Is Inbreeding Condoned Anywhere, Still?

[Quasimodem]

Of humans, I mean.

And is it even (in some cultures) a preferred way of mating?

Are you guys gonna throw up or anything?

If so, leave the damn thread, okay? :D:D:D:D

Quasi

[John Mace]

Define inbreeding. Much of the world encourages cousin type marriages, presumably to keep property in the family/clan/tribe. Link. (http://www.hgc.gov.uk/client/Content.asp?ContentId=741)

If you mean sibling marriages, I don't think so.

[njtt]

Royalty?

In my anthropology class I was told that in some Australian aboriginal tribes, the only person you are traditionally allowed to marry is your "cross-cousin" (IIRC that means a cousin on the side of your parent who is the opposite sex to you). The teacher said this was one of the reasons these tribes were dying out, not because of genetic issues (actually genetic problems arising from cousin marriage are scarcely more likely than those for marring those who are completely unrelated) but because when your tribe falls below a certain size, there is a high probability that you will not have any cross-cousins of the opposite sex.

I am pretty sure that cousin marriage in general is condoned and even encouraged in many cultures, and not just 'exotic' ones. It seems to have been common amongst the upper classes in Victorian Britain, for instance. I rather think the taboo on cousin marriage is largely a fairly recent American hangup, like women not being allowed armpit hair, or teeth having to be perfectly straight.

On the other hand, I believe virtually all human societies regard sibling-sibling or parent-child sexual relations to be abhorrent. (That is not to say it never happens, but that most people in a society will regard it as icky.)

[Quasimodem]

I mean sister and brother. Of any class.


Q

[md2000]

I assume the general abhorrence of anything closer than cousins marrying or other wise procreating - is firmly established, where there might have been social exceptions, by the adoption of Judeo-Christian formal social rules. Christian societies orran and dominated any indigenous groups in the areas around europe. I assume Islam carried this prohibition to its sphere of influence too.

I suppose the question is - what about other cultrures not western-based; what did traditional Chinese or Indian cultures say about this? Even in les developed cultures, there are very few that approve of the behaviour. The only one that comes to mind is pharaohs and sibling marriage; althouh there was seriously damaged Spanish monarch IIRC, whose mother was niece of his father.

[John Mace]

I mean sister and brother. Of any class.


Q

None that I know of in the present day. Maybe we could find out which was the last culture to promote this. My best take would be Hawai'i, but I base that on James Mitchener's book, not on actual history.

[Quasimodem]

Well, just don't be a motherfucker, okay?

Otherwise, y'all have at it.

Can't wait till we're all the same color!

Q

[Vicullum]

Is it too late to make some crack about Appalachia?

[Quasimodem]

I didn't say shit about that, but now, how'm I supposed to keep a straight face, Vicullum[??????

*wheeeze of a laff*

Okay! Y'all straighten up!

Q

[Chronos]

The teacher said this was one of the reasons these tribes were dying out, not because of genetic issues (actually genetic problems arising from cousin marriage are scarcely more likely than those for marring those who are completely unrelated)...For an isolated incident, maybe, but when the entire population makes a practice of it, the effects can accumulate.

[njtt]

I believe the Egyptian Pharoahs and/or the Ptolemys who ruled Egypt in Hellenistic times went in for brother-sister marriage. However, that is different from it being condoned throughout a society, more a matter of keeping the ruling dynasty of god-kings pure.

[t-bonham@scc.net]

It's fairly common in livestock breeding, where the breeders are trying to concentrate certain traits in a specific bloodline. Especially in trying to create a new 'breed'.

Though livestock breeders often distinguish between inbreeding (brother-sister cross) vs. linebreeding (father-daughter or mother-son crosses). They generally claim linebreeding is acceptable, but inbreeding is not. I don't know if there is any genetic evidence to back this up.

[Exapno Mapcase]

It's not well-known outside of some scientific circles, but Finland is a hotbed - so to speak - of inbreeding because the mountains tended to separate villages. All sorts of genetic diseases can be better studied there because of this. Where they exist in handfuls elsewhere, they exist in workable percentages in Finland.

What I don't know is how much if any of this still occurs or when it stopped if it did. But it has to be fairly recently. It's seriously a real-life Appalachia.

[Fiendish Astronaut]

I remember my philosophy lecturer told us once that anthropologists believe that the Incest Taboo is the only taboo that all human civilisations share. According to this wiki link the differences are concerned with what incest is defined as.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incest_taboo

[Jragon]

I wonder if some cultures have softer taboos than we do, meaning it's only incest if you grew up with them, i.e. if you and your sister were orphans, grew up in different families, and met later it's not incest.

[Simplicio]

I believe the Egyptian Pharoahs and/or the Ptolemys who ruled Egypt in Hellenistic times went in for brother-sister marriage. However, that is different from it being condoned throughout a society, more a matter of keeping the ruling dynasty of god-kings pure.

Supposedly those marriages often didn't result in children, leading to lineages of Pharoahs being through illegitimate children and suggesting that the incest taboo is strong enough that even when there is a social expectation of sibling marriage, the couple involved will avoid intercourse.

[sisu]

It's not well-known outside of some scientific circles, but Finland is a hotbed - so to speak - of inbreeding because the mountains tended to separate villages. All sorts of genetic diseases can be better studied there because of this. Where they exist in handfuls elsewhere, they exist in workable percentages in Finland.

What I don't know is how much if any of this still occurs or when it stopped if it did. But it has to be fairly recently. It's seriously a real-life Appalachia.

CITE please, Finland is a land of lakes and not mountains.

[Springtime for Spacers]

It's not well-known outside of some scientific circles, but Finland is a hotbed - so to speak - of inbreeding because the mountains tended to separate villages. All sorts of genetic diseases can be better studied there because of this. Where they exist in handfuls elsewhere, they exist in workable percentages in Finland.

What I don't know is how much if any of this still occurs or when it stopped if it did. But it has to be fairly recently. It's seriously a real-life Appalachia.

This is also true of some small island communites such as Iceland and Sardinia where it is as much a question of a restricted gene pool as specific marriage customs. Genetic studies in both those places have been welcomed as they bring the opportunity for genetic counselling.

[Boyo Jim]

I did a quick search for Finland + incest. Oddly enough, I got links to a lot of porn videos, and specifically "Mon and Son" porn. Who knew?

[Boyo Jim]

According to this BBC story (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/6424337.stm), there is only one well documented instance of a society in which sibling incest was accepted -- Roman Eqypt, when for about 3 centuries a "significant" percentage of all recorded marriages were between siblings.

I'm really hoping this question ins't one of those "need answer fast"ones. :p

[Exapno Mapcase]

CITE please, Finland is a land of lakes and not mountains.

"A Brave New, Healthy World?", Steve Jones, Natural History, June 1994, pp. 72,74.

However, it also mentions "impenetrable forests" rather than mountains so I apologize for my faulty memory.

The danger is a real one. Finland, with its impenetrable forests, has lots of isolated and inbred populations - and many local centers of inborn disease. Some are almost unknown elsewhere, while others represent isolated clusters of widespread but rare local diseases.

[grude]

You mean immediate family inbreeding? All I can think of is some aristocracy where sibling incest was encouraged for various reasons like belief in royal blood superiority or to keep power concentrated.:

http://www.love-egypt.com/royal-incest.html


Not really as severe but some religions strongly encourage marrying someone of the same religion, so depending on how isolated the community is there can be pressure to marry a distant cousin etc. I recall hearing about trying to preserve things like skin tone, and that trickles down to the more general classism and racism almost everyone faced only a few generations back.

[njtt]

For an isolated incident, maybe, but when the entire population makes a practice of it, the effects can accumulate.

How will they accumulate? Cousin mating (even sibling mating) does nothing to increase the frequency of harmful alleles, it just makes it (slightly) more likely two recessive ones will come together and cause actual harm. And when they do, that is actually likely to reduce the frequency of the allele in the population, as people with actual genetic diseases are less likely to reproduce.

In any case, much of the human race has probably practiced cousin marriage for most of human history (and pre-history, probably) and we still seem to be around.

[yabob]

I assume the general abhorrence of anything closer than cousins marrying or other wise procreating - is firmly established, where there might have been social exceptions, by the adoption of Judeo-Christian formal social rules. Christian societies orran and dominated any indigenous groups in the areas around europe. I assume Islam carried this prohibition to its sphere of influence too.
European aristocratic families such as the Habsburgs went a little closer than first cousin marriage - uncle / niece marriages were condoned. Again, it was a mechanism to keep money and power within a family. Charles II of Spain (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_II_of_Spain) provides an extreme case. Look at the uncle / niece as well as cousin marriages in his ancestry, including his parents:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Carlos_segundo80.png

[clairobscur]

I wonder if some cultures have softer taboos than we do, meaning it's only incest if you grew up with them, i.e. if you and your sister were orphans, grew up in different families, and met later it's not incest.


I doubt that this kind of situation, where the brother would don't know the whereabout of his siser would occur in traditional societies.

However, the issue covered in Greek mythology, so there might similarly be legends about such occurences in those societies.


I would note by the way that gods often don't have much qualm with inbreeding.

[Toxylon]

It's not well-known outside of some scientific circles, but Finland is a hotbed - so to speak - of inbreeding because the mountains tended to separate villages. All sorts of genetic diseases can be better studied there because of this. Where they exist in handfuls elsewhere, they exist in workable percentages in Finland.

What I don't know is how much if any of this still occurs or when it stopped if it did. But it has to be fairly recently. It's seriously a real-life Appalachia.


Whoa. You have a point, but inject it with such crass ignorance it's not even funny. Finland is (a geographically flat) hotbed of genetic disease research, not of inbreeding (by the definition in the OP). The reason for certain rare genetic diseases being more common there than in many other places is due to much more subtle reasons than family members banging each other while banjos play. Founder effect, the fact that initial, post-glacial settlement of Finland consisted of a small population, genetic drift in said population and possibly the bottle-neck effect of prehistoric demographic catastrophies on it are the reasons behind rare genetic disease present in Finland today.


As far back as we have any data on, inbreeding has been a strict taboo in Finland, like elsewhere (including the 'aboriginal' Sami). Even cousin marriage was prohibited until modern times.

[Quasimodem]

No, I didn't. Y'all did.:D

That means you guys are responsible for making me think to put this here: http://youtu.be/pN2ZJBh92SM

Be sure to look at the weather map.:)

Sorry to interrupt. Y'all go ahead.

Q

[Toxylon]

Quasi,

Yep, you did nothing. I admit getting a bit riled with the thread going from the OP: Is Inbreeding Condoned Anywhere, Still? to Finland, to "What I don't know is how much if any of this still occurs or when it stopped if it did. But it has to be fairly recently. It's seriously a real-life Appalachia."

I had to check this is GQ at SDMB.

[ecseas]

Royalty?

In my anthropology class I was told that in some Australian aboriginal tribes, the only person you are traditionally allowed to marry is your "cross-cousin" (IIRC that means a cousin on the side of your parent who is the opposite sex to you). The teacher said this was one of the reasons these tribes were dying out, not because of genetic issues (actually genetic problems arising from cousin marriage are scarcely more likely than those for marring those who are completely unrelated) but because when your tribe falls below a certain size, there is a high probability that you will not have any cross-cousins of the opposite sex.

I am pretty sure that cousin marriage in general is condoned and even encouraged in many cultures, and not just 'exotic' ones. It seems to have been common amongst the upper classes in Victorian Britain, for instance. I rather think the taboo on cousin marriage is largely a fairly recent American hangup, like women not being allowed armpit hair, or teeth having to be perfectly straight.

On the other hand, I believe virtually all human societies regard sibling-sibling or parent-child sexual relations to be abhorrent. (That is not to say it never happens, but that most people in a society will regard it as icky.)


Er, I've always heard that marriage was based on skin colour,(referred to as moiety) to make sure people stayed diverse. It was also encouraged to marry someone who was geographically distant.

Cousin can however, mean someone of the same generation, in aboriginal English. So, I suppose the term cross cousin may refer to someone of the same age in a different skin group.