Incest

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Incest

Incest is sexual activity between family members who would be forbidden (either legally or socially) to marry. Incest constitutes a cultural taboo in most current nations and many past societies. In many areas, incest is also prohibited by law.

Which family members constitute those covered by the incest prohibition is determined by the society in which the persons live. Some societies consider it to include only those related by birth or those who live in the same household; other societies further include those related by adoption, marriage, or clan.

The term incest can include sexual activity between family members of any gender and can include family members of any age. When one of the family members involved is a minor, incestuous activity has also been called intrafamilial child sexual abuse.

History

It is relatively accepted that incestuous marriages were widespread at least during the Graeco-Roman period of Egyptian history. Numerous papyri and the Roman census declarations attest to many husbands and wives as being brother and sister (Lewis 1983, Bagnall and Frier 1994, Shaw 1993). In (Hopkins 1980) this is conclusively demonstrated, and more recent scholars in the field have not questioned it. Some of these incestuous relationships were in the royal family, especially the Ptolemies.

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. Therefore, for example, an Egyptian could marry an aunt, but a Roman could not. 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, (Julia Livilla, Drusilla, and Agrippina the Younger) and to have killed his favorite (Drusilla) when she became pregnant with his child.

It is interesting to note how customs have changed in the UK, with incest at one time apparently being normal practice, at least in the south of the country. When Julius Caesar invaded Britain for the second time in 54 B.C.E., he noted the customs of the Britons, remarking, 'Wives are shared between groups of ten or twelve men, especially between brothers and between fathers and sons; but the offspring of these unions are counted as the children of the man with whom a particular woman cohabited first.'

Forms of incest

Parental incest

Incest perpetrated by parents of either sex against children of either sex is generally considered a form of child abuse.

Sibling incest between children

Consensual incest between similar-age brothers and sisters is not uncommon, according to a study by Floyd Martinson, who found that 10-15% of college students had childhood sexual experiences with a brother or sister. However only 5-10% of those included intercourse; and therefore most probably represent a form of child sexuality.

Sexual relations between cousins and other distant relatives

File:Map of USA with Incest Legality.svg

Map of the legality of marriage to first cousins in the USA.

In most of the Western world, while incest generally describes forbidden sexual relations within the family, the applicable definitions of family vary. 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, which frowns upon marriage within one's lineage but less so on one's blood relatives; and one that frowns more on marriage between blood relatives (such as cousins), but less on that within one's lineage.

Twenty-four states prohibit marriages between first cousins, and another seven permit them only under special circumstances. Utah, for example, permits first cousins to marry only if both spouses are over age 65, or at least 55 with evidence of sterility; North Carolina permits first cousins to marry unless they are "double first cousins" (cousins through more than one line); Maine permits first cousins to marry only upon presentation of a certificate of genetic counseling. The other states with some, but not absolute, limits on first-cousin marriage are Arizona, Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin.

Laws regarding incest

Degrees of criminality

The laws of many U.S. states recognize two separate degrees of incest, the more serious being 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 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. Many incest laws do not expressly proscribe sexual conduct other than vaginal intercourse—such as oral sex—or any sexual activity between relatives of the same sex (though if either party is a minor, it may be punishable otherwise).

In Australia, incest is punishable by a maximum of 25 years imprisonment for the more serious form of penetrating one's offspring, even if that child is legally an adult, and 5 years for the less serious charge of sexual penetration of a sibling or half-sibling.

For many years, Andrew Vachss has written about the incest loophole in the laws of most U.S. states.

New York's law—much like that of most other states—allows the possibility of privileged treatment for a special class of offender: the perpetrator who is related to his prey. In other words, the penal code gives a discount to child rapists who grow their own victims. 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. The law is indexed appropriately, in the chapter on sex offenses. If, however, the sexually abused child is closely related to the perpetrator, state law provides for radically more lenient treatment. In such cases, the prosecutor may choose to charge the same acts as incest. This is not listed as a sex offense, but instead as an "offense affecting the marital relationship," listed next to adultery in the law books. It is a Class E felony, for which even a convicted offender may be granted probation.

—Andrew Vachss, Op-Ed, The New York Times, 20 November 2005

The latter was repealed through legislative action in 2006; however, it remains in the law of many states.

Adult incest

Incestuous relations between adults, such as between an adult brother and sister, are illegal in most parts of the industrialized world. These laws are sometimes questioned on the grounds that such relations do not harm other people (provided the couple have no children) and so should not be criminalized. Proposals have been made from time to time to repeal these laws — for example, the proposal by the Australian Model Criminal Code Officer's Committee discussion paper "Sexual Offenses against the Person" released in November 1996. (This particular proposal was later withdrawn by the committee due to a large public outcry. 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. In Muth v. Frank (412 F.3d 808), the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals interpreted the case applying to homosexual activity, and refused to draw this conclusion from Lawrence, however — a decision that attracted mixed opinions. The Supreme Court refused to hear this case.

In France, incest is not a crime. Incestuous relations between a parent and minor child are prohibited and punished by law, but not between adults.

In February 2007 a German brother and sister, Patrick Stübing and Susan Karolewski, called for the country's incest laws to be abolished so that they could continue their sexual relationship. Although they were born into the same family, Patrick was not living with them when Susan was born and they met for the first time in 2000. Between 2002 and 2006 they had four children although three have been taken into foster care. Two of the children have disabilities and while it is possible that these were caused by inbreeding, premature birth may also have contributed. The siblings' lawyer, Endrik Wilhelm, has lodged an appeal with Germany's highest judicial body, the Federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe, in order to overturn the country's ban on incest, suffering the misconception that the law prevented anything but the mental and physical disabilities equaling negligent bodily harm due to the inbreeding.

Scientific Views

Inbreeding among animals

In some species, most notably bonobos, sexual activity, including that between closely related individuals, is a means of dispute resolution or greeting.

Inbreeding between close relatives, including parents and children, has been observed in some species, although patterns of parenting behavior and the structure of dominance hierarchies serve to discourage inbreeding. For example, offspring—sometimes only the male offspring—are often driven away by the mother about when they reach sexual maturity.

Inbreeding increases the frequency of homozygotes within a population. Depending on the size of the population and the number of generations in which inbreeding occurs, the increase of homozygotes has positive or negative effects.

Distinctions between incest and inbreeding

The concepts of incest and inbreeding are distinct. Incest describes socially taboo sexual activity between individuals who are considered to be too closely related to enter into marriage. In other words, it is a social and cultural term.

Inbreeding describes procreation between individuals with varying degrees of genetic closeness, regardless of their relative social positions. It is a scientific term, rather than a social or cultural term.

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. In other societies, the correlation may not be as obvious. 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, and those between siblings-in-law, have been considered incestuous, even though they involve no risk of inbreeding above that of the marriage that relates them.

Genetics

Table of prohibited marriages from The Trial of Bastardie by William Clerke. London, 1594.

While the exact nature of kin-recognition psychology awaits definition, and while the degree to which it can be overcome by cultural forces is poorly understood, an overwhelming body of research now shows that evolutionary biology and evolved human psychology play a central role in human aversion to incest.

Inbreeding leads to an increase in homozygosity (the same allele at the same locus on both members of a chromosome pair). This occurs because close relatives are much more likely to share the same alleles than unrelated individuals. This is especially important for recessive alleles that happen to be deleterious, which are harmless and inactive in a heterozygous pairing but, when homozygous, can cause serious developmental defects. Such offspring have a much higher chance of death before reaching the age of reproduction, leading to what biologists call inbreeding depression, a measurable decrease in fitness due to inbreeding among populations with deleterious recessives. Recessive genes, which can contain various genetic problems, appear more often in the offspring of procreative couplings whose members both have the same gene. For example, the child of persons who are both hemophiliac has a 25% chance of having hemophilia.

Leavitt has argued that inbreeding in small populations can have long-term positive effects: "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.) However, other specialists have argued that these positive long-term effects of inbreeding are almost always unrealized because the short-term fitness depression is enough for selection to discourage it. In order for such a "purification" to work, the offspring of close mate pairings must be either homozygous-dominant (completely free of bad genes) or -recessive (will die before reproducing). If there are heterozygous offspring, they will be able to transmit the defective genes without themselves feeling any effects. This model does not account for multiple deleterious recessives (most people have more than one) and multi-locus gene linkages. The introduction of mutations negates the weeding out of bad genes, and evidence exists that homozygous individuals are often more at risk to pathogenic predation. Because of these complications, it is extremely difficult to overcome the initial spike in fitness penalties incurred by inbreeding. (Moore 1992; Uhlmann 1992.)

Social Scientific Views

Psychology

Presumably because of the genetic harm done, animals inbreed only in extremely unusual circumstances: major population bottlenecks and forced artificial selection by animal husbandry. Pusey & Worf (1996) and Penn & Potts (1999) both found evidence that some species possess evolved psychological aversions to inbreeding, via kin-recognition heuristics.

Evolutionary psychologists have argued that humans should possess similar psychological mechanisms. The Westermarck effect, that children who are raised together during the first five to ten years of life have inhibited sexual desire toward one another, is one strong piece of evidence in favor of this. In what is now a key study of the Westermarck hypothesis, the anthropologist Melford E. Spiro demonstrated that inbreeding aversion between siblings is predictably linked to co-residency. In a cohort study of children raised communally (as if siblings) in the Kiryat Yedidim kibbutz in the 1950s, Spiro found practically no intermarriage between his subjects as adults, despite positive pressure from parents and community. The social experience of having grown up as brothers and sisters created an incest aversion, even though the children were genetically unrelated.

Further studies have supported the hypothesis that some psychological mechanisms cause children who grow up together to lack sexual attraction to one another. Spiro's study is corroborated by Fox (1962), who found similar results in Israeli kibbutzum. Wolf and Huang (1980) reported similar aversions in Taiwanese "child marriages," in which the future wife was brought into the family and raised with her fiancé. Such marriages were notoriously difficult to consummate and led to decreased fertility of the marriage. Lieberman et al. (2003) found that childhood co-residency with an opposite-sex sibling (biologically related or not) was significantly correlated with moral repugnance toward third-party sibling incest. [1]

It is not unusual for biological siblings who did not know each other in childhood to be attracted to each other when meeting as adults (see genetic sexual attraction).

Endogamy and exogamy

Anthropologists have found that marriage is governed, though often informally, by rules of exogamy (marriage between members of different groups) and endogamy (marriage between members of the same group). The definition of a group for purposes of exogamy or endogamy varies considerably between societies. In most stratified societies, one must marry outside of one's nuclear family—a form of exogamy—but is encouraged to marry a member of one's own class, race, or religion—a form of endogamy. In this example, the exogamous group is small and the endogamous group is large. But, in some societies, the exogamous group and endogamous group may be of equal size, as in societies divided into clans or lineages.

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—is considered incestuous, whereas sex with a member of another clan or lineage—including the other parent—is 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 those 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; relations between a woman and her father do not. This is because the Trobrianders are matrilineal; children belong to the clan of their mother and not of their father. 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 societies have very broad notions of the exogamous group: relations between individuals with the same surname may be banned.^{[citation needed]}

Some cultures include relatives by marriage in incest prohibitions; these relationships are called affinity rather than consanguinity. For example, the question of the legality and morality of a widower who wished to marry his deceased wife's sister was the subject of long and fierce debate in the United Kingdom in the 19th century, involving, among others, Matthew Boulton. In medieval Europe, standing as a godparent to a child also created a bond of affinity.

Religious views on incest

Biblical references

The Book of Leviticus in the Bible lists prohibitions against sexual relations between various pairs of family members. Father and daughter, mother and son, and other pairs are forbidden, on pain of death, to have sexual relations. (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 his incest not only with his own daughters but also with women who could not possibly be his daughters by blood.) It prohibits sexual relations between aunts and nephews, but not between uncles and nieces. Christians interpret it to include the latter by implication, though Jews traditionally do not.

Islam

The Qur'an mentions incest in the Surat An-Nisa, which prohibits a man from having sexual relationships with his mother, daughter, sister, paternal aunt, maternal aunt, and niece. Relations with wet nurses are also prohibited. But on the other side, Islam allows marriage with cousins and other more distant relatives. Only in case of marriage does Islam allow sexual relations between cousins and other distant relatives.

Hindu opposition

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 andexogamy, that is, marriage in the same caste (varna) but not in the same family tree (gotra) or bloodline (Parivara).

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Adams, Kenneth, M., Silently Seduced: When Parents Make Their Children Their Partners, Understanding Covert Incest, HCI, 1991.
• Adams, Kenneth, M., When He's Married to His Mom: How to Help Mother-Enmeshed Men Open Their Hearts To True Love, Fireside, 2007.
• Anderson, Peter B., and Cindy Struckman-Johnson, Sexually Aggressive Women: Current Persectives and Controversies, Guilford, 1998.
• Bagnall, Roger S. and Bruce W. Frier, The demography of Roman Egypt: Cambridge, 1994
• Bixler, Ray H. "Comment on the Incidence and Purpose of Royal Sibling Incest," American Ethnologist, 9(3) (Aug. 1982), pp. 580-582.
• Blume, E. Sue, Secret Survivors: Uncovering Incest and its Aftereffects in Women, Ballantine, 1991.
• DeMilly, Walter, In My Father's Arms: A True Story of Incest, University of Wisconsin Press, 1999.
• Elliot, Michelle, Female Sexual Abuse of Children, Guilford, 1994.
• Forward, Susan (1990). Toxic Parents: Overcoming Their Hurtful Legacy and Reclaiming Your Life. Bantam. ISBN 0-553-28434-7. 
• Jack Goody A Comparative Approach to Incest and Adultery The British Journal of Sociology, Vol. 7, No. 4 (Dec., 1956), pp. 286-305 doi:10.2307/586694
• Gil, Eliana, Treating Abused Adolescents, Guilford, 1996.
• Herman, Judith, Father-Daughter Incest, Harvard University Press, 1982.
• Hislop, Julia, Female Sexual Offenders: What Therapists, Law Enforcement, and Child Protective Services Need to Know, Issues, 2001.
• Hopkins, Keith, Brother-Sister Marriage in Roman Egypt, Comparative Studies in Society and History 22: 303-354, 1980
• Leavitt, G. C. "Sociobiological explanations of incest avoidance: a critical claim of evidential claims," American Anthropologist 92: 971-993, 1990
• Lew, Mike, Victims No Longer: Men Recovering from Incest and Other Sexual Child Abuse, Nevraumont, 1988.
• Lewis, Naphtali, Life in Egypt under Roman Rule: Oxford, 1983
• Lobdell, William, "Missionary's Dark Legacy," Los Angeles Times, Nov. 19, 2005, p. A1.
• Love, Pat, Emotional Incest Syndrome: What to Do When a Parent's Love Rules Your Life, Bantam, 1991.
• Méndez-Negrete, Josie, Las hijas de Juan: Daughters Betrayed, Duke University Press, 2006. ISBN 978-0-8223-3896-3
• Miletski, Hani, Mother-Son Incest: The Unthinkable Broken Taboo, Safer Society, 1999.
• Miller, Alice, That Shalt Not Be Aware: Society's Betrayal of the Child, Farrar Strauss Giroux, 1983.
• Pryor, Douglass, Unspeakable Acts: Why Men Sexually Abuse Children, New York University Press, 1996.
• Rosencrans, Bobbie, and Eaun Bear, The Last Secret: Daughters Sexually Abused by Mothers, Safer Society, 1997.
• Scruton, Roger, Sexual Desire: A Moral Philosophy of the Erotic, Free Press, 1986.
• Shaw, Brent D., Explaining Incest: Brother-Sister Marriage in Graeco-Roman Egypt, Man, New Series, Vol. 27, No. 2 (Jun., 1992), pp. 267-299 JSTOR article
• Shaw, Risa, Not Child's Play: An Anthology on Brother-Sister Incest, Lunchbox, 2000.
• Tyldesley, Joyce, Ramesses: Egypt's Great Pharaoh: London, 2000.

External links

• RAINN Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network National, toll-free hotline for victims of sexual assault: 1-800-656-HOPE
• After Silence, online support group, message board and chat room for survivors of rape, incest and sexual abuse.
• Child Sexual Abuse and the State by Ruby Andrew, UC Davis Law Review, vol. 39, 2006. Discusses U.S. incest laws in cases where victim is a minor.
• Forbidden Fruit by John Dougherty, Phoenix New Times, Dec. 29, 2005. Intrafamilial child sexual abuse in Arizona-Utah polygamist community.
• The Gentle People by Nadya Labi, Legal Affairs, Jan. 2005. Intrafamilial child sexual abuse in Amish community.
• The Incest Loophole by Andrew Vachss, New York Times, Nov. 20, 2005. Sentencing incest perpetrators when victim is a minor.
• Adult Survivors of Incest, Illinois Coalition Against Sexual Assault (ICASA)

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