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Revision as of 11:20, 31 May 2002

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