Where Does the Taboo of Incest Come From?

Why aren't people allowed to have sexual intercourse with their relatives? When and why did the taboo of incest come into existence?

 

Did you know that sleeping with your relatives isn't exactly the same as incest? (jlp)

What is incest?

 

Dictionary says that "incest" denotes sexual activity involving people who are closely related and not legally allowed to marry. Incest is generally seen as something immoral and most legislations consider it a criminal offence. The differences between societies occur mostly at the level of defining closer relatives and family members. The majority of Western legislations draw the line of what is allowed at cousins. Further differences can be found in defining what counts as sexual activity – some think of the latter as vaginal intercourse only, while other cultures punish any kind of sexual relations between close relatives.

Why is incest such a taboo? Let's take a look at three main theories that try to shed light on the subject from a biological, sociological and religious point of view.

 

Genetic argument

 

This theory is based on frequent cases of inborn genetic defects of newborns that are supposed to be a consequence of breeding within the bounds of blood kinship. Incest is thus regarded as a threat to general health of human species. Numerous anthropologists reject this theory of the origin of the incest taboo, however, as incest by itself doesn't cause genetic faults - these are a result of the transmission of deficient genes of persons with similar DNA. For example, if a father and his daughter or any two people with similar genetic codes both have a certain genetic defect, the latter will be much more likely to show up in their descendents. Besides, the final result of copulation within family is actually the reduction of the number of defective genes in a population, since many children with inherent defects die before they can procreate.

 

Incest is supposed to be forbidden because it causes inborn genetic defects of offspring. (jlp)

Social argument

 

In the 1950s, Claude Lévi-Strauss claimed that the moral questionableness of incest is a consequence of a specific way of suppressing endogamous relationships in particular social groups and encouraging exogamous relationships between members of different social groups, tribes or clans. Exogamy is supposed to have been uniting and allying otherwise unconnected hereditary lines and thus facilitated social solidarity. By forcing a man to seek his partner outside his home, different, competitive clans were brought closer to each other and society could flourish.

This theory was widely accepted by the then anthropologists, because it fit nicely into their interpretations of social interactions. The crucial argument of the opponents of this theory is that society is a too ramified concept and that the taboo of incest couldn't possibly originate in social relations. The social prohibition of incest also exists in cultures that don't have much in common with the cosmopolitan social order of the "developed" world.

 

Religious argument

 

Many sociologists believe that the taboo of incest stems from Jewish-Christian religious texts. In Bible, we come across the taboo of incest quite often and the latter is also expressed very clearly. We find it also in other monotheistic texts that have accumulated in the last 4000 years. Cultures that weren't under the direct influence of great monotheistic religions have encountered the taboo of incest through trade contacts. This last theory seems quite legitimate - beside biological and social concerns, people don't have difficulties abiding by institutionalized prohibitions, which are in today's Western culture beside religion also laws protected by the government.

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