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Incest Taboos And Kinship: A Biological Or A Cultural Story?, Dwight W. Read
Incest Taboos And Kinship: A Biological Or A Cultural Story?, Dwight W. Read
Dwight W Read
In most, if not all, societies, incest taboos -- perhaps the most universal of cultural taboos --
include prohibitions on marriage between parent and child or between siblings. This
universality suggests a biological origin, yet the considerable variation across societies in
the full range of prohibited marriage relations implies a cultural origin. Correspondingly,
theories regarding the origin of incest taboos vary from those that focus on the biological
consequences were marriage-based procreation allowed to include inbred matings, to those
that focus on social consequences such as confounding social roles, especially within the
family, or restricting networks of interfamily alliances, were …