# Rural People and Incest. **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 25, 2006, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rural-people-and-incest/341480 "2006-01-25T01:21:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2006, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rural-people-and-incest/341480/21 "2006-01-25T13:46:58Z")
> [@MGibson](#): > > Marrying your cousin typically falls into two categories. Parallel cousin (children of parent’s sam sex sibling, mother’s sisters kid) marriages are typically found in matrilineal societies and cross cousin (children of parent’s opposite sex simbling, father’s sister’s kid) marriages are typically found in patrilineal societies. Obviously the cultures that practice these kinds of marriage, many Arabs for example, don’t consider it incest. If you have a large enough population you don’t have to worry to much about inbreeding with these customs. > > Marc Just a note- first cousin mating is totally allowed in the Bible. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2006, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rural-people-and-incest/341480/22 "2006-01-25T13:56:58Z")
> [@Fern Forest](#): > > But I don’t know any from the last 15 years. Probably the result of the same chilling-effect in the mid-late 80s to avoid being associated with “endorsing” criminal conduct, as did away with “rape” scenes and"high school" settings (the latter specially after the Traci Lords brouhaha) in American porn. The market self-regulates to a point, if haphazardly. ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2006, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rural-people-and-incest/341480/23 "2006-01-25T14:54:08Z")
> [@Johanna](#): > > You mean the Jukes and Kallikaks? That study was used as an argument for eugenics (sterilizing the poor) in the early 20th century. An offshoot of the human race, like in _The Truth About De-Evolution_? “Oh Gramps, we’re all devo!” Possible, I read about the report in a book about the Pine Barrens as opposed to the report itself. The report was generally considered very bad science. > [@Obsidian](#): > > I had a friend from college who grew up deep in the pine barrens whose family had lived in the same community for 250 years. He had a family member get into genealogy, and told me once that 100 years ago his family was as inbred as pedigreed dogs. > > Pineys are odd ducks, though, even in this day and age. This guy and every single one of his friends were all built like linebackers. It don’t think I’ve ever met a non-burly native piney. My friend swore it’s all the iron in their water. Secretly I wondered if this was some kind of upside to all that inbreeding. I have several friends that are {self called} Piney’s. A few of them are skinny. They are umpteenth generation. But yes, the are a little odd, both his sisters are somewhat horsed face. They seem very out of place culturally in Urban/Suburban NJ. Most people don’t realize how much of NJ is still Rural. Unfortunately it grows less every year. The book was [The Pine Barrens by John McPhee,](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0374514429/sr=1-1/qid=1138200644/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-2286139-3560847?%5Fencoding=UTF8). There is alos a reference to the report in Weird New Jersey. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2006, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rural-people-and-incest/341480/24 "2006-01-25T18:42:30Z")
Well, if you’re an Ozarks hillbilly whose family tree does not fork, cheer up, things could be worse. You could have been brought up on a small farm in Georgia! 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Hello\_Again](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/85e7bf/32.png) [@Hello\_Again](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hello_Again)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2006, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rural-people-and-incest/341480/25 "2006-01-25T18:53:11Z")
A good friend of mine got married in Western Virginia, where she and her fiance were students at Virginia Tech. To set the stage, the female half of the couple is from a fairly upper-middle-class family from the Eastern Shore of Virginia. The male half is British with a quite noticable posh-type British accent. They go to get their marriage license and the following scene ensues: Clerk: Are ye kin? Male half: Are we _what_!? Clerk: Kin. Are ye kin? Female half: No, we are not “kin.” They were still laughing about this incident years later. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2006, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rural-people-and-incest/341480/26 "2006-01-25T18:53:50Z")
Hey, I’m a native-born “piney” (but both parents immigrated from outside South Jersey). I did have childhood friends and classmates who were nth-generation pineys, and they definitely had pretty intricately interrelated clan structures, but I don’t remember any talk about serious inbreeding to the extent of non-forking family trees. (I also don’t remember any general linebacker-build tendencies.) Of course, my friends weren’t in the really remote backwoods piney communities that John McPhee describes as existing in the region even into the 1960’s, either. Hmm, this post doesn’t actually contribute anything at all substantive to the debate, does it? Never mind, I’ll post it anyway because it’s about me. 🙂 Forgive me, I usually try to be more substantive than this. ---
**Author:** ![Ellen\_Cherry](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellen_cherry/32/3600_2.png) [@Ellen\_Cherry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ellen_Cherry)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2006, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rural-people-and-incest/341480/27 "2006-01-26T16:03:50Z")
Here’s from the review of the McPhee book: > [@](#): > > -the Pineys, whose way of life has remained essentially unchanged since the 17th century. Is this true? The book was published in the late '60s. Does this mean that they lived as Amish people–no phones, no lights, no motorcars? Or did they/do they “live off the land,” etc., but embrace modern conveniences? I’ve never heard of this group; it’s fascinating! ---
**Author:** ![tagos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@tagos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tagos)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2006, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rural-people-and-incest/341480/28 "2006-01-26T16:23:59Z")
> [@John Carter of Mars](#): > > You might be a redneck if: > > Your favorite place to score chicks is the annual family reunion. 😃 > > _Second_ cousins are fair game, right? RIGHT??? Good lovin’ is good lovin’. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2006, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rural-people-and-incest/341480/29 "2006-01-26T16:25:17Z")
From what I recollect, **Ellen** , it’s more the latter than the former. There was no deliberate religious/cultural renunciation of modern life among mid-20th-c. pineys, any more than there was among other comparatively isolated communities in, say, the Appalachians or the Ozarks. But the occasional importation of modern conveniences (when they could afford them) didn’t do much to change their semi-survivalist rural-poverty lifestyle. ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2006, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rural-people-and-incest/341480/30 "2006-01-26T16:39:53Z")
> [@Ellen Cherry](#): > > Here’s from the review of the McPhee book: > > Is this true? The book was published in the late '60s. Does this mean that they lived as Amish people–no phones, no lights, no motorcars? Or did they/do they “live off the land,” etc., but embrace modern conveniences? I’ve never heard of this group; it’s fascinating! It has changed a lot since the 60’s. There is much more Electric available and many more kids have left to find work. When they return they advanced the area. Cell Phones are suppose to be very popular now, even for the residents of the occasional shacks without paint. Phones were rare in the past. They had cars in the 60’s, they were just used and old and somewhat rare. The Piney’s have little in common now with the inbred group of the 1880’s however. It is a fascinating book. One more reason for the isolation was that many of the early inhabitants were outlaw Tories that worked for the Brit’s directly throughout Monmouth & Ocean county and they retreated to the Pine Barrens. I guess when you are founded by what amounts to outlaws it might lead to some odd quirks. One last note, keep in mind this area is just outside the commuting range to NYC and Philly. Suburban sprawl is bumping against it and so the area of the Pine Barrens is shrinking. Jim {These comments are all from memory and visits of friends of friends in the Pine Barrens, I cannot speak as an authority} ---
**Author:** ![Obsidian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/51bf81/32.png) [@Obsidian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Obsidian)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2006, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rural-people-and-incest/341480/31 "2006-01-28T02:24:58Z")
There are Pineys and then there are Pineys. There are rural communties branching off from the roads to the shore, and then there are people who live in cranberry bogs in unincorporated Burlington County. What? You don’t think people actually live in a cranberry bog? I swear, I have seen this with my own two eyes. Corrugated metal shack and no electricity. I could not believe this was 1999 and I was in New Jersey. (These were aquaintances of my college friend, who had a normal house) I didn’t believe half the stuff he told me until I saw it myself. The area, being a dense pine forrest intermixed with marshes and bogs (for the non-natives who have no idea what the pine barrens are), was extremely isolated for most of it’s history, by both the terrain and outlaw thing. Once there was money to be made in peat iron, but that industry died and the people there basically fomented in isolation for generations, as the rest of the state exploded around them. I think the Piney thing would not seem nearly as odd if it wasn’t in New Jersey. It wouldn’t shock anyone if we were talking about people living in the swamps on the mississippi delta. Most people think all of New Jersey looks like the area around Newark Airport. ---
**Author:** ![saoirse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5daacb/32.png) [@saoirse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/saoirse)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2006, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rural-people-and-incest/341480/32 "2006-01-28T02:28:28Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > (I’ve never seen any incest-themed adult videos. Probably because there’s no way to make it convincing – you could just pair up any two performers of the same apparent ethnicity and say they’re brother and sister or whatever.) Strictly in the interest of raising the tone here, I’d like to point out that _Backside to the Future_ was an incest-themed adult video. Or so I am told. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2006, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rural-people-and-incest/341480/33 "2006-01-28T16:13:46Z")
> [@What Exit?](#): > > Cell Phones are suppose to be very popular now, even for the residents of the occasional shacks without paint. Phones were rare in the past. I’ve been reading of comparable developments in Bangladesh. The Grameen Bank, I think, providing cell phones to rural women allowing them to run their own startup small businesses. They call it microentrepreneurship. ---
**Author:** ![istara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e79b87/32.png) [@istara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/istara)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2006, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rural-people-and-incest/341480/34 "2006-01-28T23:10:06Z")
Surely the “cousin marriage” issue is deviating from the point? Regardless of its legality or otherwise in various US states, cousin marriage through a great deal of the world and throughout history has been widely practised. It’s still the norm in a lot of societies today (bearing in mind that in these societies, such as conservative rural muslim ones, mixed gender cousins often do not mix at all as children). Surely what we are talking about here is close-family incest: brother/sister, parent/child? ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2006, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rural-people-and-incest/341480/35 "2006-01-29T00:13:55Z")
> [@Obsidian](#): > > . Most people think all of New Jersey looks like the area around Newark Airport. I think that you’re giving the rest of the State too much credit. 😉 😛 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2006, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rural-people-and-incest/341480/36 "2006-01-29T00:20:39Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > (I’ve never seen any incest-themed adult videos. Probably because there’s no way to make it convincing – you could just pair up any two performers of the same apparent ethnicity and say they’re brother and sister or whatever.) Well, there’s always “She’s my sister! [whack!] She’s my daughter! [whack!] She’s my sister! [whack!] She’s my daughter!..” Forget it, Brain. It’s Chinatown. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rural-people-and-incest/341480.md?page=1)