC)

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Some biologist should add some numerical information about likelihood of birth defects after incest, say between brother and sister. Also some general information about why mixing is good would be useful. --AxelBoldt

At the level of brother and sister the probability of birth defects goes up noticeably, but not enormously if the gene pool is fairly healthy. Maybe it almost doubles. Some of the more common birth defects (hare lip etc) are probably not due to genetic causes. For first cousins, the increase is down in the noise. Inbreeding can have advantages (ask any plant or animal breeder), but breeding individuals who are not closely related also has advantages (again ask any plant or animal breeder). The best way to get a healthy population seems to involve a mixture of both.

As to why, that is a very complicated thing that is not quite fully understood yet. It would take a very knowlegeble geneticist writing a very long article to explain even what we now know.

I am not sure how this relates to incest for humans. A lot of people would not want to think about humans in these kind of terms, of deliberately breeding to improve the species. Also incest is not quite the same as inbreeding, since in most juristicions it includes various relationships without close blood relationship, and it also includes sexual relationships that do not produce children.

True, but that's just a result of confusion by priests and jurists. It's clear that the incest taboo is there because of genetic reasons.

In Germany for instance, it is legal for a sister to have oral sex with her brother, but penetration is illegal. That makes eminent sense. But the article should explain why.

Bullshit. There is no such thing as an "incest taboo" except in modern societies. It certainly didn't arise due to genetic reasons or evolution.

Is it really clear that the taboo is for genetic reasons? The fact that most traditional versions of it are not very precise in preventing genetic trouble, should be a hint that other reasons should be considered. The genetic reasoning may well be a modern rationalisation for an old custom. It is unlikely that the ancients in the cultures where the taboo existed did the detailed and careful statistical analysis needed to show that inbreeding can increase short term genetic risk. They certainly did not have the theory needed to understand why.

For the definition of incest found in some tribes, that no sex inside the clan is allowed, there is a much more obvious explanation. It is to improve the unity of the tribe by forcing the clans to remain friendly. For other versions of the taboo it is hard for me to imagine any rational reason based on evidence available to the people who first invented it.

- i haven't read anything on this in a while, but my impression is that property had lots to do with it. For example, I seem to remember that in Classical Athens, an uncle could marry a neice if she were the sole heir to her father, in order to keep the property in the family. On the otherhand, I'm pretty sure that Post-Christian Rome had a 7 degree limit, which was also held as the standard for the Franks, although they tended to look at the degrees slightly differently. Of course, this doesn't work if you look at the marriage of Louis the Pious and his son to two Welf sisters, so that Charles the Bald's maternal aunt was also his sister-in-law... Off to hunt in Herlihy and Wemple -- I think that's where I read this stuff...JHK

I restored JHK's recent contribution, and also revised the article. "incest" is a term that has many meanings and uses, and one meaning and use is to describe prohibited marriages. I agree that it is sometimes important to distinguish between prohibited sex and prohibited marriage, and I revised the article to make this clear -- I provided two different definitions of incest, and an specific case that includes an example of a forbidden sexual relationship and a forbidden marriage. I also removed some tendentious polemic. SR

"incest" almost universally means "sex" in modern societies. It is VERY important to distinguish between sex and marriage since nobody except sociologists and historians give a damn about marriage anymore. So what's the deal with putting the marriage definition and examples (which nobody cares about) before the sex definition and examples?

Your "example" is extremely bad, suggesting that people throughout history have forbidden both cases of incest. Which is completely false.

The incest taboo is myth. That is reality. Shouldn't encyclopedia entries deal with reality and report myth as myth? By removing the "polemic" you only confirm the people's preconceptions on the matter!

Here's another way to understand just how wrong and stupid SR's view is.

Consider "child abuse". Is it child abuse to leave whip a newborn infant into a coma? Yes, yes it is. And anyone who gainsays this is a moron. Yet, at the turn of the century in Germany, such practices occured. Was it considered child abuse by the natives? Who cares?

What child abusers consider child abuse is irrelevant. It is a well-known fact that no parent considers themselves a child abuser, even when they are. So who gives a damn what the child abusers believe?

Similarly, what the natives consider incest or not is irrelevant. The fact that Trobriand islanders consider some type of incest to be a-ok doesn't mean we should stop calling incest incest. Incest is a specific practice which we believe to be wrong. It isn't "whatever some society believes to be wrong"!

Next you're going to redefine "evil" and say that child sacrifice in Carthage wasn't evil because they never saw a thing wrong with it!

If you can't deal with the reality of incest then lay off the damn page!

Actually, SR, since you can't even differentiate between incest and inbreeding, which are completely different concepts, you should just lay off the page entirely. For the record, incest refers to sex while inbreeding refers to the reduced genetic diversity of children resulting from incest! -- ark

This article seems to be giving equal or greater weight to the POV that there's nothing wrong with incest. Since over 90% of readers (maybe even 99%) would strongly disagree with this POV, shouldn't we give a little more space to the anti-incest POV?

Not that we should come out and denounce it (that would violate our editorial policy). Just that it should be more balanced.

Who objects to incest, and on what grounds? What are the genetic consequences (for humans)? Why is incest a taboo?

Ed Poor, Friday, May 31, 2002

I am DEEPLY disatisfied with the article because the POV that incest exists and is evil (contrary to both the sociologists' view and the "incest taboo" myth) is so reduced. And SR won't even let me have that much. Apparently, he won't tolerate any mention of incest as existing, let alone as an intolerable practice.

Incest is a taboo only in modern societies because it's the product of child sexual abuse and is thus considered immoral. The genetics have nothing to do with it, never have and never will. -- ark

Thanks for explaining that, ark. We should mention the reason for the incest taboo in the article. Something like,

• One of the biggest reasons for the incest taboo in modern societies is that many people consider it a form of child sexual abuse. Generally, people consider it immoral to exploit children sexually.

Sl, can you and ark agree on the above formulation?

And what do you suggest that paragraph replace?

I disagree with the paragraph because 1) people already think the immorality of incest is universal, and 2) this is false. So saying "Generally, people consider sexual exploitation of children immoral" doesn't identify exactly who considers it immoral (nearly all modern people) and who does not (many people in third-world countries and in the past, including such luminaries as Socrates and Seneca).

Thanks for engaging me in the discussion, ark. I see where your objection is, and I agree with you to some extent.

We cannot advocate the POV that the incest taboo is universal. Instead, perhaps, we can describe when and where the taboo has existed. I have read in the article one or two examples of non-adherence to the taboo, and the article would be better off with these examples than without them.

How about:

• The taboo against is nearly universal (or, common to most cultures). Yet, some cultures are unaware of the taboo. Such as, etc.

We might even discuss the tension between (A) the American prohibition against incest, and (B) evidence that it is practiced to some extent (how much?).

Ed Poor, Friday, May 31, 2002

When and where the taboo has existed? Only the last (couple?) century and only in the heavily industrialized countries.

There is a much older and wider taboo against flaunting incest in public but even that was never universal. Plus, there is the added consideration that in many cases, kissing your wife in public was taboo (as it still is in Western Africa) while sucking your son's penis in public wasn't (in neolithic tribes). There is far more evidence of a taboo against public adult heterosexual practices than against there is for one against incest.

So how "universal" is the taboo? Not at all. In fact, it's incest that was universal until only very recently. I don't mean to imply that the current prohibitions against incest are a fad, they're just a very new development in morality. People are much more moral nowadays than they ever have been in the past.

How widespread is incest nowaday? I do not know. It's understood that the vast majority of sexual abuse is incestuous. So that reduces the question to how widespread sexual abuse is. The estimates range from 10% to 50%, with the better studies giving the higher numbers. 50% does seem pretty high to me but 10% is delusionally low since abuse itself runs at 90%. -- ark

Following moved from Slrubenstein user page:

you stupid fuck. you don't even understand what "inbreeding" (which does NOT refer to animals specifically but to children born out of incest!) means and you think you have authority over "incest"?

Hi, Sl. It seems you have picked up a sparring partner. Why not duke it out on the Talk page, instead of reverting each other's edits?

24, please don't abuse the "anyone can edit" privilege. I'd hate to see an administrator have to lock thi incest page. Discussion usually leads to consensus, and have you read the NPOV article?

Ed Poor, Friday, May 31, 2002

I know what NPOV means. And I also know what incest, inbreeding and marriage rules are. SR does not. He confuses all three of them together and butchers my contributions.

dictionary.com gives 3 or 4 definitions of incest. NONE of them relate to inbreeding or marriage rules.

Even among sociologists, it is FALSE that they believe incest means marriage rules. They believe it means sex practices, but they also believe that marriage rules constrain sex practices (because sex outside of marriage doesn't exist in their worldview). If you go according to sociologists, when the mother sucks the penis of an infant boy, this is neither sex nor incest! But since this example *clearly* contradicts SR's fairy-tale worldview that incest doesn't exist, and proves the fact that sociologists are deluding themselves, it can't be allowed to exist on the page.

I've let SR have the sociology side even though it's completely false. That's a HUGE amount of compromise. SR can't compromise with me or cooperate in any way because when the facts are listed side by side, he knows he'll lose completely. -- ark

Can I get a cite on the "Neolithic tribes"? It just seems unlikely that they all have (or had) the same customs, any more than industrial civilizations all have the same customs. It would thus be worth specifying the cultures we're referring to.

Also, I did a slight rewrite under "Old Testament": I'll let stand the use of that Christian term for the Jewish scriptures, but the "OT" is the Jewish Bible, not just "a central part" of it. (The previous was similar to "The Bible (an important part of Christian scripture)" says...") Vicki Rosenzweig

Sorry, Vicki, I had thought that OT was a subset of the Jewish Bible. I get confused by Mishnah, Talmud, and so on. It would be a Mitzvah if you would staighten me out :-) Ed Poor, Friday, May 31, 2002

I'll look for cites for neolithic tribes. But remember, the contention is that nearly all societies throughout history have practiced incest (whether or not it was officially "permitted"). If you can show such uniformity in later societies (which you can) and establish one or two cases of neolithic tribes practicing it (which you also can) then it's a good bet that all neolithic tribes were also uniform in that way. -- ark

Okay, ark, let's distinguish between incest, inbreeding and marriage rules. Let's also distinguish between (A) what various advocates want and (B) what actually happens in the world.

I'd say, based on my own concepts, that "incest" means "sex between family members other than husband and wife" (typically, father rapes or seduces daughter; can also be mother/son, or two siblings).

My church does not allow brother and sister to marry. (Once, Rev. Moon unknowingly matched a brother and sister before a Unification Church mass wedding, and they had to go back and tell him of his mistake!) Perhaps we could say what other, larger churches say about bro/sis marriage.

As for "inbreeding", I think the term has larger scope than one's immediate family. Doesn't it also refer to marrying within one's tribe or other relatively small group? The terms exogamous and endogamous come to mind.

Ed Poor, Friday, May 31, 2002

Inbreeding refers to the production of offspring (both human and animal) using a restricted gene pool. If you have a line of mice derived from a single mouse 20 generations back, then the whole population is considered inbred.

Could you provide chapter and verse on the OT prohibition of incest? -- ark

The cite: (http://www.psychohistory.com/htm/eln07_evolution.html)

INCEST AND THE SEXUAL ABUSE OF CHILDREN IN NEW GUINEA As with infanticide, the sexual abuse of children is widely reported by anthropologists, but in positive terms: maternal incest is seen as indulging the infant's sexual needs, oral and anal rape of boys is described as both desirable and as desired by the boys and rape of both girls and boys is presented as an unmotivated "cultural" artifact. I will begin with the use by mothers of their infants as erotic objects.

Anthropologists maintain that "the incest taboo is the very foundation of culture"140 and that "the taboo on incest within the immediate family is one of the few known cultural universals."141 The culturally-approved sexual use of children, therefore, must be renamed wherever it is found as something other than incest. Ford and Beach's widely-cited Patterns of Sexual Behavior makes this false distinction clear: incest, they say, "excludes instances in which mothers or fathers are permitted to masturbate or in some other sexual manner to stimulate their very young children,"142 then going on to call incest rare. The authoritative Growing Up: A Cross-Cultural Encyclopedia covers 87 cultures in which it says there is no incest, just adults playing with, stroking, masturbating and sucking their baby's genitals: "Truk adults play with an infant's genitals...In China, Manchu mothers tickle the genitals of their little daughters and suck the penis of a small son...in Thailand, a Banoi mother habitually strokes her son's genitals."143 But again this isn't incest. Davenport's cross-cultural study similarly concludes that "Mother-son incest is so rare that it is insignificant and irrelevant genital stimulation as a means of pacifying a child may be regarded as nonsexual..."144 Konker reviews cross-cultural adult-child sexual relations and finds that "the ethnographic record contains many...examples of normative adult/child sexual contact" but said this isn't a problem since experts have found there is "no reason to believe that sexual contact between an adult and child is inherently wrong or harmful."145 Korbin's Child Abuse and Neglect: Cross-Cultural Perspectives likewise finds that mothers masturbating children is widespread in her large sample, but she says it is not incest since the society doesn't call it incest:

I made a few changes. here are the reasons:

I changed OT to Hebrew Bible, because it was called the Hebrew Bible before it was called the OT.

I moved the line about Murdock down to the section on marriage for two reasons. First, the current opening definition does not mention marriage at all, and defines incest solely in terms of sexual relations; therefore, the qualification concerning Murdock is not necessary in the opening. Second, the qualification concerning Murdock is useful, but appropriate to the section on marriage.

I removed the line about "neolithic" for three reasons: first, it is vague (which neolothic tribes?). Scond, it is hard to prove -- the neolithic refers to a period about 10,000 years ago for which there is no written historical record; whatever archeological evidence there is for the practice mentioned is at best scant and inconclusive. Third, the use of "neolithic" to describe contemporary non-industrialized societies is inaccurate and misleading, and many have aruged, colonialist and perhaps racist.

"neolithic" just means "stone age" and there were still stone age tribes very recently. They have been extensively studied. So your claim that it is "difficult to prove" is just your own uneducated opinion.

I understand the point that is being made by this sentence I have cut -- that incest need not involve marriage. But given the way the article now reads, that is not a point that needs to be argued. Even the section on incest and marriage states that the relationship between sexual and marriage practices is complex, and provides an example of incest that is unrelated to marriage.

"complex" means nothing.

I did, however, keep the specific reference to the practice (mothers sexually stimulating their infant sons), but made it more specific -- I do not know how many "neolithic tribes" have this practice, but there is a famous study of Bali.

As for inbreeding. I am among many who believe incest among humans is not inbreeding, and inbreeding among other animals should not be likened to incest -- the line that ark cut made this clear. Whether that line should be put back I will now leave to others. But let me make plain my reason for including it. There are many who believe that sexual relations between closely related humans and closely related non-humans is comparable and should be explained according to the same principles. The fact that some people believe this, and the fact that many social scientists and biologists do not, should be in the article. SR

Inbreeding refers to the production of children. When children are the product of incest, in the English language they are called inbred. 'Inbred' is an epithet with connotations of mental retardation but not animalism.

In animals, the term incest is not used because one is never interested in cases where animals have sex without producing offspring. Thus, people use 'inbreeding' but never 'incest' in the case of animals.

I am applying the same principles to both animals and humans, and because of that I use different words. -- ark

I'm not sure who's saying what about "inbreeding" and "incest". Could you guys use the four-hyphen thing to make a horizontal line? That will distinguish one contributer's comment from another's.

I gather that "inbreeding" can refer to animals or to humans, while "incest" refers only to humans. Additionally, "inbreeding" refers more to the production of offspring. Perhaps we should contrast the terms incest and inbreeding in the article.

For example, some mountainous, isolated parts of the U.S. east (Appalachia?) are notorious for inbreeding and are the butt of many incest jokes. Are any of us aware of scholarship on Appalachia?

I cut this, but am putting it here if Icarus or others want to work on it:

Although incest can now be used to describe relationships between an authority figure and a pupil, such as teacher-student or troop leader and scout, it once only refered to sexual relations between geneticaly close family members, such as brother and sister or parent and child. Generally the term incest is reserved for sex between family members.

Incest is a criminal offence in most countries, as well as being against most modern religions. The term is also sometimes used metaphorically, to describe relationships between an authority figure and a pupil, such as teacher-student or troop leader and scout.

Although I see some value to breaking the intro into two paragraphs, I do not see how this version is more NPOV. Indeed, I have some serious problems with it. The newly proposed opening "Although incest can now be used to describe relationships between an authority figure and a pupil, such as teacher-student or troop leader and scout, it once only refered to..." is vague and inacurate. It is vague to say that incest "can" be used to describe... -- "incest" can be use to describe anything at all; the question is, is it used that way. Frankly, I have never head anyone use it to describe student/teacher relations, although I am willing to believe that it does happen. But if it does happen, I would still have to ask what it means -- do people experience the same kind of revulsion at a student/teacher relationship as they do at a parent/child relationship? Do they really believe it should be treated the same way, legally? Do they really believe it owes to the same psychological causes? I doubt it, and if someone really believes this I am sure there are many who would object. For these reasons, I just do not think that the article should begin by refering to a form of incest that many would not consider incest. For similar reasons, it is wrong to write, "it once only refered to." On the one hand, I doubt that it once only refered to this, I think that in many different cultures in the past incest refered to other things. Also, today there are still many people for whom this is all that incest refers to. And I would bet (not having done research, but still, I would bet) that this is how incest is still defined by local (if applicable), state, and (if applicable) federal law.

Of course "incest" is a complex topic, there have been and are different deffinitions and explanations for it. But the introductory paragraph of the article, I believe, should state clearly what the most common understanding of the term is. I believe the previous version did that. I believe the revised version muddled it. Slrubenstein

I think a lot of people equate too much incest with child sexual abuse. Incest can be, and most often is, a form of child sexual abuse -- but that does not mean that incest always is a form of child sexual abuse. Incest between adults is not a form of child sexual abuse. And yet it is funny how many authors (who call themselves "psychologists" or "social workers", and publish in things called "Journal of such-and-such", equate the two. I think the article cannot warn against this error too strongly. It does mention it, but it downplays it. (It also fails to note that parent-child incest involving adults isn't child sexual abuse either, since obviously if the child is an adult they are not a child and whether having sex with them is abusive or not it cannot be child sexual abuse since, as I said, they are not a child.) I added a clear note to the effect that the referenced work at the end makes this mistake.

Also, I notice comparing the current revision to earlier ones that someone has cut a lot of useful and interesting information about incest as an impediment to marriage, differing incest laws in different countries re. first cousins, etc. Why are people deleting useful information from articles? Someone should put that back in....

Finally, having gone back and repaired much of the damage (i.e. deletion of information) from this article: you can't separate the issue of incest from that of marriage. Marrying a close relative is incest, because traditionally sex and marriage were not distinguished (and try marrying your brother or sister with the argument "but i just want to marry them, i don't want to have sex with them..." and see how far that gets you). In any case, anthropologists commonly describe prohibitions on marrying a relative as incest taboos, and here is a whole website discussing restrictions on marriage entitled "exogamy and incest prohbitions" http://www.umanitoba.ca/anthropology/tutor/marriage/incest.html

also, i vaguely remember hearing claims from some right-wing christian lobby group that the colombian constitutional court considered legalising adult incest, but have never heard any real evidence that this actually happened. if anyone has some evidence, that could be added to the article to complement the australian example... (any more examples of attempts to legalise incest?) -- an.

-- an.

an, I appreciate your various contributions to this article. You ask, perhaps rhetorically, why some people were deleting useful information some time back. If you have some time to kill, go to the incest taboo article and read the Talk page. Read enough and you will find out what happened. Slrubenstein

Re: the incidence of porphyria - I don't believe anyone has shown that the form of porphyria apparently present in the British royal family (assuming that this is what the last editor is referring to) was caused by the inheritance of two copies of a recessive gene, so I don't think that can be used as an example of the effects of incest. -- Oliver Pereira

No-one has contradicted me on that one, so I expect I'm right. :) I've removed the reference to porphyria from the article. -- Oliver PEREIRA 00:04 Jan 15, 2003 (UTC)

Some text fodder for you all regarding the genetic reasons against incest. Feel free to incorporate this into the article, since I don't have time to do that myself at the moment.

Why is this? The biological explanation, which scientists accept today, has to do with the recombination of 'lethal recessive' genes. Brother and sister are quite likely to carry the same lethal recessive genes, and when they produce a child together, these lethal recessives will be expressed. In what you might call a normal coupling, husband and wife (or boy and girl) are not closely related and they carry different lethal recessives. The lethal recessives of the one partner are over-ridden by matching non-lethal genes of the other partner. As a result, the lethal recessives are far less likely to be expressed in the child.

What would people have made of this difference in, say, the seventeenth century? They must have noticed the number of stillborn, damaged and deformed children born into incestuous relationships ? a sign, incidentally, that incestuous relationships must have occurred often enough, and openly enough, to be counted. In a deeply superstitious era, the deformities must have been seen as evidence of God's curse on family love. This superstition persists today, although we have a ready remedy to hand now: if the female partner takes the birth control pill, it is very unlikely indeed that the partners will produce a child.

Taken from a Usenet post by Jennifer (not very scientifically written, but gets the point across).

Some quantitative facts guesses. Dawkins says that according to some books, on average every human has two lethal recessive genes. Close relatives (siblings or parent/child pairs) share about 50% of genes. Dawkins goes on to say that for every recessive lethal gene a person has there is a 12.5% chance of his incestous offspring dying young (or being stillborn).

There is an obvious fact that incest would be usually selected against during evolution, because having dead kids sucks. One evolutionary strategy is to reduce attraction towards the closest relatives, another is to force youngs to move away from the original pack.

Still, there are genetic advantages to mating with relatively close relatives. A research by Patrick Bateson have shown that partridges prefer to mate with cousins, as opposed to siblings or less-closely related birds.

We have to begin with empirical evidence. Many societies practice relative inbreeding (e.g. marrying a grandparent's grandchild). Why? I posit that the claim that it sucks when a child dies is ethnocentric; it is not a scientific claim but reflects our Western values that heavily value the lives of children. Many societies have high infant mortality rates, and in the case of societies with relative inbreeding, congenital birth-defects are cirtainly a reason. The question is, why would so many societies encourage relative inbreeding? The answer is, inbreeding leads to an increase in the homozygote. The homozygote may be bad, but it may be good. If all the offspring with the bad (congenital birth-defect) homozygote die during childhood i.e., before reproducing, then over time the frequencies for the dangerous gene will quickly decline in the population. Of course this would work only in relatively small societies, but it is precisely in such societies that one finds relative inbreeding encouraged. This is a plausible explanation for why incest would be selected for in evolution -- it ultimately has a beneficial effect on the gene pool. Put another way (if you are invested in Dawkin's "selfish gene" myth) the good genes are promoting a practice that leads to the elimination of bad genes. Slrubenstein

I have to disagree that dead kids is purely a Western society thing. Dead (stillborn) kids cost resources and mammals (especially large ones) generally follow the strategy of few kids investing heavily in each (unlike, say, fish). Other than that, you make good points. That lethal alleles would wash away from the gene pool (after just a few generations) sounds plausible and if that happens, genetic selection (according to the "selfish gene" theory) would actually favour incest, since mating with your sister would on average pass more than 75% (if this is the first incident of incest, then 87.5%, then 93.3%, etc.) of your own genes to the kid, while in non-incestous society about 50% of the genes is passed each time. I am not a geneticist, but given such a huge advantage of inbreeding I would make a guess that most disadvantages of inbreeding in such groups would be related to long-term variability and would be mostly irrelevant to modern humans.

I agree that the dead kid thing is not "purely" or exclusively Western, but it is not shared by all cultures. Be that as it may, you understand my points, and I agree that this scenario does not apply to our society for a variety of reasons. Slrubenstein

Work needed

This page needs some work on it asides from the NPOV concerns. Maybe if we address these, it'll help with the other. I see it needing:

• Sections: articles are much easier to read if they're broken up into topics or themes with headers.
• Sources: there's a few of them at the end, but where things are stated like facts ("incest is taboo in most societies") we should quote a reference.

--zandperl 23:25, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Inbreeding Here

The topic of Inbreeding should be compiled into one spot in the article, and if an inbreeding article does not exist make one. The topic of inbreeding is an important one, and seperate from incest in so far as sexual intercourse seems to be recreational instead of for procreation.

The problem of inbreeding for people, and other species in general, is that an indivduals are carriers for 'defective' genes (genes that would likely be detramental to the functioning of the animal). When one individual breeds with another unrelated individual, it is far less likely that both are carriers for the same defective gene. However, if both are related both are much more likely to be carriers for the same genes as they share many genes though being releated.

Male A, Female A (Related)

AA, AA -> Mating unproblematic

Bb, Bb -> Mating problematic (some children will be affected)

CC, Cc -> Some children will be carriers

Dd, Dd -> Mating problematic (some children will be affected)

Ee, EE -> Some children will be carriers

Ff, Ff -> Mating problematic (some children will be affected)

GG, gg -> All children will be carriers

hh, hh -> All children will be carriers, and affected

For animals that people breed, inbreeding becomes less of a problem since over time animals that express or carry defective genes are culled so the population as a whole cannot be affected any longer. --ShaunMacPherson 07:20, 19 Apr 2004 (UTC)

This whole discussion seems a little too scientific to me. Rationalism isn't everything. The author of this article brushes off emotional considerations as "belonging in psychology". Doesn't the fact that incestuous relationships, even consensual ones, can have terrible effects on the mental health of the individuals involved and those close to them merit a mention? Also, the notion of the Oedipus Complex is itself controversial, like much Freudian thought. -joye 2 Jun 2004

Well, the problem is that the very idea of Mental health itself is controversial. See that article's section named: Controversy over the nature of mental illness. Specifically, as described in the article, the definition of incest varies through the societies. In case of first cousins, that would mean that definition of mental health varies between different US states, as some of them permits such relations, and some not. You must remember, that incest is discussed here in broad sense, so any generalisation is difficult. Przepla 23:43, 3 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Still non-neutral POV?

I am intending to remove non-neutral POV disclaimer. Any objections? Przepla 23:43, 3 Jun 2004 (UTC).

No objection from me, Slrubenstein

An odd claim made with no factual basis whatever...

Historically, the most important forms of incest were maternal incest (see also Oedipus complex). And while surveys do not indicate a high rate of maternal incest, this can be seen as a reflection of the difficulty of collecting information about illegal sexual acts with children rather than its rare occurrence.

Err...the fact that Freud made up something called the Oedipus complex is hardly evidence of anything. So what's the basis for this statement? john k 05:14, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Beats me. I am suspicious of the word "historically" without evidence or parameters, and "most important" begs the questions, in what way and according to whom. Maternal incest is not quite the same thing as the Oedipal complex, also -- to link the two suggests a serious misunderstanding of both. Can we just cut this passage? Slrubenstein