Inbreeding, Incest, and the Incest Taboo: The State of Knowledge at the Turn of the Century / Edition 1

by Arthur P. Wolf, William H. Durham

Overview

Is inbreeding harmful? Are human beings and other primates naturally inclined to mate with their closest relatives? Why is incest widely prohibited? Why does the scope of the prohibition vary from society to society? Why does incest occur despite the prohibition? What are the consequences? After one hundred years of intense argument, a broad consensus has emerged on the first two questions, but the debate over the others continues.

That there is a biological basis for the avoidance of inbreeding seems incontrovertible, but just how injurious inbreeding really is for successive generations remains an open question. Nor has there been any conclusion to the debate over Freud’s view that the incest taboo is necessary because humans are sexually attracted to their closest relatives—a claim countered by Westermarck's argument for the sexually inhibiting effects of early childhood association.

This book brings together contributions from the fields of genetics, behavioral biology, primatology, biological and social anthropology, philosophy, and psychiatry which reexamine these questions.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780804751414
Publisher:	Stanford University Press
Publication date:	11/01/2004
Edition description:	1
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.25(h) x (d)

About the Author

Arthur P. Wolf is David and Lucile Packard Foundation Professor of Human Biology at Stanford University. William H. Durham is Bing Professor of Human Biology at Stanford University.

Table of Contents

	List of Tables and Figures	vii
	Introduction	1
1	Inbreeding Avoidance and Incest Taboos	24
2	Genetic Aspects of Inbreeding and Incest	38
3	Inbreeding Avoidance in Primates	61
4	Explaining the Westermarck Effect, or, What Did Natural Selection Select For?	76
5	Ancient Egyptian Sibling Marriage and the Westermarck Effect	93
6	From Genes to Incest Taboos: The Crucial Step	109
7	Assessing the Gaps in Westermarck's Theory	121
8	Refining the Incest Taboo: With Considerable Help from Bronislaw Malinowski	139
9	Evolutionary Thought and the Current Clinical Understanding of Incest	161
10	The Incest Taboo as Darwinian Natural Right	190
	List of Contributors	219
	Index	221