On The Subject of Incest

Certainly there are few subjects that draw stronger negative opinions than that of incest. Neither is there one that is more commonly experienced, nor is more ingrained in the human culture and history, which is what drew me to write about it.

Regardless of whether you believe in the Garden of Eden narrative, or of any version of evolution. Incest is at the root of our development. In the Garden of Eden story, God created Adam, then Eve of Adam’s rib, meaning that she (in essence) was his opposite gender twin. From that point, the only possible explanation for the continued growth of our species was incest.

Even if you subscribe to any of the various narratives of evolution, it has been determined using mitochondrial DNA (which is passed down from maternal lineage) that all humans alive today have one common ancestor. Undoubtedly there were others alive at the time, but her lineage is the only one that has survived into the present period of history.

The implication is that the colony she belonged to was small and almost certainly resulted from closely related matings. Undoubtedly modern humans eventually cross bred with other early humans, including Neanderthals, but that colony in Eastern Africa, dating back to around 200,000 years ago, gives us another insight into the role incest has played in our history.

During the research I did into this subject, I found an interesting video series that documented a family in rural southern United States. This family was the product of incestuous matings that, over generations, resulted in a group of people who had very low intellects as well as physical deformities. I found it interesting that this family probably would have died out except that neighbors and the government supported them, which allowed them to continue reproducing. Since inbreeding, or line breeding (related individuals but less closely) intensifies whatever genetic material is present, those traits would be an advantage or disadvantage, which is obviously why early humans descended from a small colony of people and ultimately, one female. There must have been some advantages to their genetic qualities. Modern humanitarian support is less demanding on the quality of our inheritance and, it could be said, actually is contributing to the degradation of the species.

I also found a number of highly influential individuals that were noted products of incest, although I am just as certain a great many exist in the past and present that were not so famous. There was the obvious references to Adam and Eve, but according to the story of Noah, there was another incestuous period of scriptural history, and then there was Ben-Ammi, the son of Lot by his daughter, who became the father of the Ammonites, one of the dominant peoples of history.

Then, there was Saint Gregory, the Catholic pope from 590 to 604, Theodore Stravinsky, the artist. John Byrne, the writer, was the product of his mother and grandfather. Many of the royalty of history were born of incest, including a 20^th century monarch from Thailand, and ironically, Charles Darwin himself fathered ten incestuous children, several of which led noteworthy lives.

The point of this writing is neither to endorse, nor object to incest in the academic sense, but to rather understand the role it has played in the development of every species and to understand its fascination in human culture. On one hand it is reviled and considered disgusting, on the other hand, few tropes are as common in literature and culture as is sex between relatives. It is obvious that the fascination exists. Not only that, but in many cultures it is common and desired for cousins to marry.

I often peruse social media posts and news articles, and I find the comment sections often more interesting than the post itself. One of the more common themes inside comments directed to Muslim posts is derogatory references to marrying their cousins at an early age. I find this humorous because the history of Christianity and Judaism is full of cousin-cousin matings. Abraham and Sarah were cousins, Isaac and Rebekah were as well. Jacob was married to two of his cousins, Rachel and Leah. Given the cultures of the times, in fact even those within modern times, almost certainly those girls were in their early teens. Prior to the 1960s it was uncommon in the United States for girls to marry between the ages of 13 and 15. I am not saying it was the norm, but neither was in unusual. In the 1970s, there were two girls in my Seattle, Washington area high school who were married at 15. I recall that it was a subject of interest but among the students not particularly scandalous. One of those couples had been together since they were 13, and the other was a 14-year-old girl who had an 18-year-old boyfriend. I frequently encounter people in their 60’s and 70’s who share with me that their grandmothers were married at 13 or 14.

Of course, there have been countless incestuous relationships involving royalty through history, but in the modern era, Edgar Allen Poe married his thirteen-year-old cousin, as did Jerry Lee Lewis. Charles Darwin and Albert Einstein married their cousins, as did Queen Victoria. Rudy Giuliani was married to a second cousin, H.G. Wells was married to a first cousin, and Greta Scacchi, the actress, has two children by her cousin.

Throughout history there have been many sibling relationships in mythology, and in actual history I found over 130 examples of sibling marriages among royalty in different cultures. Studies have indicated that 13% of people admit to having had incest experiences with siblings, but it has been suggested through other studies that only about 20% of people admit to acts that are deemed to be shameful. Other research indicates that globally, depending on culture and location, up to 62% of people experience incest.

In many cultures, there is a fascination with mother-son and father-daughter incest. Certainly most people are familiar with the Greek story about Oedipus, and Shakespeare’s King Lear, but in other cultures, like Japanese, mother son incest is a common cultural theme.

In animal species and varieties, and with plants also, when we are developing and encouraging traits that we want to emphasize, we use inbreeding and line breeding. There are many excellent examples of this, but in the dog and horse world it is common. I know from my studies involving the coefficients of trait inheritance in the Rottweiler breed of dogs, that all of the animals alive today came from four individuals that survived the war in Europe. When you go backwards through pedigrees, you eventually find the same male across all generations. The challenge with applying this process to humanity is that when you are breeding animals using inbreeding or line breeding, you cull the individuals that express undesirable traits and reuse the individuals that express desirable ones. That culling process would be abhorrent when applied to humans, although facetiously we might wish we could. The challenge, of course, would be who would decide what traits to cull for, it seems half the population would cull the other half, leaving us no humans to work with.

Regardless of the acceptability of inbreeding humans to advance the race, I’m not sure we would survive the experiment. Oddly enough, it is the smartest among us that seem to cause most of the problems we face.

In one of the books that I am currently developing, I deal with two characters, a brother and sister, who struggle with incestuous feelings. Like is so often the situation, theirs is born from the abuse of their father, and the closeness they experience as a result of seeking and providing protection. The name of that book is Kassandra. Stay tuned to find out how they navigate their dilemma!