The Incest Taboo and the Mating Patterns of Animals

Abstract

W jrE HAVE noted a new wave of interest in the theoretical and empirical study of the incest taboo. This is manifested by Slater's (1959) paper and by three papers on the subject at the American Anthropological Association Annual Meetings in 1961: Margaret Mead, Re-Examination of the Problem of Incest, Peter J. Wilson, Incest-A Case Study, and Melvin Ember, Incest Taboo and the Nuclear Family. We have felt moved by this activity to present the results of a work group which met in the Spring of 1956 at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford, to consider the problem of the origins of the incest taboo. The group consisted of the authors and the late Alfred L. Kroeber. After several months of work, the seven members of the group presented a mutually acceptable theoretical formulation at a seminar for Fellows at the Center. We hoped to move on to a well-documented publication, but this has proved impossible.1 We have been handicapped by our dispersion over several universities and have hitherto been hesitant to publish because we wished to assemble more materials on the limitations of inbreeding in animals and to construct various models of the population genetics of small, inbred groups. Although we have abandoned hope of more ample publication, we believe that the current interest in theories of incest justifies the publication of a schematic statement of the approach we developed in 1956. A few minor changes or elaborations of the 1956 seminar are specifically noted. The incest taboo in any society consists of a set of prohibitions which outlaw heterosexual relationships between various categories of kinsmen. Almost always, it includes prohibitions on sexual relations between brother and sister, father and daughter, mother and son. Invariably, where any prohibitions are present, other, non-primary relatives are tabooed as well. There are rare cases where the taboos seem to have been abandoned. In the main, these involve very small groups in some way or other isolated from other populations to a degree which makes it impossible to maintain the taboo if the group is to reproduce at all. There are other cases where sexual relations between brother and sister or father and daughter are permitted or prescribed for special categories (e.g. chiefs, kings), or under special circumstances (e.g. ritual). It must be emphasized, however, that in the very societies where these sexual relations are permitted to some people, or under some circumstances, they are forbidden