A Note on Incest Taboo

In each society, there are rules that forbid marriage between close relatives. Who those relatives are differ from society to society. Marrying them is tantamount to incest. Incest taboos are almost universal.

Incest taboo is a feature found in all societies. Murdock writes:

… with the exception of married parents, incest taboos apply universally to all persons of opposite sex within the nuclear family. The data from our 250 societies … reveal not a single instance in which sexual intercourse or marriage is generally permissible between mother and son, father and daughter, or brother and sister. Aside from a few rare and highly restricted exceptions, there is complete universality in this respect (1943: 284–25).

Through his analysis of material on 250 societies, Murdock arrived at the following additional conclusions.

1. ‘Incest taboos do not apply universally to any relative of opposite sex outside of the nuclear family. Though nowhere may a man marry his mother, his sister, or his daughter, he may contract matrimony with any other female relative in at least some of the societies surveyed….To give but a few examples,
   1. Among the Marquesans, Yaruro and the Lepcha a man may marry his paternal aunt FaBrWi); Figure 10.1 Family among the Marquesans, Yaruro and the Lepcha 
   2. Among the Osset and Sema in the Northeast India, a man may marry his maternal aunt (MoBrWi) –this is also the case among the Baiga of Chhattisgarh; Figure 10.2 Family among the Osset and Sema 
   3. Among the Lakher and Mentaweians, a man may marry his half sister by the same mother (MoDa); and among the Edo and Minangkabu, his half sister by the same father (FaDa). The Edo and Minangkabu also have such relations with their parallel cousins FaBrDa and MoSiDa—this is allowed amongst the Muslims as well. Figure 10.3 Family among the Lakher and Mentaweians, and the Edo and Minangkabu 
   4. Marquesans may also cohabit with their WiMo, or SoWi; Figure 10.4 Cohabitation with WiMo (1) and with SoWi (2) 
   5. Tupinamba, Carib and Keraki have sex relations with SiDa, and Kaingang (Brazil), Haida and Kababish have such relations with BrDa. Figure 10.5 Family among the Tupinamba, Carib and Keraki 
   6. Shilluk indulge in sex with the stepmother (FaWi). Figure 10.6 Relation among the Shilluk 
2. Incest taboos are extended to some secondary and tertiary relatives as well, but the relatives covered by the taboo differ from society to society.
3. ‘Incest taboos tend to apply with diminished intensity to kinsmen outside of the nuclear family, even though they are designated by the same kinship terms as primary relatives.’
4. Incest taboos, ‘in their application to persons outside of the nuclear family fail strikingly to coincide with nearness of actual biological relationship. Regulations vary widely in different cultures; relatives with whom intercourse and marriage are strictly forbidden in one society are often privileged or preferred mates in another. Even within the same society, taboos frequently apply to certain distant relatives but not to other kinsmen who are genealogically closer. In approximately one fourth of our tribes, for example, certain second cousins are subject to rigid marital prohibitions while first cousins of particular types are allowed or even encouraged to marry. Very commonly, in fact, incest taboos exempt certain close consanguineal kinsmen but apply to adoptive, affinal, or ceremonial relatives with whom no biological kinship can be traced.’
5. Incest taboos ‘are highly correlated with purely conventional groupings of kinsmen. They tend to apply, for example, to all relatives called by a classificatory kinship term which includes sexually tabooed primary relatives. A survey of the terms used for secondary and tertiary relatives of Ego’s generation in the 250 sample societies reveals that in 441 cases they are designated by terms that are also applied either to mother, sister, or daughter, and that in 971 instances they are called by other terms. In the former group, incest taboos apply to 417, and do not apply to 24; in the latter, they apply to 351 and do not apply to 620. The tendency of incest taboos to be associated with those relatives who are called “mother”, “sister”, or “daughter” is expressed by a coefficient of =.94, reliable at the maximal level of one tenth of one percent.’
6. Incest taboos and ‘exogamous restrictions, as compared to other sexual prohibitions, are characterised by a peculiar intensity and emotional quality. Among other sexual prohibitions, only menstrual taboos exhibit the same characteristic at all frequently, and … by no means universally.’
7. Incest taboos get violated.⁷

Various theories have been advanced to explain the prevalence of incest taboos. These will not be summarized here. Structurally speaking, it can be said that sexual behaviour is closely associated with kinship structures. In a way, incest taboos are one of the mechanisms for governing exogamy. A group that is exogamous generally disallows sexual relationships between its members. But such groups are mainly extensions of a lineage such as sib, clan, phratry and moiety. It can be said that generally, a sexual relationship between those addressed by the primary kinship terms for consanguineally related persons are also covered by the incest taboos. Thus, in north Indian villages all persons are treated as one family, and therefore the village serves as an exogamous unit–it is called seem seem na bhaichara, meaning brotherhood of common territory. These kinship terms are extended to people who do not belong to the same caste—an endogamous group. But the same restriction is lifted when the local community is larger in size. Marriages within the same large village or town or city do take place as they are not treated as exogamous. One reason for the practice of village exogamy is the fact that in such villages, any caste is represented only by a handful of families, all of which are part of the same lineage or a clan.