Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

The word “incest” is derived from the Latin incestum and refers to sexual contact between close relatives. After Captain James Cook introduced the Polynesian word “taboo” into the English lexicon in 1777, the phrase “incest taboo” became the moral label for a forbidden carnal act. Why the need for such formal censorship? Emile Durkheim highlighted its importance when he emphasized that “all repression of incest presupposes familial relations recognized and organized by society” (1963: 27). For westerners, the nuclear unit of father, mother, and dependent offspring is the natural family unit, although reproductively speaking, a mother can raise her offspring alone once she is impregnated by a visiting “father.” Then as Robin Fox (1967 : 67) theoretically put it, “our mother-children group could settle down to a cosy little inbreeding arrangement and be totally self-sufficient for purposes of reproduction.” But nobody in this bundle of relationships is supposed to mate. And for all human groups, whether this interdiction is expressed as an implicit restriction or an authoritative taboo, sexual intercourse is forbidden between the mother-son, brother-sister, and father-daughter dyads; and this sexual ban may include distant relatives. Why make remote relatives taboo? And why are societies so uneasy about incestuous relations within the nuclear family? Incest pertains to a biological ... log in or subscribe to read full text