Incest is any sexual activity between close
relativeRelative can refer to:*Kinship, the principle binding the most basic social units society. If two people are connected by circumstances of birth, they are said to be relatives-Physics:...
s (often within the immediate family) irrespective of the ages of the participants and irrespective of
their consentWhile the phrase age of consent typically does not appear in legal statutes, when used in relation to sexual activity, the age of consent is the minimum age at which a person is considered to be legally competent of consenting to sexual acts. The European Union calls it the legal age for sexual...
, that is illegal or socially
tabooThe incest taboo is a term used by anthropologists to refer to a class of prohibitions, both formal and informal, stated and unstated, against incest, the practice of sexual relations between certain or close relatives, in human societies. There are various theories that seek to explain how and why...
. The type of sexual activity and the nature of the relationship between persons that constitutes a breach of law or social taboo vary with culture and jurisdiction. Some societies consider it to include only those who live in the same
householdThe household is "the basic residential unit in which economic production, consumption, inheritance, child rearing, and shelter are organized and carried out"; [the household] "may or may not be synonymous with family"....
, or who belong to the same
clanA clan is a group of people united by kinship and descent, which is defined by actual or perceived descent from a common ancestor. Even if actual lineage patterns are unknown, clan members may nonetheless recognize a founding member or apical ancestor...
or lineage; other societies consider it to include "blood relatives"; other societies further include those related by
adoptionAdoption is a process whereby a person assumes the parenting for another who is not kin and, in so doing, permanently transfers all rights and responsibilities from the original parent or parents...
or
marriageMarriage is a social union or legal contract between individuals that creates kinship. It is an institution in which interpersonal relationships, usually intimate and sexual, are acknowledged by a variety of ways, depending on the culture or demographic...
.
According to some studies, the most frequently reported type of incest is father-daughter incest. However, others studies suggest that sibling incest occurs as often, or more often, than other types of incest. Incest between adults and prepubescent or adolescent children is considered a form of
child sexual abuseChild sexual abuse is a form of child abuse in which an adult or older adolescent abuses a child for sexual stimulation. Forms of CSA include asking or pressuring a child to engage in sexual activities , indecent exposure of the genitals to a child, displaying pornography to a child, actual sexual...
that has been shown to be one of the most extreme forms of childhood trauma, a trauma that often does serious and long-term psychological damage, especially in the case of parental incest. Prevalence is difficult to generalize, but research has estimated 10-15% of the general population as having at least one incest experience, with less than 2% involving intercourse or attempted intercourse. Among women, research has yielded estimates as high as twenty percent.
Consensual adultWhile the phrase age of consent typically does not appear in legal statutes, when used in relation to sexual activity, the age of consent is the minimum age at which a person is considered to be legally competent of consenting to sexual acts. The European Union calls it the legal age for sexual...
incest is equally a crime in most countries, although it is seen by some as a victimless crime. However, it is rarely reported.
Most societies have prohibitions against incest. The
incest tabooThe incest taboo is a term used by anthropologists to refer to a class of prohibitions, both formal and informal, stated and unstated, against incest, the practice of sexual relations between certain or close relatives, in human societies. There are various theories that seek to explain how and why...
is and has been one of the most common of all cultural
tabooA taboo is a strong social prohibition relating to any area of human activity or social custom that is sacred and forbidden. Breaking the taboo is usually considered objectionable or abhorrent by society. The term comes from the Tongan language, and appears in many Polynesian cultures...
s, both in current nations and many past societies, with legal penalties imposed in some jurisdictions. Most modern societies have legal or social restrictions on closely consanguineous marriages. However, in some societies, such as that of
Ancient EgyptAncient Egypt was an ancient civilization of eastern North Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. The civilization coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh, and...
, brother–sister, father–daughter, and mother–son relations were practised among royalty. In addition, the
BalineseThe Balinese population of 3.0 million live mostly on the island of Bali, making up 89% of the island's population. There are also significant populations on the island of Lombok, and in the eastern-most regions of Java The Balinese population of 3.0 million (1.5% of Indonesia's population) live...
and some
InuitInuit is a general term for a group of culturally similar indigenous peoples inhabiting the Arctic regions of Canada, Greenland, and Alaska...
tribes have altogether different beliefs about what constitutes illegal and immoral incest.
Abuse of children
Incest between an adult and a child is sometimes called "intrafamilial child sexual abuse", and is the most reported form of incest. Father–daughter and step-father–step-daughter incest is the most commonly reported subset of parent–child incest, with most of the remaining reports consisting of incest between (step-)mothers and their (step-)children. Father–son incest is reported less often, although it is not known whether the prevalence is less, because it is under-reported by a greater margin. Prevalence of incest between parents and their children is difficult to assess due to secrecy and privacy; some estimate that 20 million Americans were, as children, subject to parental incest.
According to the National Center for Victims of Crime a large proportion of
rapeRape, also referred to as sexual assault, is an assault by a person involving sexual intercourse with or without sexual penetration of another person without that person's consent....
committed in the United States is perpetrated by a family member:
Research indicates that 46% of children who are raped are victims of family members.(Langan and Harlow, 1994) The majority of American rape victims (61%) are raped before the age of 18; furthermore, 29% of all forcible rapes occurred when the victim was less than 11 years old. 11% of rape victims are raped by their fathers or step-fathers, and another 16% are raped by other relatives.
A study of victims of father–daughter incest in the 1970s showed that there were "common features" within families before the occurrence of incest: estrangement between the mother and the daughter, extreme paternal dominance, the mother's inability to fulfill her traditional parental role, and reassignment of some of the mother's major family responsibility to the daughter. Oldest and only daughters were more likely to be the victims of incest. It also was stated that the incest experience was psychologically harmful to the woman in later life, frequently leading to feelings of low self-esteem, unhealthy sexual activity, contempt for other women, and other emotional problems.
Adults who as children were incestuously victimized by adults often suffer from low
self-esteemSelf-esteem is a term used in psychology to reflect a person's overall evaluation or appraisal of his or her own worth.Self-esteem encompasses beliefs and emotions...
, difficulties in interpersonal relationships, and
sexual dysfunctionSexual dysfunction or sexual malfunction refers to a difficulty experienced by an individual or a couple during any stage of a normal sexual activity, including desire, arousal or orgasm.-Categories:...
, and are at an extremely high risk of many mental disorders, including
depressionMajor depressive disorder is a mental disorder characterized by an all-encompassing low mood accompanied by low self-esteem, and loss of interest or pleasure in normally enjoyable activities...
,
anxietyAnxiety is a psychological and physiological state characterized by cognitive, somatic, emotional, and behavioral components. These components combine to create an unpleasant feeling that is typically associated with uneasiness, fear, or worry....
,
phobic avoidance reactionsA phobia , is an irrational, intense, persistent fear of certain situations, activities, things, or people. The main symptom of this disorder is the excessive, unreasonable desire to avoid the feared subject...
,
somatoform disorderSomatoform disorder is a mental disorder characterized by physical symptoms that mimic physical disease or injury for which there is no identifiable physical cause. Somatoform disorder is a condition in which the physical symptoms a person feels are due to mental factors. These symptoms can not be...
,
substance abuseAlthough the term substance can refer to any physical matter, substance abuse has come to refer to the overindulgence in and dependence of a drug or other chemical leading to effects that are detrimental to the individual's physical and mental health, or the welfare of others.]The disorder is...
,
borderline personality disorderBorderline personality disorder is a psychiatric diagnosis in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders that describes a prolonged disturbance of personality function characterized by depth and variability of moods...
, and
complex post-traumatic stress disorderComplex post-traumatic stress disorder is a psychological injury that results from protracted exposure to prolonged social and/or interpersonal trauma with lack or loss of control, disempowerment, and in the context of either captivity or entrapment, i.e. the lack of a viable escape route for the...
.
Between childhood siblings
Childhood sibling–sibling incest is considered to be widespread but rarely reported. Many types of sexual contact between children (e.g., "playing doctor") are not considered harmful or abnormal, but become
child-on-child sexual abuseChild-on-child sexual abuse refers to a form of child sexual abuse in which a prepubescent child is sexually abused by one or more other children or adolescent youths, and in which no adult is directly involved. The term describes sexual activity between children that occurs without consent,...
when there is overt and deliberate actions directed at sexual stimulation. The most commonly reported form of abusive sibling incest is abuse of a younger brother or sister, committed by an older brother. A 2006 study showed a large portion of adults who experienced sibling incest have distorted or disturbed beliefs both about their own experience and the subject of sexual abuse in general. An observational study in 1993 found that 16% of the 930 adult women interviewed reported that they had been sexually abused by a sibling before they were 18 years old.
Sibling incest is most prevalent in families where one or both parents are often absent or emotionally unavailable, with the abusive siblings using incest as a way to assert their power over a weaker sibling and thereby express their feelings of hurt and rage. Absence of the father in particular has been found to be a significant element of most cases of sexual abuse of female children by a brother. The damaging effects on both childhood development and adult symptoms resulting from brother–sister sexual abuse are similar to the effects of father–daughter, including substance abuse, depression, suicidality, and eating disorders.
However, according to studies of
psychological theories of imprintingImprinting is the term used in psychology and ethology to describe any kind of phase-sensitive learning that is rapid and apparently independent of the consequences of behavior...
, siblings are protected against falling in love.
Reverse sexual imprinting means that when two people live in close domestic proximity during the first few years in the life of either one, both are desensitized to later close
sexual attractionSexual attraction or sex appeal refers to a person's ability to attract in a sexual or erotic manner the interest of another person. The attraction may be to a physical quality of a person, or it may be to other more nebulous qualities of the person....
. This phenomenon, known as the
Westermarck effect, was first formally described by
FinnishThe terms Finns and Finnish people are used in English to mean "a native or inhabitant of Finland". They are also used to refer to the ethnic group historically associated with Finland or Fennoscandia, and they are only used in that sense here....
anthropologist
Edvard WestermarckEdvard Alexander Westermarck was a Swedish speaking Finnish philosopher and sociologist. Among other subjects, he studied exogamy and the incest taboo....
. The Westermarck effect has since been observed in many places and cultures, including in the
IsraelIsrael officially the State of Israel , is a developed state in Western Asia located on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. It borders Lebanon in the north, Syria in the northeast, Jordan in the east, and Egypt on the southwest, and contains geographically diverse features within its...
i
kibbutzA kibbutz is a collective community in Israel that was traditionally based on agriculture. Today, farming has been partly supplanted by other economic branches, including industrial plants and high-tech enterprises. Kibbutzim began as utopian communities, a combination of socialism and Zionism...
system, and the Chinese
Shim-pua marriageTong Yang Xi or tongyangxi , also known as Shim-pua marriage in Taiwanese , was a tradition of arranged marriage dating in China, in which a poor family would sell a young daughter to a richer family as a servant or a caretaker, and in exchange, the girl would be married into the adopted family in...
customs, as well as in biological-related families. When close proximity during this
critical periodThis article is about a critical period in an organism's or person's development. See also America's Critical Period.In general, a critical period is a limited time in which an event can occur, usually to result in some kind of transformation...
does not occur—for example, where a brother and sister are brought up separately, never meeting one another—they may find one another highly sexually attractive when they meet as adults. This phenomenon is known as
genetic sexual attractionGenetic sexual attraction is sexual attraction between close relatives, such as siblings, first and second cousins or a parent and offspring, who first meet as adults....
. This observation is consistent with the hypothesis that the Westermarck effect evolved because it suppressed
inbreedingInbreeding is breeding between close relatives, whether plant or animal. If practiced repeatedly, it can lead to exposure of recessive, deleterious traits. This generally leads to a decreased fitness of a population, which is called inbreeding depression. Deleterious alleles causing inbreeding...
.
Between consenting adults
Incest between consenting adults is sexual activity between close relatives after they become adults that is not coerced or forced in any way, and may involve
genetic sexual attractionGenetic sexual attraction is sexual attraction between close relatives, such as siblings, first and second cousins or a parent and offspring, who first meet as adults....
. While incest between consenting adults has not been widely reported in the past, the internet has shown that this behavior does take place, possibly more often than many people realize. Internet chatrooms and topical websites exist that provide support for incestuous couples.
Proponents of incest between consenting adults draw clear boundaries between the behavior of consenting adults and rape, child molestation, and abuse. According to one incest participant who was interviewed for an article in
The Guardian:
"You can't help who you fall in love with, it just happens. I fell in love with my sister and I'm not ashamed ... I only feel sorry for my mom and dad, I wish they could be happy for us. We love each other. It's nothing like some old man who tries to seduce his three-year-old, that's evil and disgusting ... Of course we're consenting, that's the most important thing. We're not perverts. What we have is the most beautiful thing in the world."
The Guardian article also states:
Voices in Action, a US support group for victims of incest, vehemently rejects these arguments: "These teens have been brainwashed into believing this behaviour is natural; it is not ... Sexual abuse is learned behaviour." But some political thinkers are prepared to support the distinction between abuse and consenting relationships. "
In
Slate Magazine, William Saletan drew a legal connection between gay sex and incest between consenting adults. As he described in his article, in 2003, U.S. Senator
Rick SantorumRichard John Santorum is a former United States Senator from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Santorum is a member of the Republican Party and was the chairman of the Senate Republican Conference, the number-three job in the party leadership of the Senate.Santorum is usually considered a social...
publicly derided the theory of the Supreme Court ruling to allow private consensual sex in the home (primarily as a matter of Constitutional rights to Privacy and Equal Protection under the Law). He stated: "If the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery." However, David Smith of the
Human Rights CampaignThe Human Rights Campaign is the largest lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender lobbying group and political action committee in the United States, claiming over 725,000 members and supporters, though this membership count is disputed...
professed outrage that Santorum placed being gay on the same moral and legal level as someone engaging in incest. Saletan argued that, legally and morally, there is essentially no difference between the two, and went on to support incest between consenting adults being covered by a legal right to privacy.
Between adult siblings
The most public case of consensual adult sibling incest in recent years is the case of a brother-sister couple from Germany. Due to violent behavior on the part of the father, the brother was taken in by foster parents at the age of 3 who adopted him later. At the age of 23 he learned about his real parents, contacted his mother and met her and his then 16 year old sister the first time. The now-adult brother moved in with his birth family shortly thereafter. After the sudden death of their mother a mere six months later, the couple became intimately close, and had their first child together in 2001. The public nature of their relationship, and the repeated prosecutions and even jail time they have served as a result, has caused some in Germany to question whether incest between consenting adults should be punished at all. An article about them in
Der SpiegelDer Spiegel is a German weekly magazine, published in Hamburg. It is one of Europe's largest weekly magazines with a weekly circulation of more than one million.- Overview :...
claims the couple are happy together.
Between adult cousins
Marriages and sexual relationships between cousins are viewed differently in many cultures, in both law and religion. In most countries, marriage between cousins is legal, though some religious and cultural restrictions exist in these same nations. Some jurisdictions, notably many in the United States follow a more restrictive doctrine and legally prohibit such marriages as incestuous. Consanguineous unions remain preferential in North Africa, the Middle East and large parts of Asia, with marriage between first cousins being particularly common. Communities such as the Dhond of Pakistan clearly prefer marriages between cousins as they ensure purity of the descent line, provide intimate knowledge of the spouses, and ensure that
patrimonyPatrimony may refer to:* Property or other legal entitlements inherited from one's father, especially if it has been handed down through generations in the same family, birthright....
will not pass into the hands of "outsiders". No nation today prohibits second cousin marriage or any marriage between members of farther blood relations.
Incest defined through marriage
Some cultures include relatives by marriage in incest prohibitions; these relationships are called
affinityIn law and in cultural anthropology, affinity, as distinguished from consanguinity, is kinship by marriage. It is the relation which each party to a marriage bears to the kindred of the other. It is usually signified by adding "-in-law" to their degree of kinship.-References:*See an article from...
rather than
consanguinityConsanguinity refers to the property of being from the same lineage as another person. In that respect, consanguinity is the quality of being descended from the same ancestor as another person...
. For example, the question of the legality and morality of a widower who wished to marry his
deceased wife's sisterThe Deceased Wife's Sister's Marriage Act 1907 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, allowing a man, if his wife had died, to marry her sister.Previously, it was forbidden for a man to marry the sister of his deceased wife...
was the subject of long and fierce debate in the
United KingdomThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands...
in the 19th century, involving, among others,
Matthew BoultonMatthew Boulton, FRS was an English manufacturer and business partner of Scottish engineer James Watt. In the final quarter of the 18th century the partnership installed hundreds of Boulton & Watt steam engines, which were a great advance on the state of the art, making possible the...
. In medieval Europe, standing as a
godparentA godparent, in many denominations of Christianity, is someone who sponsors a child's baptism. Judaism has this equivalent in the circumcision ceremony. A male godparent is a godfather, and a female godparent is a godmother...
to a child also created a bond of affinity. But in other societies, a deceased spouse's brother or sister was considered the ideal person to marry. The Hebrew Bible forbids a man from marrying his brother's widow with the exception that, if his brother died childless, the man is instead required to marry his brother's widow so as to "raise up seed to him" (taken from Deuteronomy 25:5-6).
Inbreeding
In many cases incest is also inbreeding. Inbreeding leads to a higher proportion of
congenital birth defectsCongenital disorder involves defects in or damage to a developing fetus. It may be the result of genetic abnormalities, the intrauterine environment, errors of morphogenesis, or a chromosomal abnormality. The outcome of the disorder will further depend on complex interactions between the pre-natal...
through an increase in the frequency of homozygotes. The effects of this can diverge - recessive genes that produce birth defects can become more frequent, resulting in a higher rate of these defects while genes that do not code for birth defects can become increased within a population. The overall consequences of this divergence depends in part on the size of the population. In small populations, if children born with heritable birth defects die before they reproduce the ultimate effect of inbreeding will be to decrease the frequency of defective genes in the population with an overall decrease in the number of birth defect-causing genes over time. In larger populations it is more likely that large numbers of carriers will survive and mate, leading to more constant rates of birth defects.
Scientific study of incest avoidance
Incest avoidance is found empirically to be a cultural universal (albeit expressed differently in different societies), leading to studies of whether it is based on an innate biological mechanism, which would presumably be favored by natural selection for genetic reasons. It is observed that when two people live in close domestic proximity during the first few years in the life of either one, both are desensitized to later close
sexual attractionSexual attraction or sex appeal refers to a person's ability to attract in a sexual or erotic manner the interest of another person. The attraction may be to a physical quality of a person, or it may be to other more nebulous qualities of the person....
. This phenomenon, known as the Westermarck effect, was first formally described by
FinnishThe terms Finns and Finnish people are used in English to mean "a native or inhabitant of Finland". They are also used to refer to the ethnic group historically associated with Finland or Fennoscandia, and they are only used in that sense here....
anthropologist
Edvard WestermarckEdvard Alexander Westermarck was a Swedish speaking Finnish philosopher and sociologist. Among other subjects, he studied exogamy and the incest taboo....
. The Westermarck effect has since been observed in many places and cultures, including in the
IsraelIsrael officially the State of Israel , is a developed state in Western Asia located on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. It borders Lebanon in the north, Syria in the northeast, Jordan in the east, and Egypt on the southwest, and contains geographically diverse features within its...
i
kibbutzA kibbutz is a collective community in Israel that was traditionally based on agriculture. Today, farming has been partly supplanted by other economic branches, including industrial plants and high-tech enterprises. Kibbutzim began as utopian communities, a combination of socialism and Zionism...
system, and the Chinese
Shim-pua marriageTong Yang Xi or tongyangxi , also known as Shim-pua marriage in Taiwanese , was a tradition of arranged marriage dating in China, in which a poor family would sell a young daughter to a richer family as a servant or a caretaker, and in exchange, the girl would be married into the adopted family in...
customs, as well as in biological-related families.
In the case of the Israeli kibbutzim (collective farms), children were reared somewhat communally in peer groups—groups based on age, not biological relation. A study of the marriage patterns of these children later in life revealed that out of the nearly 3,000 marriages that occurred across the kibbutz system, only fourteen were between children from the same peer group. Of those fourteen, none had been reared together during the first six years of life. This result provides evidence not only that the Westermarck effect is demonstrable, but that it operates during the critical period from birth to the age of six (Shepher, 1983).
When close proximity during this
critical periodThis article is about a critical period in an organism's or person's development. See also America's Critical Period.In general, a critical period is a limited time in which an event can occur, usually to result in some kind of transformation...
does not occur—for example, where a brother and sister are brought up separately, never meeting one another—they may find one another highly sexually attractive when they meet as adults. This phenomenon is known as
genetic sexual attractionGenetic sexual attraction is sexual attraction between close relatives, such as siblings, first and second cousins or a parent and offspring, who first meet as adults....
. This observation is consistent with the hypothesis that the Westermarck effect evolved because it suppressed
inbreedingInbreeding is breeding between close relatives, whether plant or animal. If practiced repeatedly, it can lead to exposure of recessive, deleterious traits. This generally leads to a decreased fitness of a population, which is called inbreeding depression. Deleterious alleles causing inbreeding...
. This attraction may also be seen with
cousin coupleA cousin couple is a pair of cousins who are involved in a romantic or sexual relationship. In some jurisdictions and cultures, such marriages are legal, accepted, or even actively encouraged, while in others cousin-cousin relationships are regarded as incest and marriages are prohibited...
s.
Etymology
The word 'incest' was introduced into
Middle EnglishMiddle English is the name given by historical linguists to the diverse forms of the English language in use between the late 11th century and about 1470, when the Chancery Standard, a form of London-based English, began to become widespread, a process aided by the introduction of the printing...
around 1225 as a legal term to describe the crime of familial incest as it is known today. It was also used to describe sexual relations between married persons, one of whom had taken a vow of celibacy (often called
spiritual incest). It derives from the
LatinLatin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Through the Roman conquest, Latin spread throughout the Mediterranean and a large part of Europe...
incestus or
incestum, the
substantiveIn linguistics, a noun is a member of a large, open lexical category whose members can occur as the main word in the subject of a clause, the object of a verb, or the object of a preposition....
use of the
adjectiveIn grammar, an adjective is a word whose main syntactic role is to modify a noun or pronoun, giving more information about the noun or pronoun's referent...
incestus meaning 'unchaste, impure', which itself is derived from the Latin
castus meaning 'chaste'. The derived adjective
incestuous does not appear until the 16th century.
Prior to the introduction of the Latin term, incest was known in Old English as
sibbleger (from
sibb 'kinship' +
leger 'to lie') or
mǣġhǣmed (from
mǣġ 'kin, parent' +
hǣmed 'sexual intercourse') but in time, both words fell out of use.
In ancient China, first cousins with the same surnames (i.e., those born to the father's brothers) were not permitted to marry, while those with different surnames (i.e., maternal cousins and paternal cousins born to the father's sisters) were.
The fable of
OedipusOedipus was a mythical Greek king of Thebes. He fulfilled a prophecy that said he would kill his father and marry his mother, and thus brought disaster on his city and family...
, with a theme of inadvertent incest between a mother and son, ends in
disasterA disaster is the tragedy of a natural or human-made hazard that negatively affects society or environment....
and shows ancient taboos against incest as Oedipus is punished for incestuous actions by blinding himself. In the "sequel" to Oedipus,
AntigoneAntigone is the name of two different women in Greek mythology. The name may be taken to mean "unbending", coming from "anti-" and "-gon / -gony" , but has also been suggested to mean "opposed to motherhood" or "in place of a mother" based from the root gonē, "that which generates" Antigone ' onMouseout='HidePop("13810")' href="http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Papyrus">papyri
Papyrus is a thick paper-like material produced from the pith of the papyrus plant, Cyperus papyrus, a wetland sedge that was once abundant in the Nile Delta of Egypt....
and the Roman census declarations attest to many husbands and wives being brother and sister. Some of these incestuous relationships were in the royal family, especially the Ptolemies; The famous Cleopatra VII was married to her younger brother, Ptolemy XIII. Her mother and father,
Cleopatra VCleopatra V Tryphaena of Egypt was a Ptolemaic Queen of Egypt. She is the only surely attested wife of Ptolemy XII.-Descent and marriage:...
and Ptolemy XII, had also been brother and sister. In
Ancient GreeceAncient Greece is the civilisation belonging to the period of Greek history lasting from the Greek Dark Ages ca. 1100 BC and the Dorian invasion, to 146 BC and the Roman conquest of Greece after the Battle of Corinth. It is generally considered to be the seminal culture which provided the...
, Spartan King
Leonidas ILeonidas was a king of Sparta, the 17th of the Agiad line, one of the sons of King Anaxandridas II of Sparta, who was believed in mythology to be a descendant of Heracles, possessing much of the latter's strength and bravery...
, hero of the legendary
Battle of ThermopylaeThe Battle of Thermopylae took place over three days during the second Persian invasion of Greece. It took place simultaneously with the naval battle at Artemisium, in August or September 480 BC, at the pass of Thermopylae . It was fought between an alliance of Greek city-states, led by Sparta,...
, was married to his niece
GorgoGorgo was the daughter and the only child of Cleomenes I, King of Sparta during the 6th and 5th centuries BC. She was the wife of King Leonidas I, Cleomenes' half-brother, who fought and died in the Battle of Thermopylae. Gorgo is noted as one of the few female historical figures actually named...
, daughter of his half brother
Cleomenes ICleomenes was an Agiad King of Sparta in the late 6th and early 5th centuries BC. During his reign, which started around 520 BC, he pursued an adventurous and at times unscrupulous foreign policy aimed at crushing Argos and extending Sparta's influence both inside and outside the Peloponnese...
.
Incestuous unions were frowned upon and considered as
nefas (against the laws of gods and man) in the
Roman EmpireThe Roman Empire was the post-Republican phase of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean. The term is used to describe the Roman state during and after the time of the first emperor,...
. In AD 295 incest was explicitly forbidden by an imperial edict, which divided the concept of
incestus into two categories of unequal gravity: the
incestus iuris gentium, which was applied to both Romans and non-Romans in the Empire, and the
incestus iuris civilis, which concerned only 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
CaligulaGaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus , more commonly known by his cognomen Caligula , was the third Roman Emperor, reigning from 16 March 37 until his assassination on 24 January 41...
is rumored to have had sexual relationships with all three of his sisters (
Julia LivillaJulia Livilla was the youngest child of Germanicus and Agrippina the Elder and one of Caligula's sisters.-Life:Julia Livilla was a great granddaughter of...
, Drusilla, and
Agrippina the YoungerJulia Agrippina , also known as Agrippina the Younger and Agrippina Minor was a Roman empress...
). Emperor
ClaudiusTiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus was the fourth Roman Emperor, a member of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, ruling from 24 January AD 41 to his death in AD 54...
, after executing his previous wife, married his niece
Agrippina the YoungerJulia Agrippina , also known as Agrippina the Younger and Agrippina Minor was a Roman empress...
, changing the law to allow an otherwise illegal union. The taboo against incest in Ancient Rome is demonstrated by the fact that politicians would use charges of incest (often false charges) as insults and means of political disenfranchisement.
Many European monarchs were related due to political marriages, sometimes resulting in distant cousins (and even first cousins) being married. This was especially true in the Habsburg,
HohenzollernThe House of Hohenzollern is a noble family and royal dynasty of electors, kings and emperors of Prussia, Germany and Romania. It originated in the area around the town of Hechingen in Swabia during the 11th century. They took their name from their ancestral home, the Burg Hohenzollern castle near...
and
BourbonThe House of Bourbon is an important European royal house, a branch of the Capetian dynasty. Bourbon kings first ruled Navarre and France in the 16th century. By the 18th century, members of the Bourbon dynasty also held thrones in Spain, Naples & Sicily, and Parma...
royal houses.
Laws regarding incest
Incest is illegal in many jurisdictions. The exact legal definition of "incest," including the nature of the relationship between persons, and the types sexual activity, varies by country, and by even individual states or provinces within a country. These laws can also extend to marriage between subject individuals.
In some places, incest is illegal, regardless of the ages of the two partners. In other places, incestuous relationships between two consenting adults (with the age varying by location) are permitted.
Judeo-Christian
The Biblical Book of Leviticus lists prohibitions against sexual relations between various pairs of family members. Men are prohibited, on penalty of death, from having sexual relations with their daughters, sisters, mothers, aunts, and various other 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 incest not only with his own blood relations but also with women who could be his stepdaughters by marriage. The Old Testament, however, does depict the daughters of Lot seducing their father in order to continue his line.
Islamic
The Quran gives specific rules regarding incest, which prohibit a man from marrying or having sexual relationships with his mother, daughter, sister, paternal or maternal aunt, niece, a woman from whom he has nursed, a woman who has nursed from the same woman as he, his mother-in-law, the daughter of his wives with whom he has consummated the marriage, the wife of his biological son, or his father's wife. It is also forbidden to be married to two sisters at the same time. A
HadithHadith are oral traditions relating to the words and deeds of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. Hadith are regarded by traditional schools of jurisprudence as important tools for determining the Muslim way of life, the sunnah. Hadith were originally oral traditions of Muhammad's actions and customs...
also prohibits marriage to a woman and her paternal or maternal aunt at the same time. The same applies for a woman with the male counterparts to the aforementioned.
Hindu
HinduismHinduism is the predominant religion of the Indian subcontinent. Hinduism is often referred to as ', a Sanskrit phrase meaning "the eternal law", by its adherents. Generic "types" of Hinduism that attempt to accommodate a variety of complex views span folk and Vedic Hinduism to bhakti tradition, as...
speaks of incest in highly abhorrent terms. Hindus were greatly fearful of the bad effects of incest and thus practise strict rules of both
endogamyEndogamy is the practice of marrying within a specific ethnic group, class or social group, rejecting others on such bases as being unsuitable for marriage or other close personal relationships...
and
exogamyExogamy has two related definitions, both biological and cultural.- Biological exogamy :In biology, exogamy more generally refers to the mating of individuals who are relatively less related genetically: that is, outbreeding as opposed to inbreeding...
within
casteA caste is a combined social system of occupation, endogamy, culture, social class, and political power. Caste should not be confused with class, in that members of a caste are deemed to be alike in function or culture, whereas not all members of a defined class may be so alike.Although Indian...
s (
Varna in Hinduism) but not in the same family tree (
gotraA Gotra is the lineage or clan assigned to a Hindu at birth. In most cases, the system is patrilineal and the gotra assigned is that of the person's father. Other names used to refer to it are Vansh, Vanshaj, Bedagu, Purvik, Purvajan, Pitru...
) or bloodline (
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). Marriages within the gotra ("swagotra" marriages) are banned under the rule of exogamy in the traditional matrimonial system. People within the gotra are regarded as kin and marrying such a person would be thought of as incest. i.e Marriage with cousins is strictly prohibited. Gotra is transferred down the male lineage while the Gotra of a female changes upon marriage. i.e., upon marriage a woman belongs to her husband's Gotra and no longer belongs to her father's Gotra. At the same time, a girl's children are not allowed to marry brother's children. Hence marriage with a person having same Gotra as of the original Gotras of grandfather, grandmother, maternal grandfather and maternal grandmother is prohibited.
Buddhist
BuddhistBuddhism, as traditionally conceived, is a path of salvation attained through insight into the ultimate nature of reality. It encompasses a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha...
societies take a strong ethical stand in human affairs and sexual behavior in particular. In most of those societies, incest is regarded as highly abhorrent. However, unlike most other world religions, most variations of Buddhism do not go into details regarding what is right and what is wrong in mundane activities of life. Incest (or any other detail of human sexual conduct for that matter) is not specifically mentioned in any of the religious scriptures. The most common formulation of Buddhist ethics are the Five Precepts and the
Noble Eightfold PathThe Noble Eightfold Path is one of the principal teachings of the Buddha, who described it as the way leading to the cessation of suffering and the achievement of self-awakening. It is used to develop insight into the true nature of phenomena and to eradicate greed, hatred, and delusion...
, one should neither be attached to nor crave sensual pleasure. These precepts take the form of voluntary, personal undertakings, not divine mandate or instruction. The third of the Five Precepts is "To refrain from committing sexual misconduct". It is understandable that incest itself could constitute "sexual misconduct". 'Sexual misconduct' is a loose term, and is subjected to interpretation relative to the social norms of the followers. In fact, Buddhism in its fundamental form, does not define what is right and what is wrong in absolute terms for the
laityIn religious organizations, the laity comprises all persons who are not clergy. A person who is a member of a religious order who is not ordained clergy is considered as a member of the laity, even though they are members of a religious order .In the past in Christian cultures, the term lay priest...
.
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