# Why is incest associated with poor white people, particularly in the Southern U.S.? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 7, 2011, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-incest-associated-with-poor-white-people-particularly-in-the-southern-u-s/577603 "2011-04-07T23:36:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2011, 7:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-incest-associated-with-poor-white-people-particularly-in-the-southern-u-s/577603/61 "2011-04-10T07:05:43Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > Why need it be an _excuse_? What makes your incest taboo more rational or preferable than another culture’s? :smack: Sorry. I meant to type explanation. I must have been thinking about something else when I typed that. ---
**Author:** ![Claverhouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/13edae/32.png) [@Claverhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Claverhouse)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2011, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-incest-associated-with-poor-white-people-particularly-in-the-southern-u-s/577603/62 "2011-04-10T18:31:03Z")
> [@Krokodil](#): > > For the very poor, Alan Moore in an interview about his graphic novel From Hell. It’s not online and was in print over 20 years ago, so no clickable cite, sorry. He claimed that in working class Victorian England, father-daughter couplings were not only commonplace, but practically mandatory. Quite possibly Mr. Moore was on drugs when he said this. In any case, the silly old fool has apparently no understanding of the strongly religious mores of much of the Victorian working class from the middle of the century onward, nor of the severe penalties involved then. In the more degraded cellars of some foul poverty-infested slum virtually anything was possible, but not everything was probable. > [@](#): > > As for the very rich, I cite the wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana. _bleakly_ as a monarchist, I despise those people, so had to look up the relationship I did not know. If you are suggesting an 11th cousin once removed constitutes incest, then we are all in trouble. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2011, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-incest-associated-with-poor-white-people-particularly-in-the-southern-u-s/577603/63 "2011-04-10T19:23:52Z")
> [@](#): > > He claimed that in working class Victorian England, father-daughter couplings were not only commonplace, but practically mandatory. Wait, _father-daughter_!? I’ve never heard of any society, at any socioeconomic level, where relationships that close were not taboo. And if such relationships were “practically mandatory”, where did the daughters come from in the first place? I think that someone was trolling, here, and managed to whoosh some folks. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2011, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-incest-associated-with-poor-white-people-particularly-in-the-southern-u-s/577603/64 "2011-04-10T19:30:23Z")
A vote for “isolation” as the main cause. Humans seem to be wired to avoid close inbreeding, _unless there’s no one else_, in which case it’s better to inbreed than to leave no descendants. If there’s anything to the idea that our ancestors survived more than one near-extinction population bottleneck, we may actually have been selected for incest as an emergency survival strategy.The story of Lot and his daughters- who thought that they were the last humans left- is an archtypical example. Comparable are the myths of some Pacific island cultures which may have been founded by a very narrow gene pool. And modern examples of incest are often attributed to social isolation- failure to develop normal relationships outside the family unit. ---
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2011, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-incest-associated-with-poor-white-people-particularly-in-the-southern-u-s/577603/65 "2011-04-10T22:38:12Z")
> [@Krokodil](#): > > In England, consanguination–at least among cousins–is widespread among the very rich and the very poor. Only the middle class has a problem with it. > [@Quartz](#): > > Cite? > > Cite? > > For reference, [Scotland allows](http://www.adviceguide.org.uk/scotland/your_family/family_and_personal_issues_index_scotland/getting_married_scotland.htm) cousin marriage; it’s slightly more complex in [England](http://www.adviceguide.org.uk/index/your_family/family_index_ew/getting_married.htm#Who_can_get_married), but cousin marriage is again allowed. Yeah. I’d find it very hard to believe it was ever widespread compared to any other countries of the time. Your cite also contradicts the ‘Victorian Englishmen were expected to shag their daughters’ claim. But I’m certain that, while first cousins marrying probably was legal for a long time in the UK (as it was in most places), it also wasn’t for some time. I know this because I was about 9 - in 1984 - when the law was changed to allow first cousins to marry, amd my mother asked which of my cousins I fancied. I’m sure she intended it as a joke, but I was horrified enough - and sufficiently interested in the news - to remember it. Google is not helping me cite this. Anyway: to the OP. In England, Norfolk has a jokey reputation for being inbred. [One cite among many](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/1526081/Norfolk-folk-are-sicker-because-they-are-inbred-says-local-MP.html). I guess it was just isolated enough that there was enough inbreeding for the stereotype to take root, but also just close enough to London that there’d be sufficient visitors to notice the stereotype and carry the jokes on with them. It is also a popular slur against the aristocracy, for the same reason - there really was a lot of in-breeding there in the past. It might even have been a factor in the weakening of the Russian royal family, with their heir having haemophilia. ---
**Author:** ![Noel\_Prosequi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b19c9b/32.png) [@Noel\_Prosequi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Noel_Prosequi)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2011, 9:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-incest-associated-with-poor-white-people-particularly-in-the-southern-u-s/577603/66 "2011-04-11T09:21:52Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > But I’m not seeing any link at all between the story and incest. 😕 > > Orwell never ascribed the condition to inbreeding did he? It just doesn’t seem related in any way whatsoever. > [@Freudian\_Slit](#): > > Wouldn’t they have called ALL people who have been baptized Christians, whether or not they were impaired? I have not tried to dig up the original source. It might have been in the Road to Wigan Pier, or Down and Out in Paris and London, but don’t hold me to that. However my clear (but, as always, fallible) memory is that he did, as he recounted the story, attribute the consequences to inbreeding. Whether he (or the unidentified source for the story he was adopting) was wrong scientifically is another issue. Once again, my point is about the age of the “two-headed children when cousins from the boonies marry” meme. And **Freudian Slit** , he was making a rhetorical point. Nowadays, children with disabilities are commonly called “special” in a way that we all understand. But shouldn’t we call _all_ children special? Yes. Nevertheless, everyone knows what we mean when we say “So-and-so is a special child” with emphasis on the word special. Same with “Christians” I expect. This is how the euphemism treadmill works. ---
**Author:** ![Claverhouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/13edae/32.png) [@Claverhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Claverhouse)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2011, 9:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-incest-associated-with-poor-white-people-particularly-in-the-southern-u-s/577603/67 "2011-04-11T09:40:34Z")
> [@SciFiSam](#): > > But I’m certain that, while first cousins marrying probably was legal for a long time in the UK (as it was in most places), it also wasn’t for some time. I know this because I was about 9 - in 1984 - when the law was changed to allow first cousins to marry, amd my mother asked which of my cousins I fancied. I’m sure she intended it as a joke, but I was horrified enough - and sufficiently interested in the news - to remember it. Google is not helping me cite this. Um, no. First cousin marriage has been legal since early medieval times in England. And in all other countries earlier under catholic canon law. > [@](#): > > How are degrees of relationship measured? The scheme is influenced by the Roman model which worked like this. Going down the generations like grandmother, mother, daughter, people are always one degree apart. > > In general, if you want to know whether a relative is too close to marry, you count the spaces between each of you and your nearest common ancestor, then add together the two numbers. For instance, a brother and sister are two degrees apart because each is one degree from their common parent. > > Marriage between people related in the third degree or less is prohibited. You can’t marry your mother’s sister or brother because you’re related in the third degree to them. The common ancestor is your grandmother, from whom you are two degrees away, and your aunt or uncle is one away — three degrees altogether. > > First cousins are related in the fourth degree. Your common ancestor will be your grandmother. You have two degrees separating you from her, and so will your cousin (as will your mother’s sibling’s child). Added together, there are therefore four degrees of separation. In short, you can marry your first cousin. > > The prohibited degrees were defined by Innocent III in 1215, recognised in an Act of Henry VIII in 1536 and are now in the Marriage Act 1949. **[The Sunday Times](http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/law/columnists/article3198834.ece)** ---
**Author:** ![Tristan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tristan/32/18058_2.png) [@Tristan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tristan)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2011, 12:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-incest-associated-with-poor-white-people-particularly-in-the-southern-u-s/577603/68 "2011-04-11T12:40:52Z")
To further muddy the Victorian waters, anyone who tracks down and reads the Victorian Erotica contained in “The Pearl”, a newsletter of sorts written in the era in question, may come up with some rather odd takeaways. What I got from it was that the whole “free love” thing of certain Victorian types apparently justified banging your sisters, cousins, and anything female. Lots of those tales have brothers and sisters and cousins in big ol’ free love orgies. Yikes. Also, that the term “gamauche” has sadly disappeared. ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2011, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-incest-associated-with-poor-white-people-particularly-in-the-southern-u-s/577603/69 "2011-04-11T13:06:52Z")
> [@SciFiSam](#): > > Yeah. I’d find it very hard to believe it was ever widespread compared to any other countries of the time. > > Your cite also contradicts the ‘Victorian Englishmen were expected to shag their daughters’ claim. My claim–for which I provide no further cite, this is just my impression–is that abhorrence of incest is specific to the middle class, and that the upper and lower classes don’t attach much significance to it. Sorry I dragged your country into it. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2011, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-incest-associated-with-poor-white-people-particularly-in-the-southern-u-s/577603/70 "2011-04-11T17:11:39Z")
> [@Krokodil](#): > > My claim–for which I provide no further cite, this is just my impression–is that abhorrence of incest is specific to the middle class, and that the upper and lower classes don’t attach much significance to it. Sorry I dragged your country into it. How are you defining _incest_? Just because certain cultures allow first-cousin marriage, for instance, doesn’t mean that they haven’t an abhorrence of incest – just that they define incest differently than you. ---
**Author:** ![ZPG\_Zealot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e47c2d/32.png) [@ZPG\_Zealot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZPG_Zealot)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2011, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-incest-associated-with-poor-white-people-particularly-in-the-southern-u-s/577603/71 "2011-04-11T18:01:01Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Wait, _father-daughter_!? I’ve never heard of any society, at any socioeconomic level, where relationships that close were not taboo. And if such relationships were “practically mandatory”, where did the daughters come from in the first place? I think that someone was trolling, here, and managed to whoosh some folks. Royalty in parts of the ancient world sometimes considered father-daughter incest acceptable, if not desireable. It was about maintaining “divine” ancestory for the throne. Ancient Egypt is probably the most famous of these, but I believe the Inca and some of the Pacific tribes had similiar customs. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2011, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-incest-associated-with-poor-white-people-particularly-in-the-southern-u-s/577603/72 "2011-04-11T18:50:14Z")
> [@](#): > > Royalty in parts of the ancient world sometimes considered father-daughter incest acceptable, if not desireable. It was about maintaining “divine” ancestory for the throne. Ancient Egypt is probably the most famous of these, but I believe the Inca and some of the Pacific tribes had similiar customs. I chose my wording carefully, there. The fact that royalty regarded as divine practiced incest is not a counterexample to an incest taboo, but an example of it. Taboos are prohibited only for the mere mortals, so practicing a taboo action is an assertion of one’s more-than-mortal status. ---
**Author:** ![Lust4Life](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ecc23a/32.png) [@Lust4Life](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lust4Life)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2011, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-incest-associated-with-poor-white-people-particularly-in-the-southern-u-s/577603/73 "2011-04-11T18:59:58Z")
Incest was a very real thing in rural Ireland,as was paedophilia. ---
**Author:** ![wei\_ji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9a140/32.png) [@wei\_ji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wei_ji)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2011, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-incest-associated-with-poor-white-people-particularly-in-the-southern-u-s/577603/74 "2011-04-11T19:48:10Z")
I know I shouldn’t, but I’m going to comment on this anyway. This is a huge problem with Alaska Natives, too. Something about isolated village life, alcohol, and God-knows-what. The particular culture I’m most familiar with is Mother-Right, or Matriarchal, if that is relevant. There is a lot of tension between male and female. And for those with a prurient interest, I had a Native friend from this culture once commend to me the joys of sex with his own sister. “That’s good pie!” he assured me with surprise when I demurred. Years later I mentioned this conversation to a former policeman friend, and he said this individual was well-known for this activity to the police and others, and he was not, in fact, just pulling my chain in making his claim to engage in it. ---
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2011, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-incest-associated-with-poor-white-people-particularly-in-the-southern-u-s/577603/75 "2011-04-11T22:01:46Z")
> [@Claverhouse](#): > > Um, no. First cousin marriage has been legal since early medieval times in England. And in all other countries earlier under catholic canon law. > > **[The Sunday Times](http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/law/columnists/article3198834.ece)** I wish I could find what the change was the 1980s then - I’m sure there was one. ---
**Author:** ![kirjathaoltedomrba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e47774/32.png) [@kirjathaoltedomrba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kirjathaoltedomrba)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2012, 8:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-incest-associated-with-poor-white-people-particularly-in-the-southern-u-s/577603/76 "2012-10-23T08:59:03Z")
To whom this may concern; ``` I quote from professor William W. Freeling's work, "Road To Disunion, Secessionists At Bay". Volume one, page 47. The term "folk," denoting blood relations, was accurate. Non relatives in tiny clusters of folk not only cared about each other in the manner of relatives but were often somehow related. Marriage between cousins was ubiquitous. When mothers survived almost yearly childbirths, families were huge. When mothers succumbed, fathers selected a new bride-who produced huge families or succumbed in turn. Between first cousins and second cousins and step cousins and cousins of step cousins, a planter had hundreds of relations. Family interconnections so extensive, inside locales of rural intimates so small, created a norm of treating neighbors as if they were, well, folks.:) ``` ---
**Author:** ![kirjathaoltedomrba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e47774/32.png) [@kirjathaoltedomrba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kirjathaoltedomrba)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2012, 9:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-incest-associated-with-poor-white-people-particularly-in-the-southern-u-s/577603/77 "2012-10-23T09:15:46Z")
To whom this may concern; 10/23/2012 ``` I quote from professor William W. Freeling's work, "Road To Disunion, Secessionists At Bay". Volume one, page 42. The term "folk," denoting blood relations, was accurate. Non relatives in tiny clusters of folk not only cared about each other in the manner of relatives but were often somehow related. Marriage between cousins was ubiquitous. When mothers survived almost yearly childbirths, families were huge. When mothers succumbed, fathers selected a new bride-who produced huge families or succumbed in turn. Between first cousins and second cousins and step cousins and cousins of step cousins, a planter had hundreds of relations. Family interconnections so extensive, inside locales of rural intimates so small, created a norm of treating neighbors as if they were, well, folks.:) ``` ---
**Author:** ![llfurie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ecae2f/32.png) [@llfurie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/llfurie)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2013, 11:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-incest-associated-with-poor-white-people-particularly-in-the-southern-u-s/577603/78 "2013-12-19T11:32:01Z")
> [@willthekittensurvive](#): > > Legal as in nobody thought it necessary to make laws prohibiting it? Then maybe they should. Look at John List for instance who killed his Mother, wife and three kids. Hid out for years til. ‘America’s Most Wanted’ caught him. He was from Bay City, Michigan. His parents were first cousins and he had this weird, thin head look and was never sorry for the murders. Plus why has no one mentioned the Royal families who have done this for generations? ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2013, 12:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-incest-associated-with-poor-white-people-particularly-in-the-southern-u-s/577603/79 "2013-12-19T12:04:47Z")
> [@Freudian\_Slit](#): > > Wouldn’t they have called ALL people who have been baptized Christians, whether or not they were impaired? From the Online Etymology Dictionnary : > [@](#): > > 1779, from French crétin (18c.), from Alpine dialect crestin, “a dwarfed and deformed idiot” of a type formerly found in families in the Alpine lands, a condition caused by a congenital deficiency of thyroid hormones, \*\*from Vulgar Latin \*christianus “a Christian,” a generic term for “anyone,” but often with a sense of “poor fellow.” \*\*Related: Cretinism (1801). So while Christian indeed referred to anyone with a pulse back then, in this particular case it was to be understood in something of a “bless his little heart” sense. You know, “he might be a drooling half-blind dwarf with webbed toes, but he’s still a Christian” ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2013, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-incest-associated-with-poor-white-people-particularly-in-the-southern-u-s/577603/80 "2013-12-19T14:54:30Z")
> [@llfurie](#): > > Then maybe they should. Look at John List for instance who killed his Mother, wife and three kids. Hid out for years til. ‘America’s Most Wanted’ caught him. > He was from Bay City, Michigan. His parents were first cousins and he had this weird, thin head look and was never sorry for the murders. > Plus why has no one mentioned the Royal families who have done this for generations? So I just googled him to refresh my memory [having seen Americas Most Wanted and that episode] Dude doesn’t look all that strange, he has got a bit of Bavarian jowl action going on, but his head is not outsized nor undersized at all, he is pretty plain in the boy next door sort of look. Pretty much an average joe in looks. And upthread it has been pointed out that the royals of several different cultures practiced various forms of incest - specifically the Victoria based Brit/Euro bunch, Carlos 2 of Spain, the Inca [I believe the Inca, which was his title, married daughters,] the Egyptian Pharaohs married brother to sister, uncle to niece and I do believe I remember a couple father to daughter marriages going on. With Britain and Europe one major issue is that Victoria produced so many kids that intermarried with the rest of Europe that in the past 100 years almost all the royal families are interlinked back in roughly 1880-1915 range - way too close for comfort but thankfully with the shuffle of governments between WW1 and 2 Royals have been marrying commoners and lesser nobles so they have been getting an injection of fresh blood. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-incest-associated-with-poor-white-people-particularly-in-the-southern-u-s/577603.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-incest-associated-with-poor-white-people-particularly-in-the-southern-u-s/577603.md?page=5)