They were all adults at the time… the reason I know about it was that the family was involved in a custody battle. I can only assume that he isn’t in jail.
somebody said that cats in close quarters will mate with family, but will dogs?I mean if a dog will hump any availible leg, why wouldnt he hump his sister? Do they make distinctions between their family and any other female dog (Bitch , giggle giggle)?
My experience is primarily with poodles; daddy poodles will readily mate with daughter poodles.
This is what I was wondering about. If incest in illegal per se, (though I’m assuming what constitutes incest varies somewhat state to state) when is adult consensual incest prosecuted?
Has it been? When was the last case?
betenoir, I went searching through Westlaw for a few minutes and I came up with this:
State v. Hill 2001 WL 1180602, *2 (Tenn.Crim.App.,2001)
It’s only one state, but it seems to be the most recent decision on the books to declare that any incest is illegal, even consensual incest.
I’m not sure this is correct.
The royal bloodline in Egypt decended through the female, which is why half-brothers born of the king’s concubines needed to marry the daughter of the king: her bloodline solidified his right to rule. On tombs in which the records are complete (not damaged) the parents are almost always named, both mother and father, even if they were from lowly social status.
One example can be found in Senmut, a high offical of the female pharoah Hatshepsut. His mother is listed, with the title of “manager of the household,” which was a polite, courtesy title extended to women of low social status.
It was the duty of every son to see to it that his parents were buried in the best possible style. In Egyptian religion, the written word was extremely powerful. As long as your name survived written somewhere, you were ensured of eternal life. Sons would record their parents names in their own tombs, as well as that of the parents, sort of as a backup to ensure that the parent’s names would be recorded.
As for incestuous marrieg not necessarily meaning incestuous sex: Why in the world wouldn’t it? The Egyptians had no taboo against incestuous royal marriage, and would have no reason not to consumate it, unless, of course, a couple disliked one another personally. Bloodlines were extremely important, and thus the pharoah would probably have had a big problem with his sister-wife being impregnated by anyone else. Whereas an Egyptian prince or king could have a foreign wife, a female needed to marry within her clan to keep the bloodline pure.
Quite true. A phaoroah was not merely a king, he was a living god, and his wife was the “wife of god.” The pharoahs took their cue from their religious myths in which the gods happily married siblings and reproduced. It was part of the royal mystique.
Whereas the common man had no wealth to keep in the family, and thus no reason to intermarry, but to my knowledge, there were no laws against it, just as there were no laws against either polygamy or polyandry (though the latter may have been socially frowned upon.)
Yes, and at least one uncle-niece marriage that I can recall. (Catherine the Great almost married her uncle before marrying the heir to the throne of Russia.)
The intermarriage of the royal houses of Europe was so common that it was difficult NOT to commit incest. Some scholars speculate that this is what led to the eventual downward spiral of the monarchy in Europe. So grossly inbred were they that towards the 1800’s, there were so many insane, half-deformed, and half-retarded royals that the entire foundation of the monarchy was shaken. (The present Count of Paris is related to himself in 71 different ways.) The “Madness of King George” is merely the tip of a very seedy iceburg. Even the present Queen of England had a relative (aunt or cousin, I can’t remember off hand) who died in the Eighties in an insane asylum.
Again, a creature mates with what’s available. If no mates from outside the family exist, then sis starts to look pretty good.
Good post, Lissa! It warms my icy heart to see someone write just what I wanted to write, but much better than I could hope to express my point.
Aside from the aforementioned uncle-niece and aunt-nephew marriages in the Portuguese royal family, there are a number of others in various European dynasties. Duke Francis IV of Modena married his niece Princess Maria Beatrice of Savoy in 1812, a marriage which is controversial as it may (but probably doesn’t) invalidate the Jacobite succession.
Duke Nikolaus of Württemberg married his niece Duchess Marie of Württemberg in 1832, with no issue.
Duke Ernst I of Saxe-Coburg und Gotha wed his niece Duchess Marie of Württemberg in 1832, also no issue.
King Fernando VII of Spain married his niece Princess Marie Christine of Bourbon-Sicily in 1829, and had four children, including Queen Isabel II of Spain.
Don Francisco de Paula, Infante of Spain, wed his niece Princess Louise of Bourbon-Sicily in 1819, and had eleven children, including Don Francisco de Assisi, who married his cousin Queen Isabel II. Interestingly, Don Francisco de Faula and King Fernando were brothers; their wives-nieces, Louise and Marie, were also sisters. Thusly Francisco de Assissi and Queen Isabel were double first cousins, among other things. Happily, the Spanish throne was spared the result of this union, as none of Isabel’s children were ever actually fathered by her husband.
Grand Duke Leopold I of Baden wed his great-niece Princess Sophie of Sweden in 1819, and they produced eight children.
In a comparitively rare aunt-nephew marriage, Louis Charles d’Albert de Luynes, Duc de Luynes, wed Anne de Rohan in 1661. She was his mother’s younger half-sister. They had four children.
.:Nichol:.
I was reading a flyer a while back while at the doctor’s office which explained some basic tips for teens to keep in mind before starting an active sexual relationship. They said they should look for partners with the following traits:
- Know them for a while, years preferably.
- Be friends first.
- Have a lot of activities in common.
- Know that you can trust this person with some of your deepest secrets.
- Know that you can trust this person with your health, safety, and reputation.
Huh, I thought. They make a pretty convincing argument for incest…
“I’ve got nothing aginst incest as long as you keep it in the family”
Old English joke - sorry folks
Fascinating thread
I saw a TV programme in the UK about brothers and sisters who fall in love after growing up in seperate environments following childhood adoption and subsequent reunion. Apparently we tend to fall in love with people who look like us, but are put off by growing up in the same family. Thus siblings who have grown up seperately but become reunited as adults often feel very attracted towards one another. This programme went as far as to state that there was a clinical term for this kind of sibling attraction (can’t remember what it was though) , and that adults in such situations were provided with counselling to help them navigate reunions without ending up sexually involved with one another.
There was also an interview with a brother and sister (both in sillouette) who were living together as a couple having been raised seperately and then fallen in love as adults. They had to move house after neighbours discovered their ‘secret’ and reported them to the police. A UK court ruled that it was OK as the man had a vasectomy, and could therefore not impregnate his sister. They were elloquent in describing their feelings for one another and the whole thing was rather moving.
This was a few years ago, and resulted in a very sympathetic dramatised TV play on the issue.
Well, that would explain Luke and Leia.
Genetic sexual attraction is, I think, the clinical term you were searching for. Dan Savage of Savage Love fame had a couple of very amusing columns about it a few weeks back.
.:Nichol:.
None of Elizabeth II’s aunts by blood died during the 1980s; as far as cousins go, she could have dozens of first cousins and hundreds of second and third cousins. Are you thinking of her aunt by marriage, the Duchess of Windsor? She was not institutionalized at the time of her death in 1986, but is believed to have passed into demetia. The American-born Duchess of Windsor was not closely related to any European royalty.
While intermarriage took a horrific toll on Europe’s royal families (the hemophilia!), I’d actually like to see proof that the rate of deformities, insanity, and retardation was any higher than could be found in any large incest-free family.
Ooooh, got it. Queen Elizabeth’s mother-in-law, Alice, was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, but recovered long before her death in 1969. She was Queen Victoria’s great-granddaughter, and of course Elizabeth is Queen Victoria’s great-great-granddaughter.
I think.
Um, I have no idea why I just replied to a year-old thread, or how I found it in the first place.
Wow. I think it’s time for me to sign off and start my weekend.
A bit of an errant thought, but I guess this is the place to bounce it off you guys:
I can see how diversification strengthens genes, but could incest play a role by providing the mutations necessary for evolution? Or are you only ever going to end up with weak mutations?