Incest - Right Or Wrong?

[suedonim]

I was quite intrigued to read this story about two siblings in Germany who are seeking to overturn the laws on incest. Are their civil rights being breached or is the law there for a good reason?

Sophable, OK so I didn't distinguish between a "universal taboo" and my opinion, though I would say that my concern is the exploitative nature of a sexual relationship between a parent and a child if that parent is rearing that child... there is no way the child is in a position to give consent.
But how are you defining the word "universal"? Do you mean 'only in the past couple of centuries'? Because there are documented reasonably contemporary cases of men perceiving it as 'less sinful' to rape their daughters than to visit prostitutes or masturbate over pornography should their wives be unavailable for sex.

I mean now. and in about the last 100 years.

I share your concern over the power imbalance between children and parents. the only way of a society addressing this and issues of sexuality in children (children acting out sexually) and paedophilia, is to stop denying that these impulses are there, and looking in an adult and reasoned way at what stops us as adults abusing our power positions. mainly because ours weren't abused.

quite right sophable, that's quite right. we are a long way from this aren't we.
I would say that incest is every bit as common now as it ever was in our society. whatever the taboos

[huge sigh of happiness at finding someone that gets this].

agreed harpsi

Sophable, harpsi, well, yeah. Things being taboo doesn't mean they don't happen. "Murder" has been taboo pretty much throughout human history. People have frequently agreed that it's wrong to kill other human beings, and have called doing so murder, but they have also agreed that it's ok to kill other human beings under some circumstances (self defence, state executions, mercy killings, killing an unbeliever, killing someone who has had sex with a person you regard as your property, etc). Probably similar to the incest "taboo" - it's wrong to have sex with your relatives unless you need A to marry B so you keep the family farm, etc.
It gets a lot more interesting these days when so many people know that they don't know who their biological parents are. Is it, for instance, shocking and wrong if you hook up with someone and later find out by some peculiar mischance that you were both the product of the same sperm donor?

I read a fascinating article about this where they said that for some strange reason, siblings who never know each other but are reunited in adulthood are often very strongly attracted to each other, so strongly that even though they know it's wrong, they can't help themselves, almost a blind impulse.

The article also said that living in the same family group at an early age seems to prevent people from finding each other attractive.

The implication was that there's a strong biological tendency to be attracted to siblings, but in most cases the attraction is prevented by growing up together.

It made very disturbing reading, but very interesting too.

hc, by 'growing up with', I mean, growing up in the same household, living with.

Aloha mentions a society where children are betrothed in infancy - the girl generally comes to live with the boy's family, when they are betrothed. This was popular in Taiwan.

If the girl was four or under when she moved to the boy's family house, the marriage generally did not produce any children.

Oh, and yeah, there have been several cases I've heard of, where siblings who weren't raised together got sexually involved. I think there have been cases of mother-son and father-daughter incest in these sorts of circumstances too.

Off hand I cannot think of a single cuture hwere incest is/was the norm for 'ordinary' people.

It wasn't the norm in ancient egypt.. The only people who did it were the royals, because they thought that there were devine.

Similarly the same was true in the polynesians.

So madamz, I think that we can say it is just about a universal tabboo, except for those vanishingly small numbers of people who actually believe that they are gods/ goddesses.

And there are excellent genetic reason why this is so, and yest the Royal families of europe are a stunning example of why it is a bad Iidea to shag your cousins, let alone your siblings!!!

im pretty sure that i read somewhere that we are programmed to be attracted to people who share our characteristics, (the whole freud thing) women tend to marry men who remind them of their fathers and men marry women who are simillar to their mothers. i cant imagine ever being attracted to one of my 6 brothers, but tbh dh does have simillarities to my dad. this isnt to say that i think incest is right but i can see how as adults meeting for the first time its possible to be attracted to your sibling

How bizzare. It's certainly not in the public interest to imprison anyone for it - or take away their kids.

It does seem to be a universal taboo. There is evidence that it might be the actual proximity of siblings that that grow up to be sexually disinterested in one another. Children in kibutz brought up togethger as siblngs also followed this trend.

I think the only word for this story is YUK. Yuk yuk yuk... is what I think of incest. And you can tell the royal family I said so.

The Egyptian royal family is no measure of the 'incest taboo': intra-familial marriage in this case was used solely to protect the throne from 'outsiders' and the inevitable wars that came with all problematic successions.

I think the taboo is more a case of collective memory: we 'know' that breeding with relatives is bad and if continued, that it will eventually destroy our family line. The taboo is a matter of biological/genetic necessity, or instinct, the same way as it's our insinct to mate and breed in the first place. As animals we do whatever we can to promote the longevity of our genes and avoid anything that might threaten this.

The complexities of society and culture can override this instinct eg in the German case, they didn't grow up together, then met later on; in ordinary/'natural' circumstances this wouldn't happen with siblings - they would grow up together and be well known as family and thus not potential mates.

Apart from anything else the incest laws are necessary to prevent a whole flood of abusers claiming consent as a defence against charges of raping their children (sounds crazy, but believe me, they would...)

I meant the Windsors. Elizabeth and Philip are related. Yuk! Explains so much about Charles.

In many cultures it is also taboo to marry first cousins. For genetic reasons. I knew a family of Bahai's who had two generations of first cousins marrying each other, they were not physically disabled, but the one girl I knew defo. had a learning disabilty of some kind. Royal families have married first cousins throughout history, which would explain physical/mental disabilities in some royal families.

This is such a rare case that I find myself sympathising with the couple. They clearly fell in love and no sexual abuse was involved. The German Govt. has got involved and he has been forced to get the chop, so no more children. I would be very concerned if they had more children only because they may have physical/mental disabilities that this couple would not be able to cope with.

I hope they will be left alone though. They have suffered enough.

You don't need incest laws to prevent rape/sexual abuse in families. It can be dealt with under other legislation.

I feel sorry for the kids. How would you like to grow up under an international news story that revealed to the worl the your dad is your uncle and you have one set of double grandparents. And this hear is by brother, wait no my cousin... Oh well, you know, we're all relate round here...

Poor kids. Sick parents.

YUK

I feel sorry for the kids. How would you like to grow up under an international news story that revealed to the worl the your dad is your uncle and you have one set of double grandparents. And this hear is by brother, wait no my cousin... Oh well, you know, we're all relate round here...

Poor kids. Sick parents.

YUK

Eleusis - I don't think the work "yuk" is very useful nor very kind. The couple have clearly suffered and so have their children.

think about your own kids.

its wrong - can i give a good account of why? no. its just wrong.

Can I ask what is probably a silly question? I know about the gene pool thing - that genetic illness wise it's good to widen it rather than narrow it. So does this not apply to animals? Do they have the same instinct not to mate with brothers and sisters? Or is it not instinctive, but an intellectual thing?

There are places in Indonesia which are so inter-married that cleft lip/palate arises quite frequently. Most people can't afford or don't know there's treatment available, plus people shun children with disabilities so these poor children have a double whammy to cope with in life. I helped a charity which carried out repairs - most ops cost as little as a few hundred pounds to do and totally transforms their lives.

Recently there was concern expresssed about ethnic familes in the UK marrying too closely. In some areas as many as 10% of babies are being born with considerable defects rarely seen elsewhere.

However, I think with the German couple they should be left to get on with their lives now, they've already paid a heavy price.

Good point, custy.

Did anyone here say it was right ?