Download or read book Incest Avoidance and the Incest Taboos written by Arthur P. Wolf and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2014-04-16 with total page 188 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why do most people never have sex with close relatives? And why do they disapprove of other people doing so? Incest Avoidance and Incest Taboos investigates our human inclination to avoid incest and the powerful taboo against incest found in all societies. Both subjects stir strong feelings and vigorous arguments within and beyond academic circles. With great clarity, Wolf lays out the modern assumptions about both, concluding that all previous approaches lack precision and balance on insecure evidence. Researchers he calls "constitutionalists" explain human incest avoidance by biologically-based natural aversion, but fail to explain incest taboos as cultural universals. By contrast, "conventionalists" ignore the evolutionary roots of avoidance and assume that incest avoidant behavior is guided solely by cultural taboos. Both theories are incomplete. Wolf tests his own theory with three natural experiments: bint'amm (cousin) marriage in Morocco, the rarity of marriage within Israeli kibbutz peer groups, and "minor marriages" (in which baby girls were raised by their future mother-in-law to marry an adoptive "brother") in China and Taiwan. These cross-cultural comparisons complete his original and intellectually rich theory of incest, one that marries biology and culture by accounting for both avoidance and taboo.

Download or read book Incest Avoidance and the Incest Taboos written by Arthur Wolf and published by Stanford Briefs. This book was released on 2014-04-16 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why do most people never have sex with close relatives? And why do they disapprove of other people doing so? Incest Avoidance and Incest Taboos investigates our human inclination to avoid incest and the powerful taboo against incest found in all societies. Both subjects stir strong feelings and vigorous arguments within and beyond academic circles. With great clarity, Wolf lays out the modern assumptions about both, concluding that all previous approaches lack precision and balance on insecure evidence. Researchers he calls "constitutionalists" explain human incest avoidance by biologically-based natural aversion, but fail to explain incest taboos as cultural universals. By contrast, "conventionalists" ignore the evolutionary roots of avoidance and assume that incest avoidant behavior is guided solely by cultural taboos. Both theories are incomplete. Wolf tests his own theory with three natural experiments: bint'amm (cousin) marriage in Morocco, the rarity of marriage within Israeli kibbutz peer groups, and "minor marriages" (in which baby girls were raised by their future mother-in-law to marry an adoptive "brother") in China and Taiwan. These cross-cultural comparisons complete his original and intellectually rich theory of incest, one that marries biology and culture by accounting for both avoidance and taboo.

Download or read book Inbreeding Incest and the Incest Taboo written by Arthur P. Wolf and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2005 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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? To reexamine these questions, this book brings together contributions from the fields of genetics, behavioral biology, primatology, biological and social anthropology, philosophy, and psychiatry.

Download or read book Incest and Inbreeding Avoidance written by Gregory C. Leavitt and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines Darwinian social science through the substantive topic of incest and inbreeding avoidance, a behavior forward by human sociobiology as the best example of sociocultural behavior naturally selected in humans. I first encountered Gregory Leavitt's work while I was myself researching incest avoidance and the incest taboo. Like many anthropologists with limited expertise in genetics, I had assumed that inbreeding was securely established as a source of genetic depression. To be sure, anthropologists have commonly identified other factors as also having causative influences on incest avoidance and taboos, but I had presumed that the deleterious consequences of inbreeding had to be one - if not the ultimate - causative factor in a full accounting of the phenomenon. At around this time, though, Leavitt published in the American Anthropologist a cogent challenge to the conventional wisdom, and it seemed to throw everything back up into the air. Accordingly, in my own writings, it seemed best to side-step the issue, pending further research by those qualified to conduct it. examination of the inbreeding theory. From lacunae in the special and general theory of evolution, through the ethological evidence commonly used to support the existence of inbreeding avoidance in sexual species, to the oft-cited kibbutzim data, he mounts what is surely the most comprehensive critique that has ever been addressed to a theory of incest. Marshaling a range of disparate, sometimes neglected sources scattered through several disciplines, he trains an impressive level of fire on what many have accepted as the standard explanation for the incest taboo. Leavitt's treatment of the inbreeding and incest issue is neatly folded into a second, more encompassing focus: a rigorous critique of sociobiology. Beginning with E. O. Wilson, sociobiologists have commonly claimed the genetic depression explanation for incest avoidance as one of the jewels - if not the canonical gem - in the sociobiological crown. Leavitt uses his critique of the inbreeding argument as a point of departure for exploring broader inadequacies and weaknesses in sociobiology. In a theoretical field that prides itself for its scientific approach to social behavior, Leavitt finds a disturbing level of 'unscientific' sloppiness and an unsettling absence of 'scientific' skepticism. Although not all Darwinian theorists of social behavior deserve to be tarred with the same brush, Leavitt uncovers more than enough cause for dismay. To begin with, he finds that parts of the evidence used to support the inbreeding hypothesis do not warrant the weight placed on it; other aspects have been tendentiously (and sometimes incorrectly) interpreted; and yet other elements can be accounted for with more parsimonious explanations. Furthermore, although the cornerstone of sociobiological theorizing is the idea that genes or gene complexes generate complex, flexible behaviors, Leavitt points out that there is as yet no unequivocal evidence to support this proposition. of unequivocal evidence for the existence of energy strings and multiple dimensions invalidate string theory. The difference is that string theorists explicitly designate strings and multiple dimensions as hypothetical; they regard their existence skeptically; and they make constant efforts to test these basic propositions by deducing empirical consequences, by analyzing them for theoretical inconsistencies, and by examining how they conform with other, better substantiated theory. By contrast, Leavitt argues, sociobiology routinely hypothesizes the existence of full-blown, generative gene complexes behind incest avoidance, cannibalism, sacrifice, war, and other complex behaviors, yet it rarely tries to demonstrate or test the hypothesis. Too little consideration is given even to detailing possible intermediate steps through which such complexes might have evolved over time. A plausible explanation of how and why an inbreeding species might make the transition to outbreeding practice, for example, would go a long way to shoring up the inbreeding theory and might open up ways of testing it. exercise is far from easy, but the difficulties can hardly be more thorny than those encountered by string theorists. Leavitt even musters a critique of Darwinian theory, a risky exercise given the difficulties of mastering such a specialized and sprawling field and the defensiveness that biologists no doubt feel in the face of the ill-informed attacks and sometimes deceptive tactics of creationists and proponents of intelligent design. Some of the critics he cites - Gould, Lewontin, and most especially Behe - have provoked controversy, and only evolutionists can judge the ultimate value of Leavitt's critique. For a social science audience, though, these chapters are useful reminders that evolutionary theory has yet to be nailed down in all of its particulars, and they are valuable summaries of the issues that are and are not still in dispute. The real value of this book, though, lies in what it is not and in what it offers to sociobiology as well as to its critics. There can be no doubt where Leavitt stands on the issues, but what makes this book so exceptional is the absence of shrillness and polemic. racism with which sociobiologists are usually tarred. Nor is there resort to the tired claim that sociobiologists are uncritically externalizing western cultural assumptions (in contrast to the critics who make this charge, from whose eyes the cultural scales supposedly have fallen). Instead, Leavitt has done what is too rarely ventured, both within and beyond sociobiology. Rather than lobbing polemics, he has endeavored to engage sociobiology on its own terrain, to apply the critical eye that one wishes sociobiologists themselves had more rigorously applied. He mounts a strong and exhaustive case for the prosecution in a hearing that is long overdue, and social science and sociobiology will be well served if sociobiologists seize the opportunity and organize a detailed case for the defense. Where Leavitt has identified lacunae in the paradigm, these need to be addressed. Where the data have been misrepresented or over-interpreted, either further observational work needs to be done or the data have to be jettisoned from the debate. weakness needs to be acknowledged rather than sidelined or ignored. And - to admit a criticism that is inevitable, whether it is true or not - if Leavitt has misconstrued the arguments or the data, the error needs to be explained in detail, not dismissed offhand. In fine, Leavitt's work offers a rare opportunity for us to advance social science in a manner commensurate with that of the physical sciences. There are two broader matters in social science to which Leavitt's inquiry also makes valuable contributions. The first concerns persistent attempts to apply Darwinian theory not to genes, as sociobiologists do, but to memes - culture. These endeavors have permeated social sciences as far apart as cognitive science and political science, but it is perhaps most prevalent in anthropology. In cultural anthropology, the most familiar manifestation is Marvin Harris's 'cultural materialism'. For many years, Harris stipulated that cultural complexes were adaptive and that they had evolved through some kind of Darwinian process. truly scientific archaeology it is now ascendant in archaeology in the form of Robert Dunnell's 'selectionism'. Here, as in sociobiology, Darwinian theory is applied to the understanding of complex human behaviors, but the evolutionary vehicle is the action of natural selection on cultural traits, which are explicitly treated as analogs of genes. If the underpinnings of sociobiology are as tenuous as Leavitt argues, how much more tendentious must be those of selectionism? To the problems Leavitt identifies in sociobiological theorizing must be added the further difficulties associated with treating cultural traits as gene equivalents - not least the problem of identifying the mechanism that fixes 'successful' cultural traits in a population in the way that the physico-chemical properties of the universe fix 'successful' genes in a population.

Download or read book Incest written by Jonathan H. Turner and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-12-03 with total page 271 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Throughout history humans have been fascinated with incest. Stories, fables, literature, philosophers, church officials, and scientists have explored this mysterious topic. The taboo is critical to human survival, as incest threatens the species and patterns of human social organization. Drawing upon the rich legacy of theory, empirical data, and speculation about the origins of the incest taboo, this book develops a new explanation for, not only the emergence of the taboo in hominid and human evolutionary history, but also for the varying strength of the taboo for the incestuous dyads of the nuclear family, the different rates of incest of these dyads, and the dramatic differences the psychological pathology incest has on its younger victims. Synthesizing findings from biology, sociobiology, neurology, primatology, clinical psychology, anthropology, and sociology, the authors weave together a scenario of how natural selection initially generated mechanisms of sexual avoidance; and then, as the nuclear family emerged in hominid and human evolution, how sociocultural selection led to the development of the incest taboo.

Download or read book Legal Systems and Incest Taboos written by John R. Commons and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-07-12 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The goal of this book is to investigate why there are two distinct notions of liability in the legal and ethical systems of different societies; the relationship between two sets of criteria of liability and the individual's evolution from childhood adolescence. The specific ways in which different societies cope with the transition from childhood to adolescence are important because a sense of responsibility, consonant with the goals of the society and survival of family and culture, is implanted in the growing child. The ways in which incest taboos are taught constitute one of the crucial modes by which a sense of responsibility is implanted within an individual during his transition from childhood to adolescence. The author places most of his focus on social systems, the transition from childhood to adolescence. Theoretical concerns are with the ways in which human biology and human social structures impact each other. The fact that wide variations do exist among societies in connection with certain types of incest taboos does not lead inevitably to the conclusion that there is no biological basis for the incest taboo. The immediate impression of variability can be misleading; extreme differences between cultures in the same institutional realm, as between individuals, often reveals remarkable regularity and consistency. These regularities are seen in the cultural phenomena; the assumption that biology and culture are bound up in their manifestations is fundamental in understanding their nature

Download or read book Incest A Biosocial View written by MOST and published by Elsevier. This book was released on 2014-06-28 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Incest: A Biosocial View

Download or read book Incest A Biosocial View written by Joseph Shepher and published by Academic Press. This book was released on 1983-05-28 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Incest: A Biosocial View focuses on the sociobiological theory of incest and compares it with other theoretical approaches to the problem. The argument made in this book is that the existence of culture does not lead to the exemption of Homo sapiens from the evolutionary process. Instead, it creates a coevolutionary process, of which the evolution of incest avoidance in human beings is the simplest, yet most instructive, example. Comprised of 11 chapters, this volume begins with an introduction to the problem of incest, followed by a discussion on the sociobiological theory in general and some important methodological issues. Epigenetic rules and the importance of reproduction are considered, along with inclusive fitness and kin selection; kinship altruism (nepotism); reciprocal altruism; mate selection and parental investment, parent-child and sibling conflict; aggression and social order; and the biosocial view of culture. The next three chapters survey the theories and empirical findings that led to the sociobiological theory of incest, with particular reference to the views of Edward Westermarck as well as the kibbutz and the sim-pua. The propositions of the sociobiological theory of incest are then outlined. The book concludes by summarizing the classic theories of incest and synthesizing them in light of the sociobiological theory. This monograph is relevant to psychoanalysts, sociologists, biologists, anthropologists, and psychologists studying the problem of incest.

Download or read book Totem and Taboo written by Sigmund Freud and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2012-01-04 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this brilliant exploratory attempt (written in 1912–1913) to extend the analysis of the individual psyche to society and culture, Freud laid the lines for much of his later thought, and made a major contribution to the psychology of religion. Primitive societies and the individual, he found, mutually illuminate each other, and the psychology of primitive races bears marked resemblances to the psychology of neurotics. Basing his investigations on the findings of the anthropologists, Freud came to the conclusion that totemism and its accompanying restriction of exogamy derive from the savage’s dread of incest, and that taboo customs parallel closely the symptoms of compulsion neurosis. The killing of the “primal father” and the consequent sense of guilt are seen as determining events both in the mistry tribal pre-history of mankind, and in the suppressed wishes of individual men. Both toteism and taboo are thus held to have their roots in the Oedipus complex, which lies at the basis of all neurosis, and, as Freud argues, is also the origin of religion, ethics, society, and art.

Download or read book Behaviour Development and Evolution written by Patrick Bateson and published by Open Book Publishers. This book was released on 2017-02-20 with total page 125 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The role of parents in shaping the characters of their children, the causes of violence and crime, and the roots of personal unhappiness are central to humanity. Like so many fundamental questions about human existence, these issues all relate to behavioural development. In this lucid and accessible book, eminent biologist Professor Sir Patrick Bateson suggests that the nature/nurture dichotomy we often use to think about questions of development in both humans and animals is misleading. Instead, he argues that we should pay attention to whole systems, rather than to simple causes, when trying to understand the complexity of development. In his wide-ranging approach Bateson discusses why so much behaviour appears to be well-designed. He explores issues such as ‘imprinting’ and its importance to the attachment of offspring to their parents; the mutual benefits that characterise communication between parent and offspring; the importance of play in learning how to choose and control the optimal conditions in which to thrive; and the vital function of adaptability in the interplay between development and evolution. Bateson disputes the idea that a simple link can be found between genetics and behaviour. What an individual human or animal does in its life depends on the reciprocal nature of its relationships with the world about it. This knowledge also points to ways in which an animal’s own behaviour can provide the variation that influences the subsequent course of evolution. This has relevance not only for our scientific approaches to the systems of development and evolution, but also on how humans change institutional rules that have become dysfunctional, or design public health measures when mismatches occur between themselves and their environments. It affects how we think about ourselves and our own capacity for change.

Download or read book Incest the Last Taboo written by Richard Rubin and published by New York : Garland Pub.. This book was released on 1983 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book A Delicate Choreography written by David Warren Sabean and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2023-08-30 with total page 1215 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Consanguinity in Context written by Alan H. Bittles and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2012-05-24 with total page 325 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An essential guide to this major contemporary issue, Consanguinity in Context is a uniquely comprehensive account of intra-familial marriage. Detailed information on past and present religious, social and legal practices and prohibitions is presented as a backdrop to the preferences and beliefs of the 1100+ million people in consanguineous unions. Chapters on population genetics, and the role of consanguinity in reproductive behaviour and genetic variation, set the scene for critical analyses of the influence of consanguinity on health in the early years of life. The discussion on consanguinity and disorders of adulthood is the first review of its kind and is particularly relevant given the ageing of the global population. Incest is treated as a separate issue, with historical and present-day examples examined. The final three chapters deal in detail with practical issues, including genetic testing, education and counselling, national and international legislation and imperatives, and the future of consanguineous marriage worldwide.

Download or read book An Analysis of the Biological Hypothesis of Incest Avoidance and Presentation of an Alternate Neo Westermarckian Model written by Mark Thomas Erickson and published by . This book was released on 1983 with total page 174 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Sexual Attraction and Childhood Association written by Arthur P. Wolf and published by . This book was released on 1995 with total page 561 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1891, the anthropologist Edward Westermarck proposed that early childhood association inhibits sexual attraction and that this aversion was manifested in custom and law as the basis of the universal incest taboo. Then, in 1910, in the essays later published as Totem and Taboo, Sigmund Freud challenged the "Westermarck hypothesis" on the ground that "the earliest sexual excitations of youthful human beings are invariably of an incestuous character." The incest taboo only existed, Freud argued, because of this natural propensity. Freud's challenge carried the day and became the standard view throughout the social and biological sciences. Consequently, the question was: why do all societies repress this natural inclination? Biologists argued that the incest taboo protected us from dangers of inbreeding; sociologists argued that it was necessary to prevent sexual rivalry that would destroy the family; and anthropologists saw the real purpose of the taboo as forcing families to exchange women in marriage. The book uses a wide range of research - from studies of nonhuman primates to reports of incestuous child abuse - from African divorce practices to animal behavior - to demonstrate that Westermarck was right and Freud wrong. It shows that there is a critical period in human development - approximately the first thirty months of life - during which association permanently inhibits sexual attraction. It concludes that the incest taboo is unnecessary and cannot be explained in functional terms, and that encouraging early association between father and daughter is probably the best way of preventing sexual abuse.

Download or read book The Original Sin written by W. Arens and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 1986 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Arguing against the conventional view--that the incest taboo developed in response to the act of incest--The Original Sin presents biological and anthropological evidence to demonstrate the innate avoidance of incest as a feature of pre-cultural organization. Arens shows how the taboo evolved as a unique human social mechanism to control the practice among certain social classes, thus drawing the conclusion that incest, rather than its prohibition, is the cultural invention. Arens directly confronts the origin and definition of incest while seeking to uncover the particular and general meaning of this negative form of behavior.

Download or read book Incest and the Medieval Imagination written by Elizabeth Archibald and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2001-05-24 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Incest is a remarkably frequent theme in medieval literature; it occurs in a wide range of genres, including romances, saints's lives, and exempla. Historically, the Church in the later Middle Ages was very concerned about breaches of the complex laws against incest, which was defined very broadly at the time to cover family relationships outside the nuclear family and also spiritual relationships through baptism. Medieval writers accepted that incestuous desire was a widespread phenomenon among women as well as men. They are surprisingly open about incest, though of course they disapprove of it; in many exemplary stories incest is identified with original sin, but the moral emphasizes the importance of contrition and the availability of grace even to such heinous sinners. This study begins with a brief account of the development of medieval incest laws, and the extent to which they were obeyed. Next comes a survey of classical incest stories and their legacy; many were retold in the Middle Ages, but they were frequently adapted to the purposes of Christian moralizers. In the three chapters that follow, homegrown medieval incest stories are grouped by relationship: mother-son (focusing on the Gregorius legend), father-daughter (focusing on La Manekine and its analogues), and sibling (focusing on the Arthurian legend). The final chapter considers the very common medieval trope of the Virgin Mary as mother, daughter, sister and bride of Christ, the one exception to the incest taboo. In western society today, incest has recently been recognized as a serious social problem, and has also become a frequent theme in both fiction and non-fiction, just as it was in the Middle Ages. This interdisciplinary study is the first broad survey of medieval incest stories in Latin and the vernaculars (mainly French, English and German). It situates the incest theme in both literary and cultural contexts, and offers many thought-provoking comparisons and contrasts to our own society in terms of gender relations, the power of patriarchy, the role of religious institutions in regulating morality, and the relationship between life and literature.