Talk:Incest taboo

Separate page

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Why a separate page?

Because the concepts of "incest" and "incest taboo" are very, VERY different. The latter is a myth perpetrated by counter-transferring anthropologists. The former is a reality all too familiar to therapists. And in practice, discussion of the reality is bogged down whenever people get mirred in the myth. That's why they need to be clearly separated.

For example: why does what anthropologists do or do not believe about an "incest taboo" matter at all about the reality of incest today and throughout history? It doesn't.

If someone wants to argue that the incest taboo exists, they're welcome to try.

you think an incest taboo doesn't exist? try walking up to someone on the street and ask them "hey, incest is totally kickass, right?" and see how they respond. if you want to argue that it is not a genetic/inherent taboo, and only exists socially, you could probably make a strong case, but to call it a myth is naive. --dan 19:32, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Universality

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 – Discussion petered out long ago, and consensus did not change about this article.

[Debate moved from Ed Poor's talk page]

Hi Ed. I just want to clarify a couple of things concerning your recent comments on the Incest page. First, whatever the "incest taboo" refers to (marriage, sex, or both), and whether it is truly universal or not, it does not mean that people do not engage in incest. In other words, one who claims that the incest taboo is universal is not claiming that incest does not occur, rather, they are claiming that in all societies incest, or certain forms of incest, are considered wrong. As a matter of fact, I think most anthropologists understand the universailty of the incest taboo to mean that incest is also universal. "Taboo" doesn't mean that it doesn't happen, just that when it happens people think it is wrong (for example, every country I know of makes murder illegal, yet murder occurs in almost every country. It is because murder happens that people have to come up with a rule against it -- does this make sense to you?) Second, when anthropologists try to explain the incest taboo or its universality (and there are a lot of different arguments that are hard to prove conclusively), I don't think any of the anthropologists meant for their explanations of the taboo to be understood that incest is a good thing. Maybe I am confused by the exchange on the talk page, but at least as far as the discussion by anthropologists and others concerning the "incest taboo" is concerned, I do not know anyone who has ever claimed that incest does not happen or that incest does happen and is good (I am here defining incest very narrowly, to mean intercourse, of course if you define it more broadly the arguments get a lot more complex). I think this last point is the real issue -- whether one has an absolute or relative definition of incest, and a broad or narrow definition of incest. Thus, one can say "incest is always wrong" while defending some behaviors by saying that they aren't really incest, or one can say "incest is sometimes wrong and sometimes right." Does this make sense to you? SR

Thank you for your clarifications, SR. Perhaps the biggest problem was that "taboo" seemed to be taken in the sense of "non-existent", i.e., it never happens. What I personally mean by "taboo" is something that is forbidden because it's very bad, so bad in fact that it is rarely even talked about.

Yes, I think you and I have the same understanding of taboo -- and for what it is worth I think all anthropologists share your understanding of taboo, at least in this case.

Perhaps it's not a clear enough word for an encylopedia article. We might do better by saying:

• Many societies have rules against behavior X. It's considered immoral, exploitative, etc.

• The annual incidence of behavior X is 25 per 1 million population in society Y.

We can, if necessary, insert into the article a comparison between incest and murder. Perhaps this will help distinguish between (A) the rule against the action and (B) how often it occurs.

In any case, the edit war seems to have subsided, and I hope we all (Vicki, SR, ark, and me) can cooperate to make a good article. --Ed

The problem with the claim that the incest taboo as a taboo is universal, is that it's not true. Most primitive societies see nothing wrong with incest. In fact, the argument "the tribe doesn't consider it incest so we won't either" (IOW, they see nothing wrong with incest so we'll just dismiss it) is a common one among anthropologists.

The further claim that anthropologists understand the incest taboo to mean the universality of incest is also false. If they did, Lloyd deMause and his followers (who maintain precisely that incest was universal) wouldn't have been viciously oppressed by mainstream academics. And further, this contradicts them dismissing all cases of incest.

So both of SR's central claims are wrong. His supporting arguments are equally wrong. It is not true that primitive societies see anything wrong with murder. There are recorded cases of stone age tribes where the people see absolutely nothing wrong with murder. In fact, "war" in the context of a primitive tribe is nothing but mass murder; an ambush of unprepared and helpless civilians leading followed by a total massacre.

Further, the proper definition of incest includes any kind of sexual stimulation. If you want a "broad" definition of incest then you can include a parent deliberately giving their child to a stranger to be raped. The feelings on the part of the child (they betrayal, fear and anger) are the same as if the parent did the raping. The reason why the parent did this (because they have incestuous desires but fear indulging in them themselves) are also the same. THAT is an example of a broad definition of incest. SR's suggestion to limit incest to only sexual intercourse is total bullshit. If we did that, then lesbian sex would not qualify as sex! And in any case, it would be pointless since there are many recorded instances of sexual intercourse, as well as genital fondling and sucking. So none of this advances SR's position.

And finally, there are plenty of anthropologists who think that incest is good. In fact, the mainstream argument was (is?) that "it can't be incest because it's a good thing" in clear cases of incest (with or without sexual intercourse) between a parent and young child!

The issues involved are really very simple. Yes, incest exists. No, there is no such thing as an incest taboo. Yes, anthropologists both deny its existence and see it as a good thing. Which is why they think there is an incest taboo. The issues themselves are very simple but they're the complete opposite of what most people believe. Which is why people who are not ready to accept reality insist on making everything "complex". So the issues are only really simple for people who are willing to reject everything they believe about society and morality.

People are welcome to say that the universality of incest is a radical and controversial belief. As long as I get to say that it's the only belief that's based on any actual evidence.

And here I'll provide some simple and incontrovertible evidence for my position that anthropologists are fuckups. Anthropologists aren't the only fuckups with respect to child abuse:

If you look up pedophilia in the DSM-III and DSM-IV you will notice a curious difference. The difference is this: in the DSM-III, pedophilia is having sexual desires for children. In the DSM-IV, that's not sufficient. You also have to have a problem with those desires. So if you merely have sexual desires for children, yet don't feel at all troubled by these desires and have no legal difficulties because of them, then you are not a pedophile! -- ark

There are two related issues: what does "incest taboo" mean -- does it mean that incest does not occur, or does it mean that people consider incest wrong? and do anthropologists deny that incest occurs? Here is a quote from Bronislaw Malinowski's 1929 The Sexual Life of Savages. Malinowski was a pioneer of the ethnographic method and is considered a founding father of modern anthropology; moreover, this book is considered one of the founding texts in the study of kinship. In it Malinowski makes clear that incest does occur, and that it is taboo:

The most important person on the father's side is obviously the father himself. here we meet the second fundamental fact in household morality: though the father is not a kinsman of his children, secual intercourse between father and daughter, though it occurs, is not only illegal and improper, but is viewed with definite moral repugnance. Marriage between father and daughter is not allowed or even imaginable to the native (page 528).

Perhaps the most important text in the anthropological study of kinship is Levi-Strauss's The Elementary Structures of Kinship. In this book, Levi-Strauss cites an earlier (and today practically unknown) anthropologist, Levy-Bruhl. Levy-Bruhl in fact made the argument that ARK is suggesting anthropologists make: "The famous question of the prohibition of incest...whose solution has been so sought after by ethnologists and sociologists, has none. There is no purpose in asking it. In the societies just discussed, it is useless wondering why incest is forbidden. The prohibition does not exist [because ... incest] is something that does not occur." Note that it is clear that "taboo" does not mean that something does not occur, only that when it does occur people consider it wrong. Like ARK, but unlike the anthropologists ARK refers to, Levy-Bruhl is suggesting that there is no "incest taboo." But unlike ARK, and unlike the anthropologists ARK refers to, Levy-Bruhl is suggesting that incest does not occur. Levi-Strauss quotes Levy-Bruhl in order to rebuke and admonish him. Levi-Strauss states that incest does occur, and that is precisely why there is a need for a social taboo. SR

The problem is that even this much is a delusion. It's not true that prohibition of sexual intercourse between very close family members is universal.

Also, as far as the incest taboo goes, we've gone from discussing the existence of sex between family members, to the official prohibition against sexual intercourse between very close family members. If that's what you call "the incest taboo" now, nobody else will recognize it as such and we might as well junk the concept entirely.

Now here's why even that much is untrue.

The neolithic primitives don't think in terms of incest and social (family) relations. They think in terms of sex. When they say that too much sex between a mother and child is wrong, they mean precisely that too much sex is wrong. They do not say that there is anything wrong with incest at all. It just happens to coincide with "too much incest is wrong" because that's the kind of sex they have. They're incestuous so when they say "too much sex is wrong" that happens to be identical to "too much incest is wrong". And here's why we must consider them incestuous: if you ask them whether non-incestuous sex (between an adult woman and a child who isn't her son) is okay, they'll tell you it's completely forbidden. (Why? Because an infant is the mother's personal dildo and they don't like to share!) So incestuous sex ranks higher in their twisted minds than non-incestuous sex.

The situation is equivalent to the hypothetical case where someone prefers oranges to apples, but says that too much fruit gives you diarrhea. Are we supposed to conclude from this that they think eating oranges is wrong? No! But that's the logic you're using for incest among primitives.

If you have a society that already has problems with sex (thinking it dirty and polluting, and capable of killing you) then the fact that they don't want too much incest means nothing.

What it does mean is that, in principle, if you could magically take away their fear of sex, then they'd have absolutely no problem with public incestuous sexual intercourse. That's not something you can explain to people if you persist in using concepts like an "incest taboo".

And in practice, the way to reduce the primitive's fear of sex is precisely to stop all sexual activity between mother and child (intercourse or no intercourse). Once you do that, then they will develop an incest taboo. So your special emphasis on intercourse is complete bullshit and detracts both from the theoretical and the practical discussions. It's simply not a useful concept if you have any desire to truthfully talk about reality.

Incidentally, your long quote about father-daughter relations only furthers my point. Father-daughter relations were of absolutely no importance before the 20th century. You can quote whatever the hell you want about them, anthropologists can study whatever the hell they want about them, and it will still matter about as much as the earth-shattering issue of whether picking your nose in public is taboo. It's completely true that father-daughter incest is unimaginable to the primitives. Just like it's completely true that sex with the neighbor's cat is unimaginable to most people. For them to even contemplate incest between father and daughter, there'd have to actually be a pre-existing relation between them. -- ark

New article

Resolved

 – Strong, lasting consensus to keep this article separate, and the Anth. WikiProject has rated the article as of "high" importance.

OK, I'm totally new to this argument, and my interest was only prompted by the addition of this new article.

Firstly, an "incest taboo" is a taboo about incest, so clearly the topics are related. That certainly doesn't preclude having another article discussing "incest taboo". However, the only thing that makes it worthy of an encyclopedia article rather than just a dictionary entry is the fact that it is regarded as illegal and/or immoral by a very large number of people, and it is generally assumed by most people that this was the case to a greater or lesser extent in most societies. Hence, I would argue that any encyclopedia about incest is going to be largely *about* the various taboos (or nonexistence of such, if that is indeed the case).

There you're wrong. The purpose of the incest page is to discuss actual cases (not specific but in general), incidence rates and results of incest. Not why it supposedly does not occur, nor why people supposedly consider it immoral, nor why society supposedly considers it illegal (if it's so illegal then why the hell don't people get jailed for it?). Incest is an immense topic without even getting near people's preconceptions about it and psychological resistance to accepting its reality.

The only room I could possibly see for a seperate article examining the "incest taboo in anthropology" examining the history of its presence in anthropological research and its current status. I gather that Ark claims that the "incest taboo" is a myth invented by anthropologists. Frankly, I doubt that that is a widely held or actively debated viewpoint in the area - however, I'm not an anthropologist and haven't done any serious reading in the area, so I could be wrong. Even so, I'm still not sure that belongs on a seperate page.

I intend to run a little contest on yet another page. It will start with deMause's accusations that anthropologists are pedophile supporters, and we get to look up all of his references and find out if anthropologists are indeed filthy assholes. That should settle the matter one way or the other.

The current content of the page, moreover, adds nothing to the discussion on the original page, and cites the same external source.

The intent of this page is simple. If someone wants to talk about marriage rules or about a taboo about incestuous marriage, or about why anthropologists supposedly care more about incestuous intercourse than incestuous sex in general (or something else that's as irrelevant and stupid), then they can mess up this page and I can ignore them completely. Sounds like a perfect solution to me. I don't have to be concerned that some idiot messes up the entry on incest, and they don't have to be concerned about pissing me off. A win-win situation.

I get the feeling (and I'm speculating here) that what's going on here is that some people feel their take on a topic isn't adequately reflected in an existing article on the topic, and their changes keep getting edited away, so they start a new page where they can push their own barrow in peace. Is this so? If that is the case, that's not how it works. Work together on getting an NPOV rendering of the original article, please.

Close but not quite. I started a new page where I can shove everything I don't want on the incest page off of it. My preferred solution would be to just nuke what I don't like. I've done that but it ended up being a two-day long debate (the end of it is right above). I don't want to have to repeat such debates since they take too long, and I doubt most people will be as willing to accept arguments as SR was.

So, convince me that there is sufficient merit in this topic to warrant a seperate article, otherwise I'm just going to redirect to incest again. --Robert Merkel

And I'll just undo it. Why is it you're willing to start a revision war on a topic you don't seem to know much about? Ark, Monday, June 3, 2002

NPOV?

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 – Debate died out over 2 years ago; consensus has not changed with regard to the article.

I think Ark's policy of "nuking" whatever he doesn't like goes along with his desire to exterminate people he doesn't like. In any event, I revised this article to restore accuracy and NPOV.

I removed a quote from deMause wondering why anthropologists do not write about the universality of "the murder taboo." In fact, anthropologists have noted that in all societies murder is considered wrong yet some forms of murder do exist, and people disagree as to what is justifiable and unjustifiable murder; this is a matter of extensive anthropological debate. I alse deleted a link that is already in the incest page, where it is more apporpriate. SR

Number of hits on google for "incest taboo"? 5710. For "murder taboo? 11.

Like deMause says, one wonders why the hell people keep talking about an "incest taboo" and never a "murder taboo" when murder is in fact much more of a taboo than incest ever was.

Btw, take care not to condemn me too much for nuking what I don't like because that would make you a hypocrite. -- ark

Okay, guys (I assume ark is a guy): help me out, here. Let's all put our cards on the table, and see if we have enough of what my church calls "common base" for us to cooperate.

I think incest is bad (immoral).

I think there is a "taboo" or prohibition against it. I believe this taboo is common, although I'm sure the anthropologists can dig up dozens of remote tribes without the taboo.

Furthermore, I believe that despite a formal prohibiton or taboo, incest does occur.

Any agreement or disagreement so far?

If we all agree, then the article can state the above as undisputed fact. :If not, then I guess we better qualify each statement in terms such as:

• Prominent sociologist A says...
• Well-regarded anthropologist B found...
• Religious leaders C and D maintain...
• Historians E and F note, however,...

I don't care what order the ideas are introduced in; just attribute each disputed view to its proponent.

If we are all willing to do that, then I think we have a good chance of whipping this article into shape. If not, God help us. Maveric will probably wind up locking it up. Ed Poor, Monday, June 3, 2002

I think SR and most anthropologists disagree with "Incest is bad (immoral)" if by incest we concretely mean exactly what our culture considers incest.

In any case, I use a slightly different definition of 'family' and thus incest. I define a family as "any bunch of people that grow up together in a situation of enforced intimacy and familiarity", as opposed to anything to do with genetics per se. What that means is that "biological sibling" doesn't mean jack if you've never known of that person's existence before you were 30 years of age.

So in that kind of situation (what most people might call "unknowing incest") I don't think there's anything bad or immoral about the situation. However, if you are masturbated as a child by a friend of the family at your parent's behest, then that is bad and immoral. I'd call it 'indirect incest'.

Most modern people's views are very close to that, though usually they don't consider indirect incest to be incest. Of course, I exclude backwards people who think that "family" means whoever you're related to up to the 8th generation back. Mercifully, I only know a few such people.

So anyways, there is a very wide disconnect between my psychologically inspired view and SR's amoral cultural relativism.

Going further, if you are concrete with your definition of incest (parents having sex with children by any definition of sex we have) then I disagree that the taboo on incest is common. And I'm not even including spankings as forms of rape (which I think they are since they are inherently sexual) to come to that conclusion.

By the way, since, as SR notes, interest in incest has largely disappeared in anthropology since at least the 70s, and that was long before all the child abuse recognition movement got big (before which there was massive denial on the issue), the opinion of a current psychologist interested in history is worth ten to a hundred times a bunch of anthropologists living in denial a few decades ago.

So getting back to ranting, even if you use a floating definition of incest (ie, whatever the society prohibits in terms of 'too close' sexual relations) then I do not agree that there has been an incest taboo in all, and probably not even most, societies. The reason why is that in primitive cultures, incestuous sex is still preferred to non-incestuous or adult sex. And if we use a floating definition, then I'll probably insist on including indirect incest. So when Roman fathers exchanged sons in order to rape them, then that would be incest. And even if I don't have that available, then I maintain that incest was prevalent in most societies until very recently.

What I see as the 'incest taboo' is much the same as the 'child abuse taboo': you aren't allowed to acknowledge or ever talk about the fact that incest (and child abuse) exists, or that if it exists that there is anything wrong with it. That I will fully agree with. And incidentally, it better fits the definition of a 'taboo subject' as something nobody ever talks about. -- ark

Been reading the mythology entries and I really wonder how a person can know the mythology and believe in some universal incest taboo. -- Ark

Mainstream academic opinion is that an incest taboo exists. Lloyd deMause, whom Ark is following, is by Ark's own admission a minority viewpoint in academia -- "Lloyd deMause and his followers (who maintain precisely that incest was universal) wouldn't have been viciously oppressed by mainstream academics...", who also accuses mainstream anthropolgists of being advocates of pedophilia.

I think there can be room in Wikipedia for a discussion of deMause's views--however, we must give at least equal (and more likely greater, since they greatly outumber deMause) room for the viewpoints of mainstream anthropologists, which is something that ark seems to have refused to do -- an.

an, as far as I know, only one person who has ever contributed to Wikipedia would disagree with you (but boy, would s/he disagree with you). As far as I can tell that person is no longer participating in Wikipedia. I believe that the main value of this talk page is that it gives some idea as to the very intense negotiation process (that occured over the course of a couple of weeks many months ago) that accounts for the shape of this and related articles (there was an article on early neolithic child-rearing called early infanticidal childrearing, or something like that, that also reflects this process); i.e. Ithink it has only historical value. So far I appreciate your contributions and I bet nearly all other wikipedians do too, without any need to argue. Slrubenstein

Spelling question

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 – Question unanswered after over 5 years.

Does Notes and Queries really spell "genealogical" as "geneological"? -- Oliver P. 19:00 Feb 8, 2003 (UTC)

Biological basis

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One theory suggest that the taboo expresses a psychological revulsion that people naturally experience at the thought of incest. Most anthropologists reject this explanation, since incest does in fact occur. Alternatively, the taboo itself may be the cause of this psychological revulsion.

Wouldn't it be appropriate to mention the evolutionary psychologists (sociobiologists) who do tend toward the innate psychological revulsion hypothesis?

Do they actually have evidence? Is there any empirical support for this? Slrubenstein 22:00, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)

The following is a link to a study conducted by evolutionary psychologists at UCSB -- http://www.psych.ucsb.edu/research/cep/papers/incest2003.pdf It cites to much of the previous work done on the phenomenon in the field.

Okay, I know most anthropologists reject this research but it certainly is legitimate research and can be cited in the article.

Also the argument that an innate revulsion does not exist because incest does occur strikes me as odd. Isn't it just as likely that there is an innate revulsion in the great majority of the public, and the few instances of incest are the result of either the absence of the revulsion in the individual (as by genetic variation) or of the individual's social background overcoming the revulsion?

What you say is plausable -- but it doesn't matter. We can't put our own views into articles (see Wikipedia: No original research). Do you have any journal articles that address this? If this is an argument that others have made, and that has been published, of course this should be added. Slrubenstein 22:00, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)

A similar case is illustrated by and argument Stephen Pinker has made. This is that humans have an innate revulsion to eating creepy, crawly things, such as insects. This revulsion serves an important biological purpose: generally, for humans to gather enough insects to sustain themselves would require an unjustifiable expenditure of time and energy, and their efforts are better spent on larger prey. This revulsion can be overcome if a child is introduced to such foods at an early age, and in areas of the world where larger sources of protein are unavailable, the revulsion is overcome.

Well, in this case Pinker is just wrong. Human beings do not have an innate revulsion to eating insects. In many parts of the world insects provide much of the protein in people's diet. (The biological purpose you suggest is really unfounded; insects are rather easy to collect in large quantities in many parts of the world.) I know Pinker has written about his own opinions on these matters, but has he done any real research on this? Or does he support his claims with any research? (not that it is relevant to this article!) Slrubenstein 22:00, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I don't know this specific claim, but I wouldn't be surprised if he was talking out of his navel. While I like a lot of Pinker's ideas in linguistics (assuming this is the same Stephen Pinker, that is), he does have a definite habit of making bad "logical" arguments for his positions when he can't find actual evidence to support it. --dan 19:32, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Anthropology bias

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 – It's an anthropology article. No further discussion in over 3 years.

This article is heavily biased towards the field of anthropology. Opposing viewpoints are raised, discussed in a cursory fashion, and then dismissed with a statement of the accepted view in the field of anthropology. If there is some reason that anthropologists (as opposed to praticitioners in psychology, sociology, or other fields) have the best claim to the study of taboos, then this is acceptable. Otherwise, the article needs to be modified to accommodate other academic viewpoints.

The word "taboo" was introduced into the English language by an anthropologist, and anthropologists are the only scholars who have studied beliefs and practices relating to incest globally. This does not mean that the views of psychologists and sociologists should be excluded from the article, of course. Slrubenstein | Talk 15:02, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

"Biased"? It's an anthropology article. That's like complaining that the article on quasar is "heavily biased towards the field of astrophysics instead of astrology. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 00:04, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

"Incest taboo" not a thorough—nor neutral—article

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 – No further discussion after over a year, and many revisions have been made since then. NPOV tag removed.

1. It ignores--or its author[s] was ignorant of--evidence for towards whom and between what ages the incest taboo develops in humans. For instance, there is a fairly well known example of the incest taboo at work among collectively reared kibbutz children in Israel, who failed to develop sexual interest in their co-reared age mates. This suggests that the development of the incest taboo in individuals is mediated in large part by co-residence. Why isn't this aspect of the taboo discussed in the article?

2. The adverse effects of inbreeding on the very important MHC is ignored; as is the possible connection between the MHC, body scent, and women's preference for scents that are not too similar (nor too different) from the father (or father-figure) she was raised by or around. These interactions are probably related to the development of the incest taboo, but again the article ignores them.

3. Evidence for an incest taboo has also been observed in non-human animals, but the article makes no reference to that either.

I don't consider myself sufficiently informed to revise this article myself, but I've read enough here and there over the years to realize that the current article is woefully inadequate. Does anyone have time to research this topic adequately? It really is quite interesting, but the current article lacks neutrality by lopsidedly emphasizing purely cultural explanations. IOW, it not only omits relevant information, but is very selective as to what sort of relevant info it omits.

Lucky strike 00:28, 16 April 2006 (UTC)lucky_strike

• • I agree, the article really does seem one-sided, and there isn't anywhere near enough references or proof to back up the statements. A quick scan of the article just looks like there's one source, to support only one select view of the subject. Irish♣Pearl 01:11, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Just tagged the article since there does seem to be a general dispute over it. Irish♣Pearl 01:21, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Most anthropologist don't reject the idea that there's a possibility of an inborn revulsion to incest - which like any inborn trait - would then have variation. Anthropologists, however, posit that it's more of a switch that gets set (in the Chomskyian sense of a switch) by the environment, and not everyone has the switch and not everyone is raised in an environment that properly assembles the switches to enforce/require the incest taboo. That's what Arthur P. Wolf's work suggests. It's in the bibliography, people should read it. Levalley (talk) 02:59, 27 March 2009 (UTC)LeValley

Dubious

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First, inbreeding does not directly lead to congenital birth defects per se; it leads to an increase in the frequency of homozygotes. A homozygote encoding a congenital birth defect will produce children with birth defects, but homozygotes that do not encode for congenital birth defects will decrease the number of carriers in a population. If children born with this type of heritable birth defect die (or are killed) before they reproduce, the ultimate effect of inbreeding will be to decrease the frequency of defective genes in the population.

This looks odd to me. The idea is, what, that incest is actually healthy for a population? Aren't bad recessive genes sufficiently common that, in general, inbreeding leads to offspring that are at least a bit less fit than normal? How can this be healthy for society under any definition of healthy?

I just can't take this seriously. The defense of incest is so involved that even if it's correct, which I doubt, one would need a fairly advanced understanding of genetics to grasp it, which was surely lacking when incest taboos were formed in any society you can think of.

Evercat 22:07, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

It's also important to note that there are 2 separate issues:

1. What is the cost / harm of incest?
2. By what mechanism do humans gain an "incest avoidant" psychology?

Another theory is that the observance of the taboo would lower the incidence of congenital birth defects caused by inbreeding.

The sentence I've quoted above is about question 1, but completely fails to address question 2. Suppose incest does lead to unhealthy offspring (which I think is well known). How does this lead to the taboo? Via genes and evolutionary psychology, or via society noting the problem and forming the taboo? We're not told what the theory is.

But I'm going to go and interpret it as society forming a taboo for this reason, as it doesn't really make sense otherwise. A "gene for incest avoidance" is only "interested" in its own fitness, not that of society as a whole.

Evercat 22:34, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Clean it up

-Smuglife 22:40, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

The second paragraph actually made my heart sink. "Since writing was only invented 5000 years ago, anthropologists focus primarily on pre-literate cultures." What does that mean? First of all, it's not true. Second of all, is it implying that somehow by looking at current non-literate cultures that we are looking at culture as it was 6000 years ago? Incest taboos are rarely written down (until very recently - certainly not at 5000 years ago - and we look at ALL the early writings for evidence of the taboo, intensively, and that would be a counter-example to anthropologists studying "pre-literate" cultures. India, for example, is well-studied by anthropology. Now, New Guinea is interested as a recently-literate place - but what has that got to do with the incest taboo? Is the implication that New Guinea would somehow have a unifying idea of the incest taboo? It's been known by many different lines of research since the 1930's that New Guinea has virtually no "uniform" anything at all, and so current "pre-literate" cultures help us out very little in understanding taboos of the past. But most importantly, anthropologists already knew there was an incest taboo in their own societies when they went into the field - that data already existed. And when a lot of data was collected from outside Europe and America, it was discovered that the incest taboo is a likely candidate to be a cultural universal. I believe the foremost expert on human universals is at UCSB and wrote a book called Human Univerals about 10 years ago that really hasn't been topped. Is incest taboo in it? Citation needed. Levalley (talk) 23:46, 26 March 2009 (UTC)LeValley

I guess things move very quickly at Wikipedia. There may have been no complaints for 2 years - but I think this article is merely okay, in 2009. Parts of it are good - but parts do need clean-up!Levalley (talk) 23:48, 26 March 2009 (UTC)LeValley

Intent to delete

I intend to delete all the unsourced information in this article soon. Fair warning. ——Martin^phi ☎ Ψ Φ—— 03:11, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

I neglected this article for a long time. I have restored much of the deleted material, with sources. I still have a couple more to add and hope you and others will be patient with me. I did not restore anything to the article that cannot be backed up by a source; I am just waiting to get the proper books to provide full citations. Slrubenstein | Talk 22:38, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Okay, I have completed my revisions and adding of citations. If people now want to comment and make suggestions/point out problems, please do, Slrubenstein | Talk 18:43, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

It looks very nice. Not knowing the subject, I didn't check the sources, but I'm sure they're fine. This result was my intent (: ——Martin^phi Ψ~Φ—— 01:49, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

Great! Thanks, Slrubenstein | Talk 15:09, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

I still see unsourced material. I am going to go through and delete it. Then it can be re-added when sourced. I will probably get to that later tonight.Levalley (talk) 23:49, 26 March 2009 (UTC)LeValley

Incest vs. Abortion

In some cultures and religions, incest is considred to be not as controversial as abortion. For instance, several bishops in the Roman Catholic Church have agreed with this and have recommended that girls who are raped by their parents to continue their pregnancy. This was notably the case in 2009 with archbishop José Cardoso Sobrinho in Brazil. ADM (talk) 19:44, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Incest and Remarriage

There is an ancient tradition in the Catholic Church which considers remarriage to be a comparable to incest, hence the taboo on divorce and taking communion with a second marital partner. This taboo is mentioned in the document Sacramentum Caritatis, which forbids re-married people to have sexual relations, as if they were brothers and sisters. It is not so simple to write about this without any precise sources on hand, but the material could be added after a proper consultation of canon law and ecclesiastic history. ADM (talk) 21:01, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

General comments

I think the opening paragraph is pretty good, although I'm not understanding exactly why the terms "formal" and "unspoken" are juxtaposed in exactly that way. A taboo can be very formal but never spoken about (like taboos on speaking the names of the dead or anything about the dead, in many cultures, and taboos that are so formal that the instant they are broken, there is universal response of an identical kind to the offender, but no one has ever mentioned anything about the taboo - ever - to anyone and no anthropologist can ask questions directly about it, as it would break the taboo). This is one of the chief mysteries of anthropology and one of the most important reasons anthropology had to develop a variety of techniques to speak about the following four kinds of taboos:

formal but unspoken (like the incest taboo in many cultures) formal and spoken (like the incest taboo in modern nations) informal but unspoken informal and spoken

Now - are there any cultures that have the incest taboo in the final two categories? Yes. So there's some small kind of rewrite needed. "Formal and informal, spoken and unspoken" would likely be the way an anthropologist would say it had to be written. As to relative occurrences of the taboo in each of those four categories - well, I believe there's quite a literature on that, but is that really the main point of the article? Perhaps not - so just a footnote there?Levalley (talk) 23:38, 26 March 2009 (UTC)LeValley

Surely the term "taboo" has its own page? Like so many other anthropological terms and interests, it comes from a non-Indo-European language (in this case, a Polynesian language; in Hawaiian it's kapu). It has both its anthropological connotations (especially since, without anthropologists, the word itself would not be known in the west), but the kinds of taboos kept in the Austronesian societies where the word has cognates (throughout the Southern Pacific and into the northern Pacific - and beyond, depending on who you cite/read) and its contemporary popular connotations. There has to be an article on it, right?Levalley (talk) 23:41, 26 March 2009 (UTC)LeValley

Good points! I will make some changes but you are free to too. Go ahead and create the Taboo article!! Slrubenstein | Talk 23:46, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Second sentence of second paragraph makes as little sense as the first one. I'm not sure what the topic of the paragraph is, or I'd write a new topic sentence. It seems to be "the incest taboo exists whether or not the rule is written down." That's true. Another assertion seems to be "the incest taboo is a human universal, as is marriage," those are true statements, but citing Marvin Harris's not-very-good introduction to cultural anthropology as a source is NOT a valid reference. You need kinship specialists and the primary literature - like Goodenough or that guy at UCSB who wrote the book "Human Universals," and put a heckuva a lot of work into backing up his claims with real data - Marvin's book is quoting somebody else's work who is quoting yet another person - at least go to the kinship chapter in the Harris book and get the original source! This is really unacceptable in any wikiarticle. Introductory textbooks are NOT sources for such major claims. Sorry if I'm being rough here, but I"m trying to type this all out quickly - the basic information is good, the style and citations need to change.23:54, 26 March 2009 (UTC)LeValley —Preceding unsigned comment added by Levalley (talk • contribs)

Arthur Wolf (and others)

Well, my biggest fear about this page was that it wouldn't adequately summarize what I believe to be absolutely the best research on this subject (including his summaries and criticisms of all the other views mentioned here). Not only do I believe he's The Expert on the why of the incest taboo, but every anthropologist I know also agrees, everyone I've given his book to, to read, finds it persuasive, he's quoted all over the place in many, many introductory textbooks and in juried articles, his view is hard to get around, he seems to be exactly right, only Marvin Harris didn't do him justice in his textbook (which is one reason it sucks, but to give Marvin a break, he went to school when Arthur was just a young whippersnapper and never looked back once he got onto his "new thang" of cultural materialism - certainly never looked around to see what was being published as he wrote his textbook. I am in favor of deleting the entire section on "why" until Arthur Wolf's name and his work appears in it, at least. To me, this is like opening an article on "theory of relativity - physics" and finding "Newton had some ideas about physical laws that were influential on physics" as a topic paragraph. Westermarck is beside the point almost altogether (although worthy of mention but if and only if the real literature on incest is considered).

Anthropologists do study "real incest." But, long before you can get people to allow you to talk to them about their most private sexual experiences, you usually need a general understanding of their language and culture. It takes time. But in many, many cultures, anthropologists have collected data on "real incest," often being the only ones to do so (journalists and criminal psychologists also come to mind). The fact that you're trying to collect data on a taboo (again, an article on taboo in general needs to be in focus here) is always problematic. Arthur's approach is quite interesting. Everyone should read it. If there's no Wiki article on Arthur, one could easily research him in a regular encyclopedia (or on amazon.com and deduce which book is relevant here - plus the journal articles have explanatory titles).Levalley (talk) 00:01, 27 March 2009 (UTC)LeValley

Removed paragraph

Here it is:

Explaining the incest taboo

Although anthropologists have observed and studied violations of incest taboos (in other words, cases of incest), all anthropological theories of the incest taboo are concerned with the formal proscription against incest (as defined locally), not with actual cases of incest (however defined). These theories are motivated by two major questions: first, given the variation in how different societies define incest, and in which relationships are proscribed, is there any general pattern or universal function of incest taboos? Second, given that people do commit incest, why do so many (indeed, arguably, all) societies proscribe certain forms of incest? These questions are not concerned with a specific individual's sexual desires, nor the specific effects of incest on specific people — matters usually left to psychologists.

Nearly every word in it is wrong and it is all unsourced. Very few psychologists study incest and why it is perpetrated (they work with victims, primarily - they study the EFFECTS of incest on VICTIMS, not incest itself). There are a few exceptions; most are not actually psychologists by training - but the literature is under the heading "psychologist."

Many anthropologists offer explanations of taboo-breaking (it's a very important part of anthropology). It's been talked about incessantly since the field began. There are many, many explanations. Anthropology is not merely concerned with formal proscriptions (who gave you that idea, dear author of this article? - they were misinformed). If you could get the conventions of anthropologists that meet so regularly to agree to any statement at all - it would not be that one, I assure you, you'd be shouted down with counter-citations. I'm not a kinship expert nor an incest expert, but there are such people and citations from them would be needed here (which is impossible of course because their work contradicts this paragraph).

BTW, I think the next section of the article is so much better that, by not offending the reader with this removed section, the whole article reads much better.Levalley (talk) 00:07, 27 March 2009 (UTC)LeValley

I think the point is that many people will come to this page with no knowledge of anthropology. All their knowledge of incest comes from their having been victims of incest, or knowing someone who is a victim of incest, or someone who is involved in incest victim's advocacy. They will think "incest taboo" somehow applies to them, and this article needs to be written to make clear any possible misunderstanding. And we need links to the proper articles, so people looking for a different kind of article can get there with one click.

I hope it's proper to address your points one by one (Thank you for putting them out so clearly). I totally agree with what you say and I hope I didn't detract from the purpose of the article in any way. I'll try and look at it again to make sure it does exactly what you say it should do. You've put in a lot of hard work, and I think it is working the way it's supposed to.Levalley (talk) 19:57, 27 March 2009 (UTC)LeValley

I do not know what, exactly, psychologists study but I am sure that some have studied victims of incest and others have studied perpetrators of incest. This article needs some section explaining that this article is not about something psychologists study, with links to the proper articles. You say psychologists do not study incest but guess what? That paragraph was written by some of them after a protrracted edit-war on this page in which psychologists wished to claim that any article about incest must cover psychological research. Wikipedia articles are written over time by many different people with their own points of view. The results of such collaboration are often sloppy and need improvement ... but you cannot just ignore it.

Who's ignoring it? It just doesn't belong in this article. I published a review of the psychological literature on incest in a minor publication in 2003. However, I think I did a pretty good job reviewing the literature (I've been doing anthropological research in criminal institutions and mental health institutions since 1979, including work on rapists and incest perpetrators). The number of articles on victims outnumbers those on perps by a ratio of at least 100 to 1. And, as I stated before, most of the literature on perpetrators is not written by clinical OR academic psychologists. Much of it is written by social workers, criminal justice professors and criminal psychologists (who may or may not have training in formal clinical research methods; but they are not publishing in the psych journals - many are publishing hard cover books on their research; it is not easy to get perps to cooperate with research - they are locked up in institutions; there's a very minor body of research on them). But yes - the link should be there, but with proper language that directs people off to other pages without saying things that are false about anthropology. We DO study incest (I've been employed by state agencies as an applied anthropologist for 30 years now, mostly law enforcement work).Levalley (talk) 19:57, 27 March 2009 (UTC)LeValley

Well, it may be worth working some of this into the article, somewhere - just to provide the links so readers who discover they aren't interested in this article have an idea of where to go next. Slrubenstein | Talk 20:42, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

The point is NOT that this article is not about psychology; the point is that our readers need links to psychology if they got here by mistake. This is an encyclopedia ant articles must reach out to a diverse groupf of readers. Moreover, the whole point of the web-based computer is to be user friendly, using hypertext and links. You removed a paragraph that played an important role in making this article clearer for most people who come to it. I agree with your criticims about the paragraph, but it seems to me that you should fix it rather than remove it. I think you should restore the paragraph and fix it, correct it, but let it do its purpose which is to explain that this article is not coviering psychological research because it is on a topic that is not psychological, and that psychologists study other aspects of the phenomenon.

Yes. You're right, put it back, I'll edit it then. When I get around to it.Levalley (talk) 19:57, 27 March 2009 (UTC)LeValley

Cool! Slrubenstein | Talk

By the way, anthropologists often coall certain kinds of explanations they propose "sociological," e.g. if the explanation is based on social structure or social organization. A sociological explanation does not mean that it is an explanation proposed by sociologists, it means it is an explanation concerning social mechanisms. Slrubenstein | Talk 16:32, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Disagree altogether. Which departments of anthropology and which speech acts are you referring to? Citations? I am baffled by this claim. We usually say "social structural" rather than "sociological." Do you commonly attend the AAA meetings? Can you find AA citations for this? Because in the departments where I've worked or am familiar with people, this is very much not the case. I've asked some colleagues to weigh in on this, and they are baffled, as well, by your statement. It's quite uncommon, and if one does it, one is sure to encounter ire from actual sociologists, who are often vociferous in their opposition to using these terms interchangeably. I was taught these conventions by Harumi Befu, Goodenough, and others - who taught you that they were interchangeable? If in fact those conventions have changed, unfortunately, Wikipedia's "anthropology" stops with the early 20th century viewpoints, so until that's fixed, I think we're bound to go by what the "experts" said as the "experts" are listed in Wikipedia. That means neither you nor I is an expert - but surely Befu, Goodenough and others (like Levi-Strauss - who would never, ever use those terms interchangeably and has said so (see the book "Interview with Levi-Strauss), and defers altogether to Durkheim, etc. So a strong disagree there.Levalley (talk) 19:57, 27 March 2009 (UTC)LeValley

Social structure is a noun, sociological is an adjective. I do not see how you can use a noun when an adjective is called for. I happen to have at hand an article from American Ethnologist Volume 24. Issue 3. August 1997 by Per Hage, "Unthinkable Categories and the Laws of Kinship;" the abstract starts, "In L'Exercice de la parenté, Héritier develops a general theory of kinship systems based on two "fundamental laws." These laws depend for their proof on a sociological explanation of two logically possible but empirically unrealized terminologies in the classifications of Lowie and Murdock..." Like I said I just have this at hand but I have heard the phrase so many times it seems quite uncontroversial to me. I have heard anthropologists propose economic explanations, which did not mean that they were economists (but does mean that economists do not have a monopoly on the words economy or economic). Slrubenstein | Talk 20:57, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

By the way, I have no idea why you say, "unfortunately, Wikipedia's "anthropology" stops with the early 20th century viewpoints, so until that's fixed, I think we're bound to go by what the "experts" said as the "experts" are listed in Wikipedia." Can you please tell me what policy states this? I asked you to read the three core policies; did you read something in any of those three that stated this? Why did you write this? Slrubenstein | Talk 20:57, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Scrubbing for talk page needed badly

Will commence soon. --Levalley (talk) 19:38, 27 March 2009 (UTC)levalley

NPOV dipuste

Miradre has added poorly written ungramatical text that is not relevant to the incest taboo. She has added a few new sources which I have retained. But The article should have a logical structure. It starts with the genetic hypothesis and then reviews other views - it makes no sense to repeat the genetic hypothesis at the end of the paragraph. These citations can stay in the article. But it makes sense to present different views one at a time, and sources that express the same view should be presented together, not scattered around. Slrubenstein | Talk 22:26, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

You are removing essential arguments from one side creating a POV article. Miradre (talk) 22:55, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

In addition to simply and selectively removing the arguments from one of the sides[1] you insist on keeping this: "This theory was first proposed by jurist Henry Maine, who did not have knowledge of modern genetics, but who did draw on his observations of animal husbandry." This is sourced to a work by the author himself. As such it is OR regarding being first and not having knowledge of modern genetics. Second the given source does not support this statement at all. The source is out of copyright and can be read here online. Page 228 is the page number given for the source.[2] Miradre (talk) 15:08, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

I have added back the argument but now in one place at the beginning. Please do not delete the arguments, they are necessary for an NPOV description. Also, you removed some sources which I have restored. The Henry Maine material still need to removed as per above. Miradre (talk) 05:17, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

It does not matter. The point is that increased frequencies of the homozygote can be bad. no one disputes this. There is no argument on the matter. Slrubenstein | Talk 18:33, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

That is only one of the arguments. Please read the text. There are also arguments regading immune system problems unrelated to birth defects, incest avoidance in animals, and increase mortality in children of close relatives. Please respect NPOV and do not selectively delete the arguments of one side. Miradre (talk) 18:45, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

Also, you seem to be reverting without checking, even deleting references to your own text. Miradre (talk) 18:48, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

Here is the sourced text Slrubenstein is deleting: Modern proponents also point to different theories for why incest may have deleterious genetic effects such as similar immune systems being more vulnerable to infectious diseases (see Major Histocompatibility Complex and Sexual Selection) as well as empirical evidence finding decreased survival for children born of close relatives and avoidance of incest among many mammal species including humanity's closest primate relatives. Instead, he is leaving only arguments from one side, creating a version violating NPOV. Miradre (talk) 18:56, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

This tect is about incest not "the incest taboo" which is something different.

What do you man "modern proponnts? proponents of incest?

"as well as empirical evidence" - do you mean to suggest that genetis effects are not empirical?

What you wrote just dos not make sense. But in any event, it belongs in the incest article. This article already makes plain that incest has deleterious empirical effects. Slrubenstein | Talk 19:54, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

Please do not delete templates while there is an ongoing dispute. The prior context made it clear that "proponents" referred to those supporting a genetic predisposition for the incest taboo. Can be clarified. The deleterious effects of incest are an important part of the debate regarding whether the incest taboo has a genetic predisposition or not. Obviously those proponents are arguing that incest has negative consequences which explains this genetic predisposition towards having an incest taboo. But you are selectively deleting those arguments. 1. The immune system argument is not the same as the birth defect argument. 2. That there are empirical bad effects from incest supports a genetic predisposition towards having an incest taboo 3. The animal evidence is another argument towards there being a genetic predisposition towards an incest taboo. You have deleted all of those arguments. Miradre (talk) 20:11, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

The article already made clear that inbreeding can have deleterious effects; you just muddled things. Slrubenstein | Talk 15:48, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

The article currently only mentions one possible mechanism for this without mentioning other possible mechanisms, empirical evidence in favor of incest being harmful, or animal evidence in favor of the incest taboo. Instead there is a completely unsourced counter-argument as well as an incorrect ad hominem argument against a supposed originator of the genetic theory based on a primary source which does not state what is claimed. Miradre (talk) 16:01, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

you don't know what ad hominem even means! How did you find out how to spell it? Slrubenstein | Talk 18:59, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Factual inaccuracy

Slrubenstein, why are you restoring factually incorrect claims?[3] You can read the original source yourself here and see tht the claim is incorrect.[4] That the claim is the first is not mentioned, or that the author was unaware of modern genetics, or that the observation was based on animal husbandry. Miradre (Talk E-mail) 17:34, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

In fact, if you look at the previous page (227) one can see that the author states that others had the idea before him! Miradre (Talk E-mail) 17:39, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

I have no idea what you are talking about. The claim is mentiond, it is the earliest published example, and your suggestion that the author was aware of modern genetics is so laughable I suggest you wait until you finish high school before trying to write encyclopedia articles. Slrubenstein | Talk 18:25, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

Moreover, if you think the sentence is inaccurate, the solution is not to put up an inaccuracy dispute tag. Slrubenstein | Talk 18:26, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

• Miradre is right that you cannot source a claim about a book being the first to mention something to the book itself. The question of whether he was aware of modern genetics also needs to be sourced to a reliable source. All in all the article is in a dire need of good secondary sources. The claim about the theory having achived wider support is for example also cited only to partisan primary sources - how about someone actually looked for some secondary or tertiary sources to back up their claims here?·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 18:29, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

Here are some ideas: [5][6][7][8][9].·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 18:32, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

It won't be hard to add a secondary source that he was the first scholar to propose this, or at least the first contemporary scholar. That he was not aware of modern genetics is something we just need to add I would argue in order to have a readible encyclopedia article; given his argument that inbreeding produces congenital defects, the imaginary average 21st century reader might well think that he believed this because of genetic research; it only makes sense to clarify that this was not the case. I do not see this as original research or synth, I see it as proper contextualization.

But Maunus, if you want to add these additional sources, by all means - I agree you would be improving the article. Slrubenstein | Talk 18:37, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

I don't see how someone writing 150 years ago is more contemporary than those writing immediately before him (e.g. Morgan and McLennan and E. B. Tylor who coined the phrase "Marry out or die out")... Adding the bit about genetics is begging the question and tacit WP:SYNTH if it is not supported by a source. I am not going to add those sources - but I suggest both you and Miradre look them over instead of edit warring and namecalling.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 18:41, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

Where did I claim that Maine was more contemporary than Morgan or McLennan? Slrubenstein | Talk 18:49, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

The text you are restoring is claiming that Maine was the first despite that he himself states otherwise in the source. Miradre (Talk E-mail) 18:50, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

Maine does not claim that Morgan or Mclellan were explaining exogamy based on the deleterious biological consequences of inbreeding. What specifically are you referring to? I've read it, I do not see any place where he is attributing this explanation to Morgan or McLennan.

If you have any source that claims that Morgan or Mclennan or anyone else made this claim before Maine, by all means add that view and provide a citation, but Maine himself did not say this. Maunus provided links to recent secondary sources - if any of them attributes this claim to someone other than Maine, I would be all for adding it into the article. Slrubenstein | Talk 19:37, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

Page 226, "On the other hand, Morgan... ...He supposes that primitive man very early discovered the evils of close inbreeding and that all the early transformations of human society were the result of a constant struggle to prevent these evils". Miradre (Talk E-mail) 20:11, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

Furthermore, the text still makes the claim that Maine developed this based on observing "animal husbandry" which is not in the source. Also, more generally, primary sources are of course not suited for statements like "first instance of a theory". Claiming that is OR. Miradre (Talk E-mail) 20:14, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

I appreciate your providing a specific quote, maybe this can help us clear things up. But the evils of inbreeding are not the same thing as congenital birth defects. Lewis Henry Morgan no doubt viewed incest as a sin, and argued that there was a drive within culture to evolve to higher forms. Evil is a moral claim and if Maine or Morgan meant something more, you will need to provide a quote that says so. maunus provided links to several secondary sources, can you find a quote in any of them? In the quote you provide, Maine is not saying that Morgan's explanation for the incest taboo was congenital birth defects. Maine is not saying that this was Morgan's explanation.

Also, Maine does talk about animal husbandry and on the very page cited. Slrubenstein | Talk 20:24, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

"Congential birth defects" are of course never explicitly mentioned by Maine either. "Selected the wild forms of certain animals for domestication" is of course not the same as making observations of congenital birth defects in "animal husbandry". Finally, again, primary sources are not suited for discovering who was the first since this is OR based on them. Miradre (Talk E-mail) 20:31, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

"Selected the wild forms of certain animals for domestication" is of course precisely what "animal husbandry" means. "I cannot see why the men who selected the wild forms of certain animals for domestication should not find out that children of unsound constitution were born of nearly related parents ... " — it is precisely providing this explanation for exogamy that Maine says is his contribution. But I promise you I will add a secondary surce tomorrow. In the mantime by all means do add your secondary sources on Maine, Morgan etc. Slrubenstein | Talk 21:07, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, I will be able to ad it Tuesday. Slrubenstein | Talk 09:04, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

You restored the material, you have the burden of evidence. See WP:BURDEN. Also, you made an incorrect citation. A correct one is "I cannot see why men who discovered the use of fire and selected the wild forms of certain animals for domestication and of vegetables for cultivation..." Thus, he is talking about general human cleverness. Not observation of congenital birth defects in "animal husbandry". Miradre (Talk E-mail) 21:11, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I have already addressed this. Are you ignoring what I wrote? Or do you prefer to fight rather than collaborate? Slrubenstein | Talk 22:08, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

• "When motivating the prohibition of incest 'biologically', one generally thinks of the danger connected with the increased probability of homozygosity in incest, namely the manifestation of harmful recessive characters. The main supporters of this argument were Morgan (1877), Maine (1883), and Westermarck (1889)." (Bischof 1975 Comparrative Ethnology of Incest Avoidance in Robert Fox (ed.)Biosocial Anthropology )·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 21:23, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

• "Another theory, championed generations ago by Lewis H. Morgan and others, and not without defenders today, is that incest was defined and prohibited because inbreeding causes biological degeneration.4 This theory is so plausible as to seem self-evident, but it is wrong for all that. In the first place, inbreeding as such does not cause degeneration; the testimony of biologists is conclusive on this point. To be sure, inbreeding intensifies the inheritance of traits, good or bad." (The Definition and Prohibition of Incest. Leslie A. White. American Anthropologist , New Series, Vol. 50, No. 3, Part 1 (Jul. - Sep., 1948), pp. 416-435 )·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 21:26, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

Well, let us add these properly contextualized to the article. Slrubenstein | Talk 22:08, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

Just a comment regarding the last claim. Sure, it is possible to construct a theoretical population where inbreeding causing increased frequency of homozygosity is not a harmful like a population without recessive genetic diseases. In the real world recessive diseases exist and inbreeding increases mortality in humans. There are also other dangers beside increased pure homozygosity like that a small gene pool of Major histocompatibility complex variants in a population increases the risk of resistant diseases. These are important argument that Slrubenstein constantly have deleted, apparently because they do not fit his the-incest-taboo-is-just-a-social construction view. Miradre (Talk E-mail) 21:45, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

No, I never deleteed this from the article, I have simply put it in its place, This is not an articles about inbreeding and its consequences, which is all Mirardre seems to obess on. This is not even an article on incest, which can involve inbreeding but often times does not, but anyway is the objct of another article, This is an article on "the incest taboo" which is social fact found in many societies but not all. The United States and the UK arguably od not have an incest taboo. Instead, it is regulated by the state through laws, which are not the same things as taboos. You seem to be demanding to turn the article into what it is not. Slrubenstein | Talk 22:08, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

Since the secondary sources Maunus have kindly presented have established that if anyone should be mentioned it is Morgan, I hope we can remove the material about Maine from the article. Sure, how wide the incest taboo applies varies culturally but there is a view that there is hard biological core that is not only due to culture but is genetically programmed. This view should be presented fairly including the evidence supporting this. Besides what I have already mentioned it also includes the presence of incest avoidance in many animals including our closest primate relatives. Miradre (Talk E-mail) 23:10, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

• I now have a copy of Wolf and Durham's "Inbreeding, Incest, and the Incest Taboo the state of knowledge at the turn of the century". This book basically presents the bio-centric viewpoint and presents rather strong arguments in favor of seeing the Westermarck effect as a real and evolved mechanism for incest avoidance. Its main doubt however is still the question of whether this means that the Incest Taboo has a biological underpinning - one author (Durham, the odd one out in this context, but probably more representative of the cultural anthropological viewpoint) argues that the reality of the Westermarck effect in fact undermines the argument that the taboo is biological, because in the cases where the effect have been shown (kibbutz children, taiwanese and lebanese adopted brides) there has actually been a rule dictating marriage between children that have grown up together - i.e. the effect did not result in any cultural tendency to condemn such unions. That is, there is no evidence from the jump from biological mechanism to cultural rule.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 23:47, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

That is an interesting view that should be presented in the article. Miradre (Talk E-mail) 23:57, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Gender and Culture

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 28 August 2023 and 18 December 2023. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): MichelleEstrada55 (article contribs).

— Assignment last updated by MichelleEstrada55 (talk) 04:13, 25 September 2023 (UTC)

An oversight about a problematic exception

There is one bit of evidence that argues against the existence of this taboo: records from Ancient Egypt where commoners practiced brother-sister marriage. There are multiple mentions of this problematic practice -- one example grabbed at random -- but no good explanation. (IMHO Egyptologists have thrown up their hands & assumed that this was in order to prevent farmland from being divided into too small of pieces. As good as explanation as any, & better than to simply assume abherrant behavior.) Note: this was not common, less than 5% of documented families practiced this -- if my memory can be trusted, I believe the percentage is something like 2.8%. Still, this phenomena deserves mention, despite modern Egyptians wanting to suppress all mention of it due to understandable embarrassment. -- llywrch (talk) 17:21, 4 March 2024 (UTC)