Sexual relations with close kin. In Western society, it refers to sex in the nuclear family other than between man and wife, but the precise specification of when a relationship is too close to allow sexual relations varies between cultures and over time. The forbidding of sexual intercourse - and marriage - between kin who are regarded as too closely related, is known as an incest taboo.
Incest is sexual activity between close family members. Incest is considered taboo, and forbidden (fully or slightly) in the majority of current cultures. Some prohibit sexual relations between people who grew up in the same household, while others prohibit sexual relations between people who grew up in related households.
Incest can occur between same-sex as well as opposite-sex relatives. In addition, there have been cases of incest between adult relatives.
Incest between close blood-relations is a crime in most nations, although again the extent of the definition of "close" varies. However, since incest is an interpersonal act that takes place in private, it is a difficult law to be enforced. There are wide differences between nations as to how serious the crime of incest is. In some countries, such as Australia, incest is a serious indictable offence, while in others it is a minor crime with much less serious consequences.
Inbreeding among animals
Biologically, animals may have an aversion or inclination to inbreeding based on specific local circumstances and evolutionary trends. Incest between family members, including parents and children occurs; however, incest between a mother and immature sons, who are less than four years old, has not been observed.
The pattern of parenting behavior combined with the structure of dominance hierarchies among many species of animals serves to discourage inbreeding.
Distinctions between incest and inbreeding
The concepts of "incest" and "inbreeding" are distinct.
Incest refers to socially taboo sexual activity between individuals who are considered to be too closely related to enter into marriage.
Inbreeding, on the other hand, refers to procreation between individuals with varying degrees of genetic closeness only, regardless of their relative social positions.
In many societies, the definition of incest and the degree of inbreeding may correlate positively. For example, sexual relations between people of a given degree of genetic closeness is considered incestuous. Many cultures consider relationship between parallel cousins incestuous, but not those between cross cousins, although the degree of genetic relationship does not differ. Relationships may be considered incestuous even when there is no genetic relationship at all: stepparent-stepchild relationships, or between a man and his sister-in-law, or a woman and her brother-in-law, have been considered incestuous, even though they involve no risk of inbreeding above that of the original marriage.
The consequence of inbreeding is to increase the frequency of homozygotes within a population.
Genetics
Inbreeding leads to an increase in homozygosity, that is, the same allele at the same locus on both members of a chromosome pair.
Some anthropologists are critical of including biology in the study of the incest taboo, and have argued that there can be no biological basis for inbreeding aversion because inbreeding may in fact be a good thing. Leavitt (1990) is a good representative of this point of view, writing that "small inbreeding populations, while initially increasing their chances for harmful homozygotic recessive pairings on a locus, will quickly eliminate such genes from their breeding pools, thus reducing their genetic loads" (Leavitt 1990, p.974)
Other specialists claim that this notion betrays a misunderstanding of basic genetics and natural selection. (see Moore 1992, Uhlmann 1992)
Therefore, it is not surprising that inbreeding is uncommon in nature, and most sexually reproducing species have mechanisms built in by natural selection to avoid mating with close kin.
Given such overwhelming evidence of inbreeding depression as being an important force in sexual reproduction, evolutionary psychologists have argued that humans should possess similar psychological heuristics against incest. The social experience of having grown up as brothers and sisters created an incest aversion, even though genetically speaking the children were not related.
Further studies have backed up the hypothesis that some psychological mechanisms are in play that "turn off" children who grow up together. al (2003) found that childhood co-residency with an opposite-sex individual strongly predicts moral sentiments regarding third-party sibling incest, further supporting the Westermark hypothesis.
While the exact nature of kin-recognition psychology is still waiting to be defined, and to what degree it can be overcome by cultural forces is as yet poorly understood, an overwhelming body of research now shows that evolutionary biology and evolved human psychology plays a central role in human aversion to incest.
Incest versus exogamy
Anthropologists have found that marriage is governed, though often informally, by rules of exogamy, which is marriage of individuals outside their own groups, and endogamy where individuals marry inside their own group.
In most such societies, membership in a clan or lineage is inherited through only one parent. Sex with a member of one's own clan or lineage — whether a parent or a genetically very distant relative — would be considered incestuous, whereas sex with a member of another clan or lineage — including the other parent — would not be considered incest (although it may be considered wrong for other reasons).
For example, Trobriand Islanders prohibit both sexual relations between a man and his mother, and between a woman and her father, but they describe these prohibitions in very different ways: relations between a man and his mother fall within the category of forbidden relations among members of the same clan; Thus, sexual relations between a man and his mother's sister (and mother's sister's daughter) are also considered incestuous, but relations between a man and his father's sister are not. Indeed, a man and his father's sister will often have a flirtatious relationship, and a man and the daughter of his father's sister may prefer to have sexual relations or marry. Anthropologists have hypothesized that in these societies, the incest taboo reinforces the rule of exogamy, and thus ensures that social ties between clans or lineages will be maintained through intermarriage.
Chinese and Indian society provides an example of a society with a very broad notion of the exogamous group, as relations between two individuals with the same surname may be banned.
Some cultures cover relatives by marriage in incest prohibitions;
The Bible, primarily in Leviticus, contains prohibitions against sexual relations between various pairs of family members. (Father/daughter incest is covered by a prohibition on sexual relationships between a man and any daughter born to any woman he has had sexual relationships with, thereby prohibiting not only incest between father and any possible daughter, but many women where it would be impossible for the daughter to be the man's.) It prohibits sexual relations between aunts and nephews but not between uncles and nieces.
Forms of Incest
Parental incest
Incest between parents and their children, including adolescents, is considered the most severe form of sexual offense by many psychologists and is a criminal offense in many nations. Parental incest includes opposite-sex and same-sex forms engaged in by fathers, mothers, sons, and daughters.
Child-therapist Susan Forward calls parental incest "perhaps the cruelest, most baffling of human experiences" as it "betrays the very heart of childhood — its innocence". Recent findings by psychologists view non-consenting parent-child incest as a form of 'sexual predation'.
There is also a dramatic increase in cases when you compare statistics between "step" and biological parents.
Child abuse attorney Andrew Vachss calls parental incest a form of rape of a child by the child's parent. Adults previously involved in incest are often called "secret survivors", by therapists, as there is no one to listen to their shame, confusion, or self-loathing due to the topic's taboo.
It is known to therapists, that in many cases of such coercive / violent incest, the non - incestuous parent colludes with or denies the incestuous activity so that the child does not have the other parent to turn to either.
Ken Adams states that "a common myth is that overt incest is the exception not the rule in America.
Given the taboo nature of parent-child incest and the fact that it is engaged with dependent children, it is likely to be under-reported in official government statistics.
Sibling incest between children
Consensual incestuous interactions between similar-age brothers and sisters sometimes occur according to a study by Floyd Martinson who found that 10-15% of college students had childhood sexual experiences with a brother or sister, a form of child sexuality. However, where significant differences in age or capabilities occur between siblings, where elders fail to provide functional families, and/or where force or deception is used, childhood sibling incest can cause serious psychological damage to the younger or less capable sibling according to researcher Richard Niolon. Sibling incest can also damage or destroy the sibling bonds.
Author Jane Leder estimates that "23,000 women per million (in America) may have been victimized by a sibling" before age 18. In treating abused adolescents, therapist Eliana Gil, shows how to transform incested-associated trauma in a case of overt brother-sister incest. She failed to show how the sister committed covert incest against her brother by using him as a substitute 'father' in this fatherless family.
Adult incest
Adult incest occurs between individuals who are close blood relations and who have exceeded their society's legal or cultural age of consent.
Sexual relations between cousins and other distant relatives
In most of the Western world, incest generally refers to forbidden sexual relations within the family. Within the United States, marriage between (first) cousins is illegal in some states, but not in others, and sociologists have classified marriage laws in the United States into two categories: One, in which the definitions of incest are taken from the Bible, and which frowns upon marriage within one's lineage but less so on one's blood relatives, and another group which frowns more on marriage between blood relatives (such as cousins), but less on one's lineage.
Twenty-four states prohibit marriages between first cousins, and another six permit them only under special circumstances.
Legal in: Alabama, Alaska, California, Colorado, Connecticut, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virginia
Illegal in: Arkansas, Delaware, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Washington, West Virginia, Wyoming
Legal under Certain Circumstances: Arizona, Illinois, Indiana, Maine, Utah, Wisconsin
On account of the Full Faith and Credit Clause of the United States Constitution, a marriage between two cousins where it is legal generally remains valid in any state where it would be illegal.
See also: Cousin couple
Laws and mores regarding incest in industrialized societies
Degrees of criminality
The laws of many U.S. states recognize two separate degrees of incest, the more serious degree covering the closest blood relationships such as father-daughter, mother-son and brother-sister, with the less-serious charge being pressed against more distantly-related individuals who engage in sexual intercourse, usually down to and including first cousins and sometimes half cousins. In New York State, close-blood-relation incest is a felony with a maximum penalty of four years in prison, while the less serious charge is usually only a misdemeanor. Curiously, many incest laws do not expressly proscribe sexual conduct other than vaginal intercourse — such as oral sex — or, for that matter, any sexual activity between relatives of the same gender, so long as neither party is a minor. This legal position is in stark contrast with that in Australia, where incest is punishable by a maximum of 25 years imprisonment for the more serious form of penetrating a child, even if that child is over 18, and 5 years for the less serious charge of sexual penetration of a sibling or half-sibling.
Child abuse attorney Andrew Vachss notes that there is also an incest loophole in that laws of most U.S. states that "gives privileged treatment to child rapists who grow their own victims". He writes that:
"In New York, sex with a child under the age of 11 is a Class B felony, punishable by up to 25 years in prison. If, however, the sexually abused child is closely related to the perpetrator, state law provides for radically more lenient treatment (emphasis added). In such cases, the prosecutor may choose to charge the same acts as incest. This (incest) is not listed as a sexual offense, but instead as an 'offense affecting the marital relationship', listed next to adultery in the law books.
Adult incest
Incestuous relations between adults, such as between an adult brother and sister, are illegal in most parts of the industrialized world. Defenders of the proposal argue that the outcry was mostly based on the mistaken belief that the committee was intending to legalize sexual relations between parents and their minor children.)
In the wake of the Lawrence v. Texas (539 U.S. 558 2003) decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, striking down laws criminalizing homosexual sodomy as unconstitutional, some have argued that by the same logic laws against consensual adult incest should be unconstitutional. Some civil libertarians argue that all private sexual activity between consenting adults should be legal, and its criminalization is a violation of human rights — thus, they argue that the criminalization of consensual adult incest is a violation of human rights.
In France, incest isn't a crime in itself.
Effects of parent-child incest
Parental incest is known to do severe psychological harm to a child, due to the child's physical, mental, and emotional dependence on a parent, due to total disparity in the power of authority, due to the disparity in emotional and physical maturity, and finally due to the fact that the incestuous relationship may damage or destroy healthy aspects of childhood development. Child-incest victims often suffer from what is known as complex trauma due to developmental immaturity, due to repeated incests, and/or due to being forced to ignore the incest(s) as a child.
In adulthood, chronic, complex, and cyclic post traumatic stress has been observed in some victims of childhood parental incest. Rage, terror, and sorrow have been observed to surface in the second stage as the victim begins to become conscious of the incest acts.
Some victims of parental incest suffer severe depression, and/or have committed suicide, which is thought to be due to the inability to accomplish the associated trauma transformations shown above. Some victims also predate against their own children thus resulting in a legacy of incest in following generations, a form of vicious cycle. Often, even if trauma transformation was successful, survivors have reported that due to the betrayal of innocence, the incest-associated losses, and the trauma-transformation related costs, their lives were much worse off than peers who had not suffered incest by their parents.
According to clinical psychologist Ken Adams, covert parent-child emotional incest causes pain similar to that suffered by victims of overt incest but it is rarely identified. Covert incest is deeply harmful to children, as it denies them proper parenting, betrays their innocence, and places pathological demands on them to deal with what are their parents' obligations (Adams 1991).
Martyn Carruthers, a Canadian relationship researcher, defined the cross-generational cycles of mother-bonded men and father-bonded women that he calls "family karma". In childhood, victims of covert incest often feel confused, privileged, and 'old' beyond their years. In adulthood, children who were victims of covert incest often feel bonded to the same opposite sex parent and anger towards the same-sex parent, and shame about those feelings, unable to comprehend how their parents have wronged them. Carruthers' systemic coaching offers lasting solutions for covert emotional incest.
History
Ancient civilizations
Some experts claim that incestuous marriages were widespread at least during part of Egyptian history, such as Naphtali Lewis (Life in Egypt under Roman Rule: Oxford, 1983), who claims that numerous papyri attest to many husbands and wives as being brother and sister. Joyce Tyldesley (Ramesses: Egypt's Great Pharaoh: London, 2000), writing about the pre-Roman Egyptian period, states that within the royal family there was a tradition of hypergamy, where a king or his son might marry a commoner, but his daughter could not marry beneath herself, without the act being considered as degrading to herself.
Incestuous unions were frowned upon and considered as nefas (against the laws of gods and man) in Roman times, and were explicitly forbidden by an imperial edict in AD 295, which divided the concept of incestus into two categories of unequal gravity: the incestus iuris gentium, who was applied to both Romans and non-Romans in the Empire, and the incestus iuris civilis which concerned only the Roman citizens. Despite the act of incest being unacceptable within the Roman Empire, Roman Emperor Caligula is rumored to have had open sexual relationships with all three of his sisters, killing his favorite sister/lover when she became pregnant with his child.
Royal dynasties
Although there are reports that adult incest has been notable in many royal dynasties, the evidence usually put forward has been subjected to much criticism. There are cases of siblings marrying which are verified.(And there are many cases in which first and second cousins married, a practice that would be considered "incest" in certain cultures today, but which of course was normal and non-incestuous when practised.) A motive often given by others for this supposed custom of royal incest is that this was in order to help concentrate wealth and political influence within the family. Though usually frowned upon by present-day people, incest within families of royalty or of high esteem was done because the families believed that anyone who was not of their family was not worthy of marrying them.
Some cultures in which royal incestuous marriage (which included brother-sister unions) has been said to be common, are Ancient Egypt (as explained above), pre-contact Hawaii, the pre-Columbian Mixtec and the Inca.
Dynasties of the modern era where there was frequent familial intermarriage were the mid-Habsburgs;
In Christian society, in which most of the great royal dynasties of the early modern era functioned, incest was a terrible taboo. In 1536 Queen Anne Boleyn of England was falsely accused of incest with her brother, George Boleyn, in order to blacken her name and enable her husband to execute her and marry Jane Seymour.
In religious traditions
Examples of incest in mythology are rampant.
The play Oedipus Rex features the Ancient Greek King having an unknowing incestuous relationship with his mother.
In Norse mythology, Loki accuses Freyr and Freyja of committing incest, in Lokasenna. This is also indicated in the Ynglinga saga which says that incest was legal among the Vanir.
In Norse legends, the hero Sigmund and his sister Signy murdered her children and begat a son, Sinfjötli.
Hinduism speaks of incest in highly abhorrent terms. Hindus were greatly fearful of the bad effects of incest and thus practice to date strict rules of both endogamy and exogamy, i.e., marriage in the same caste (varna) but not in the same family tree (gotra) or bloodline (Pravara).
The Bible also contains a number of references to incest: see Biblical references to incest.
In folklore
In Icelandic folklore a common plot involves a brother and sister (illegally) conceiving a child.
Sibling incest forms an important part of the plot in the story of Kullervo in the Finnish national epic, the Kalevala, as also in medieval versions of the British legend of King Arthur.
In Sri Lankan folklore, there are at least three significant instances where incest is mentioned. Incest is again mentioned when King Vijaya's son and daughter fled to the jungle together in protest of their father's second marriage. Despite the liberal mentioning of incest in folklore, Sri Lankan culture regards incest as a taboo.
In fairy tales of Aarne-Thompson folktale type 510B, the persecuted heroine, the heroine is persecuted by her father, and most usually, the persecution is an attempt to marry her, as in Allerleirauh or Donkeyskin.
Several Child ballads have the motif of brother-sister incest, such as Sheath and Knife.
In ancient Vietnamese folklore, there is a tale of a brother and a sister.
Fiction
Main article: Incest in fiction
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