# Is incest among adopted siblings illegal?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-incest-among-adopted-siblings-illegal/122819
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [August 7, 2002, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-incest-among-adopted-siblings-illegal/122819 "2002-08-07T18:56:03Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 4
### Author:  [@ZenBeam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZenBeam)
#### Post date: [December 7, 2010, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-incest-among-adopted-siblings-illegal/122819/61 "2010-12-07T01:30:00Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#):
>
> Actually we had both sausage and pepperoni pizzas. But the wife always gets first pick.
Can we stop with the booger jokes?
I recall in an anthropology class I took about 100 years ago or so, that in many societies, marriage between 1st cousins was desirable, but which “form” was desirable varied. For example, in some the woman marrying her father’s sister’s son was desirable, while in others, the most desirable would be a woman marrying her mother’s brother’s son.
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [December 7, 2010, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-incest-among-adopted-siblings-illegal/122819/62 "2010-12-07T01:59:29Z")
> [@](#):
>
> Actually we had both sausage and pepperoni pizzas. But the wife always gets first pick.
Oh, OK, it’s none of my business what perversions you get into with your wife.
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### Author:  [@qazwart](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/qazwart)
#### Post date: [December 7, 2010, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-incest-among-adopted-siblings-illegal/122819/63 "2010-12-07T03:42:39Z")
Reminds me of the song Oedipus Rex by Mark Graham:
Oedipus Rex, Oedipus Rex
Another sad story of death and sex
You killed your pa and you married your ma:
They don’t even do that in Arkansas!
After the last verse, the chorus is:
Oedipus Rex, Oedipus Rex
Another sad story of death and sex
You killed your pa and you married your ma:
_ **And that’s a 30 dollar fine in Arkansas!** _
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### Author:  [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)
#### Post date: [December 7, 2010, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-incest-among-adopted-siblings-illegal/122819/64 "2010-12-07T04:12:41Z")
> [@dkoik](#):
>
> I was watching The Royal Tennembaums last night and, in the movie, Luke Wilson’s character is in love with his adopted sister, Gwyneth Paltrow. The point comes up that this is creepy and possibly even illegal. But the later part is never answered. Is incest among adopted siblings also illegal (is it even incest?) or is it just weird?
There was an element of that too in _Lost_. The wealthy “siblings” whose respective parents had married and already divorced each other. That must be weird. Someone who not only is not your biological sibling, but also only used to be your step-sibling.
It’s something I’ve wondered about from time to time too. I don’t see anything creepy about it. It’s pure chance that threw them together, no biology involved.
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### Author:  [@GiantRat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GiantRat)
#### Post date: [December 7, 2010, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-incest-among-adopted-siblings-illegal/122819/65 "2010-12-07T04:51:44Z")
> [@OpalCat](#):
>
> For the “eewww!” people, what about this scenario:
>
> Man with 17 year old son marries woman with 17 year old daughter.
>
> Romance ensues.
>
> Is it wrong?
In high school, my buddy’s dad married my buddy’s girlfriends mother. Once they were cohabitating (and probably because of a bit of awkward factor), it didn’t last much past their parents’ engagement.
Seemed awfully convenient to the rest of us for midnight romps without having to sneak out of the house. They apparently, felt otherwise.
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### Author:  [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)
#### Post date: [December 7, 2010, 5:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-incest-among-adopted-siblings-illegal/122819/66 "2010-12-07T05:25:30Z")
If an adoptive brother & sister wish to marry can’t they just petition the court to “undo” the adoption? Or is that not possible even the adoptee is now an adult?
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### Author:  [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)
#### Post date: [December 7, 2010, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-incest-among-adopted-siblings-illegal/122819/67 "2010-12-07T14:42:48Z")
> [@JRDelirious](#):
>
> Oh, and _the Woody Allen/Soon Yi Previn pairing **IS NOT** “incest”._ It was tawdry as all get out (and it’s the enactment of the plot of one of his own short stories from the 70’s!) but it just is not “incest” in any legal way. Soon was the adopted daughter of André Previn and Mia Farrow; Woody NEVER married Mia nor entered any sort of legal familial role over Soon.
Yes, but Allen was the biological father of one of Soon-Yi’s brothers, and the adoptive father of a brother and sister. He tried to dismiss this by making a fine hair split between biological and adoptive siblings. The judge rammed him a new one for this, stating that the links between adoptive and biological siblings are to be viewed as the same.
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### Author:  [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)
#### Post date: [December 7, 2010, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-incest-among-adopted-siblings-illegal/122819/68 "2010-12-07T16:19:47Z")
> [@StusBlues](#):
>
> Absolutely. It may be something you have to live with, but to deny the ‘Eww’ involved isn’t possible, IMHO.
I agree that your eww-meter is a little sensitive.
So Mark meets Amy, they fall in love, and Mark proposes to Amy. She accepts.
They meet their inlaws to be, Mark’s mother Joan and Amy’s mother Henry. Henry and Joan fall in love and get married.
To satisfy your eww-meter, must Mark and Amy break their engagement? Or should they have prevented their parents from marrying? Which couple should never have met to begin with?
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### Author:  [@filling\_pages](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/filling_pages)
#### Post date: [December 7, 2010, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-incest-among-adopted-siblings-illegal/122819/69 "2010-12-07T18:23:24Z")
My mom’s mom (divorced) married my step-dad’s dad (widowed) about 10 years after mom and dad got married. That made my mom and stepdad step brother and sister after the fact. We all thought it was funny (lots of jokes about a “family bush” instead of a family tree), but there was no eww involved. Why would there be?
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### Author:  [@yabob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yabob)
#### Post date: [December 7, 2010, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-incest-among-adopted-siblings-illegal/122819/70 "2010-12-07T18:38:02Z")
> [@filling\_pages](#):
>
> My mom’s mom (divorced) married my step-dad’s dad (widowed) about 10 years after mom and dad got married. That made my mom and stepdad step brother and sister after the fact. We all thought it was funny (lots of jokes about a “family bush” instead of a family tree), but there was no eww involved. Why would there be?
Yeah, I knew of a case like this where a father and son married a pair of sisters. There wasn’t even any divorces involved, nor were the ages out of line. The older sister was widowed in her early 30s. She married a widower in his 40s whom she met through her church. The man had a son about 20 years old who started dating his father’s fiance’s younger sister, who was about his age (yeah, there was a substantial gap in the ages of the two sisters). The older sister had a child from her first marriage, too. Nothing wrong here, but it made in law relationships rather complicated. I think they gave up and adopted a rule, that if in doubt, everybody was “cousins”.
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### Author:  [@glowacks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glowacks)
#### Post date: [December 7, 2010, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-incest-among-adopted-siblings-illegal/122819/71 "2010-12-07T19:26:39Z")
> [@ZenBeam](#):
>
> I recall in an anthropology class I took about 100 years ago or so, that in many societies, marriage between 1st cousins was desirable, but which “form” was desirable varied. For example, in some the woman marrying her father’s sister’s son was desirable, while in others, the most desirable would be a woman marrying her mother’s brother’s son.
This is adapted from memory from _How the Mind Works_ by Steven Pinker.
Marriages in prehistorical societies tended to be somewhat about creating alliances between clans, and in the case of first cousins marrying, it was strengthening one that had already been established. When a woman married, she moved to the area her husband and his father’s clan lived, while her brother and his wife (from wherever) stayed living with her father’s family. The two father probably arranged the marriage.
If she were to have any children, they would be brought up together with her husband’s nephews and nieces from his brothers and these children would not be suitable marriage material for her own children - they were practically siblings. On the other hand, her sisters were married off to other families and may never meet again. However, her nieces and nephews that that were her brothers’ children would be prime marriage material, being from a clan already familiar and not being raised together.
Thus, it was quite normal for first cousins to be married if their cousin was their father’s sister’s child or their mother’s brother’s child, but it would be extremely rare for them to marry their mother’s sister’s child or father’s brother’s child. The terms “cross cousins” (for good matches) and “parallel cousins” (for bad ones) are used to denote these relationships.
There is also some genetically induced “eww factor” in most people for contemplating marriage/sex with someone they grew up together with, even if they were not related. Those that married within their own family as humans were evolving would not develop as good relationships with other nearby families, and not just risk birth defects. Pinker claims that this has led to problems when children have been arranged to be married at a very young age and are brought to live together; if done too early, they bond as siblings and not as potential mates.
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### Author:  [@Chessic\_Sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chessic_Sense)
#### Post date: [December 7, 2010, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-incest-among-adopted-siblings-illegal/122819/72 "2010-12-07T19:45:39Z")
My childhood friend’s mom died of cancer when he was a kid. His father married the deceased’s sister a few years later. So my friend has a blood aunt for a step-mother. Is that weird? Icky?
And when my parents split up when I was 16, my mom started dating this friend of hers. We kids deemed it too soon. So since he was banging my mom in my dad’s bed, I took it upon myself to bang his daughter as much as possible. Like, weekly. For months. We never talked or hung out. Just the spite sex. I told my brother about it many years later, and he goes “You, too?” :eek:😛 Turns out, she’d do me and then go into his room.
So we’ve got two brothers doing a step-sister in the same night. Is that weird? Icky?
> [@John\_Mace](#):
>
> What if your step sibling is a Zombie?
I wanted to say that ☹
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### Author:  [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)
#### Post date: [December 7, 2010, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-incest-among-adopted-siblings-illegal/122819/73 "2010-12-07T20:04:32Z")
> [@Chessic\_Sense](#):
>
> So we’ve got two brothers doing a step-sister in the same night. Is that weird? Icky?
It’s either weird and icky or it’s a porn movie.
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### Author:  [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)
#### Post date: [December 7, 2010, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-incest-among-adopted-siblings-illegal/122819/74 "2010-12-07T20:39:36Z")
> [@Chessic\_Sense](#):
>
> And when my parents split up when I was 16, my mom started dating this friend of hers. We kids deemed it too soon. So since he was banging my mom in my dad’s bed, I took it upon myself to bang his daughter as much as possible. Like, weekly. For months. We never talked or hung out. Just the spite sex. I told my brother about it many years later, and he goes “You, too?” :eek:😛 Turns out, she’d do me and then go into his room.
Here, you dropped your copy of _Penthouse Forum_.
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### Author:  [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)
#### Post date: [December 8, 2010, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-incest-among-adopted-siblings-illegal/122819/75 "2010-12-08T18:39:47Z")
> [@Lord\_Ashtar](#):
>
> I had a friend who kind of had a crush on his step-sister for a while, and his mother even kind of joked that there was nothing wrong with it.
>
> Bullshit.
>
> Anyone who has sex with their “sibling,” be it by birth, adoption, or 2nd, 3rd, 4th marriages, should be drawn and quartered so their defective genetic material can not further contaminate the gene pool.
>
> Let me speak for everyone when I say, “EWWWWWWW!!!”
What a strange prejudice. I know a couple who were step siblings and have been married for 53 years, very happily by all appearances. I fail to see in what way this offends your morality. They were teens when his father married her mother and didn’t live in the same household–until they did.
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### Author:  [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)
#### Post date: [December 8, 2010, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-incest-among-adopted-siblings-illegal/122819/76 "2010-12-08T19:06:53Z")
I’ve met people who were EWWWed out by the thought of a relationship with a person who had the same _name_ as a close relative. What d’you say to that, Ashtar?
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### Author:  [@StusBlues](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StusBlues)
#### Post date: [December 8, 2010, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-incest-among-adopted-siblings-illegal/122819/77 "2010-12-08T19:11:09Z")
> [@tdn](#):
>
> I agree that your eww-meter is a little sensitive.
>
> So Mark meets Amy, they fall in love, and Mark proposes to Amy. She accepts.
>
> They meet their inlaws to be, Mark’s mother Joan and Amy’s mother Henry. Henry and Joan fall in love and get married.
>
> To satisfy your eww-meter, must Mark and Amy break their engagement? Or should they have prevented their parents from marrying? Which couple should never have met to begin with?
The funny thing is that my ew-meter doesn’t ping at all over Amy having a mother named Henry.
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### Author:  [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)
#### Post date: [December 8, 2010, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-incest-among-adopted-siblings-illegal/122819/78 "2010-12-08T19:12:48Z")
> [@StusBlues](#):
>
> The funny thing is that my ew-meter doesn’t ping at all over Amy having a mother named Henry.
Sorry. I meant her father, Henrietta.
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### Author:  [@StusBlues](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StusBlues)
#### Post date: [December 8, 2010, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-incest-among-adopted-siblings-illegal/122819/79 "2010-12-08T19:18:50Z")
> [@tdn](#):
>
> Sorry. I meant her father, Henrietta.
\*Freakonomics \*has a chapter on that.
More to your point, the ew-meter isn’t any way to live your life. If I actively condemned anything that squicked me out a bit, I wouldn’t live much of a life. Yes, going to family reunions to meet women isn’t something I’m terribly comfortable with, and I wouldn’t do it myself, but things do happen, and if the end result of all the hedonic calculus is that net happiness is produced, go with it. Ew-meter be damned.
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### Author:  [@geewow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/geewow)
#### Post date: [December 12, 2012, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-incest-among-adopted-siblings-illegal/122819/80 "2012-12-12T15:04:57Z")
Sorry if this is a Zombie thread, but there’s just so much BS here. First cousins can marry in 26 of the United States. AND there’re 50, no the previously stated 48 states.
State Laws Regarding Marriages Between First Cousins
Twenty-five states prohibit marriages between first cousins. Six states allow first cousin marriage under certain circumstances, and North Carolina allows first cousin marriage but prohibits double-cousin marriage. States generally recognize marriages of first cousins married in a state where such marriages are legal.
Cousin marriage legal
First cousin marriage prohibited
Allowed under certain circumstances
Alabama
Alaska
California
Colorado
Connecticut
District of Columbia
Florida
Georgia
Hawaii
Maryland
Massachusetts
New Jersey
New Mexico
New York
North Carolina\*
Rhode Island
South Carolina
Tennessee
Vermont
Virginia
Arkansas
Delaware
Idaho
Iowa
Kansas
Kentucky
Louisiana
Michigan
Minnesota
Mississippi
Missouri
Montana
Nebraska
Nevada
New Hampshire
North Dakota
Ohio
Oklahoma
Oregon
Pennsylvania
South Dakota
Texas
Washington
West Virginia
Wyoming
Arizona
Illinois
Indiana
Maine
Utah
Wisconsin
First cousin marriage is allowed in these states under the following circumstances:
Arizona- if both are 65 or older, or one is unable to reproduce.
Illinois- if both are 50 or older, or one is unable to reproduce.
Indiana- if both are at least 65.
Maine- if couple obtains a physician’s certificate of genetic counseling.
Utah- if both are 65 or older, or if both are 55 or older and one is unable to reproduce.
Wisconsin- if the woman is 55 or older, or one is unable to reproduce.
Carry On!
\>\<\>
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