I agree, it grosses me out too. But I’m outraged that these two kids have to be sent to maximum security prison! Gee, I feel much safer now that these kids are sent to jail with murderers and rapists, they might commit incest near me! Maybe even in the same state!
Is the marraige really irrelevant to this? Probably. In it’s strictest sense doesn’t incest apply only sexual acts? If so, then surely if the parties involved are consenting adults then what they chose to do is their business - and nobody elses, particulalry not that of the state, which has absolutely no business legislating morality (yeah O.K. I know they do it all the time, but the frequency of a thing can’t make it right).
Whatever one’s personal feelings about incest, surely the issue is about consenting adults.
Guinastasia wrote:
>>>First cousins, mostly.<<<
While that was the most common relationship as far as consanguinity goes, it is by no means the closest. Probably the closest the royals ever came to imitating the Egyptian Pharoahs was uncle/niece marriages.
The Spanish Habsburgs practiced this for centuries, until the extreme inbreeding resulted in the deformed, impotent, and half-mad Carlos II, King of Spain, who’s parents were uncle and niece. Carlos married his French cousin, but thankfully there were no children from this relationship, and he died childless.
Isabel II, Queen of Spain was also the result of uncle/niece marriages, as was her consort, Francisco de Assisi. In fact, Francisco’s father was brother of Isabel’s father, and his mother was sister of Isabel’s mother! What horrifying genetic anomalies would have resulted from this marriage boggles the mind, or at least it would, had Francisco ever actually fathered any of Isabel’s children. Upon learning that Isabel’s daughter was ill, a courtier expressed his worry, citing Francisco’s own frail health. Isabel replied, “Oh, I’m not concerned. Her father was as healthy as a horse!”
But the prize for incestous marriages goes to Jean V, Comte de Armagnac, who prefered the bed of his own sister above all others. This sister, Isabelle, was reputed to be the most beautiful woman in France, and Jean actually married her, claiming he had obtained a dispensation from the Pope. The happy couple blissfully produced three children – two boys and a girl – until Jean was arrested, and the circumstances surrounding that dispensation were investigated. Turns out the whole thing was forged by Jean himself! The Pope was enraged, the marriage was annuled, and the kids were bastardized, and Jean ended up getting assasinated. Just goes to show folks, you can’t sleep with your own sister and expect to get much good out of it.
You’re correct: when her father died in 51 BC, the throne passed jointy to Cleopatra and her brother, Ptolemy XIII, who were then married. It was a turbulent marriage, to say the least. Ptolemy feared Cleopatra was conspiring to take the throne (which she was) and had her exiled in 48 BC. Then Caesar arrived on the scene, and once she had smitten him together they usurped and killed her brother.
Another incestuous Egyptian couple is Akhenaton (r. 1379-62 BC), son of Amenhotep III, who married Nefertiti, who is also believed to be a daughter of Amenhotep III. Akhenaton is also believed to have impregnated his eldest daughter, Meketaten, who died in childbirth.
There was also the rumor that King Ernst of Hanover, the Duke of Cumberland and next in line to the British throne after Queen Victoria (until her children were born-he was her uncle), had raped his sister, the Princess Sophie, and that was how her illegitmate child was conceived.
This is a Great Debate if I ever saw one.
i believe that the suicide law in the uk is because you are a subject not a citizen of the uk. being a subject means you are property of the reigning monarch. it is a no-no to destroy royal property.
One reason I’ve heard given is that outlawing suicide allows the police to interfere with suicide attempts.
As far as the incest question goes, don’t underestimate the “ewww that’s disgusting factor,” as an underlying motivator for the legislation.
I agree that a brother/sister marriage is troubling, but it’s hard to think of a principled reason to object, assuming that there’s no possibility of children.
The PRIMARY (superseding even the birth-defects rationale) reason for the incest taboo is that it was healthier for a community, tribe, what-have-you to cross-marry, forging social and economic ties that would not have existed had the “stuck to their own,” as it were. As with so many things, what was common practice became law and perpetuated itself.
>>>There was also the rumor that King Ernst of Hanover, the Duke of Cumberland and next in line to the British throne after Queen Victoria (until her children were born-he was her uncle), had raped his sister, the Princess Sophie, and that was how her illegitmate child was conceived.<<<
Naw, this was probably the only crime Queen Victoria’s “wicked uncle” Ernst was ever accused of that he actually never did. Yes, the rumor circulated, but it almost certainly never happened – I say almost certainly, because after all only Ernst and Sophia ever knew for sure, and they’re both dead. Anyway, the father of Sophia’s illegitimate son was one Captain Thomas Garth. I’ve read a bit about Ernst, and I doubt he did it, though he was capable of horrible things. Murdering his valet? Sure. Knocking up his sister? Very unlikely.
In much the same vein, Lucrezia Borgia probably never commited incest with either of her brothers or her father. She also bore a bastard son, which spawned the whole debate, but the father of little Giovanni was most likely a messenger named Pedro, who was quickly disposed of by her brother Cesare. It just so happened that in both these families such malicious rumors were very easily believed…
…on a similar note, I remember reading somewhere that Tsar Alexander I had an incestous relationship with his sister Anna, and that the Princes of Montbeliard had commited consanguitous marriages with their sisters. Anybody know more about this?
Did she keep her own last name?
(sorry…sorry…stop hitting me…I said I was sorry)
I didn’t say it was true, just that it was rumored. I know he was certainly capable of tormenting his sisters.
The idea that incest became illegal due to observing the effects in livestock doesn’t hold much water. Most primitive peoples have very strong laws against incest. One of the primary roels of Aboriginal elders was to memorise family trees to decide who could marry whom. Incest wa spunished by death. These are people who have one semi-domesticated species that they never deliberately bred.
It seems that the repulsion towards incest is genetic. A study done on unrelated children raised in communal households showed that if people were raised like brother and sister they rarely married, even though there was no reason not to do so. Apparently the number of step sisters/brothers that marry are virtually nil, while children raised in communal kibutzim in Israel also marry vey infrequently. Granted this is a cloudy issue, but if there weren’t some inbuilt genetic block against marrying close relatives it should happen somewhere near the frequency of people marrying those who they went to school with their entire lives, which is fairly high.
Please note that I do not claim that the incest taboo arises from livestock breeding practices, merely that (contrary to the OP) people living in centuries past were familiar with the concept of hereditary traits.
Maybe humans have been seected by evolution to have a disdain for incest? After all, if repeated incestuous incidents lead to mental retardation and other genetic shortcomings, the “incest gene” may have been selected against by ordinary Darwinism.
rjung, I was thinking the same thing myself as I read this thread. I don’t know enough about the biological aspect of the whole thing to really know though.
You mean to say other people have sisters who are not extremely obnoxious like mine?
If you take the Bible literally, it took incest to populate the world because Adam and Eve’s kids would have had to breed from each other.
Also, after Sodom and Gamorra (SP) was destroyed, was it not Lott who lost his wife (turned into a pillar of salt because she looked back) who, with his two daughters, hid out in a cave? They, the daughters, mistakenly thought they were the last people on Earth and decided to repopulate it by getting their dad roaring drunk and seducing him?
It is a known fact that many brothers and sisters learn the basics of sex by playing with each other when they start becoming aware of sexual feelings. Doctor and Nurse is a good game. First cousins, when available, do the same. (Today it would be considered sexual abuse or molestation, even though almost everyone did it as kids and folks knew it probably would happen. Today, if kids get caught and the law is brought in, it just screws the poor buggers up for life.)
BTW, almost EVERY MALE has had a homosexual experience by the age of 18. Deny it if you will, but it is a proven fact, even if it only consists of comparing wieners and seeing who can jerk off the fastest. Boys also go through a prepuberty section of development where many look decidedly feminine for a time. (These boys are most often the ones molested by molesters because they are girl looking boys.)
Incest started becoming a bad thing when someone realized that inbreeding produced morons and all sorts of nasty things. Someone with more intelligence than most started forcing people to marry out of the family grouping to spread the gene pool around.
Many folks today look on incest as a Real Bad Thing for various reasons often hammered into them, but brothers, sisters and first cousins having sex for fun is not unknown. Many a big sister has taught little brother how to screw and vise versa.
I know a girl who used to give her older brother blow jobs at 10 and by 14 they were screwing when there were no other partners easily available. How many hormonal kids do you think peek in on their older or younger sisters when they bath or change? How many of those do you think have some sexual contact with them, even if not penetrating? And not forced sex either, but mutual fun? I had a friend in junior high who used to get all turned on by seeing his older, and rather busty, sister nude when she changed or took a shower and did not close her doors good enough. Given the chance, he would have had sex with her.
I think the judge who jailed the married brother and sister over reacted tremendously, due to the taboo hammered into him. In real small communities years ago, close relations had no choice but to marry each other and you can still find some little towns where everyone is related somehow to each other.
Incest was primarily banned because of the limiting of the genetic selections which could cause major birth defects and mental retardation. In my town, as a kid, I knew of a close knit family where everyone was mentally retarded to a degree and all resembled each other so inbreeding in their line was obvious as heck. They were the end result and all had that typical look so many mentally retarded kids have. They were just smart enough to work odd jobs and take care of themselves and their parents had a little farm they worked.
Attrayant wrote:
Um … you do realize, don’t you, that there are no laws at the Federal level forbidding prostitution?
Deny it I won’t, but ask for evidence I will.