Why should incest be illegal?

[The Don]

Why would you limit your reasoning to incest? Would that not apply to any kind of abusive relationship? If so, then why single incest out? I mean, every marriage could be the result of such a relationship, or not?

Why are we talking about marriage ? I thought we were talking about incest - sexual relations

In my opinion, society has made a (small) number of relationships illegal due to the likelihood that such a relationship may be abusive. The charge of statutory rape for sex with a minor reflects this - although some 15 year olds may be in a position to provide consent for sex, a view has been taken that the risk of abuse taking place is sufficiently high that sexual relationships of this type should be illegal.

Likewise with incest.

I believe that in the UK other relationships are also frowned upon, typically where one partner has a duty of care or undue influence over the other (teacher/pupil, doctor/patient, carer/person in care).

The alternative would be to allow incestual sexual relationships but to prosecute those which involve rape or duress. I expect that under such a law there would be far more abuse carried out under the guise of consentual incestual sex.

 

[Ashles]

So, by those criteria, what other kinds of marriage should be forbidden? Marriages by people with genetically transmitted diseases? Developmentally handicapped people?

I agree (and with Georg's points).

If you make a basis that things should be illegal that might result in genetically defective offspring there are loads of scenarios that would then become illegal. Logically it would become illegal for women to have unprotected sex over a certain age (I guess it becomes legal again at another specified older age?). I'm sure that's going to be an easy law to introduce.

Not to mention the rather dangerous slippery slope of legislating a healthy gene pool, which might be expanded to legislating for a desirable gene pool...

I think there is a case for it being illegal to avoid abuse situations (theoretically close family members might 'groom' children to be expecting a physical relationship as soon as legal), but not from a genetic point of view.

 

[Georg]

Why are we talking about marriage ? I thought we were talking about incest - sexual relations

The same argument applies.

In my opinion, society has made a (small) number of relationships illegal due to the likelihood that such a relationship may be abusive. The charge of statutory rape for sex with a minor reflects this - although some 15 year olds may be in a position to provide consent for sex, a view has been taken that the risk of abuse taking place is sufficiently high that sexual relationships of this type should be illegal.

Likewise with incest.

Yep. Show us the studies, please.

The alternative would be to allow incestual sexual relationships but to prosecute those which involve rape or duress.

The same rule for all, sounds O.K.

I expect that under such a law there would be far more abuse carried out under the guise of consentual incestual sex.

You expect? I think it´s possible, but I´d prefer some solid evidence.

 

[drkitten]

If there is actual provable harm done, let's hear about it. But speculations about feelings and other posters' feelings are not it.

Well, it's difficult to demonstrate "actual provable harm" when the conduct you want me to prove harmful is already illegal and therefore largely prevented before the actual harm stage. But certainly father-daughter incest is well-established (in fact, it's one of the more common forms of sexual abuse), and I see no reason why it stops being abusive just because the girl turns 12 or whatever the local age of marriage-with-parental-consent is.

I note that you haven't addressed my 4 points about the actual genetic problems,

That's because I don't care a half cup of warm spit about the genetic problems.

Give me a good reason why our morals are better, not just the claim that if it's 6000 years later it must be better.

Because we act to prevent child abuse, not to formally validate it.

 

[HansMustermann]

Well, it's difficult to demonstrate "actual provable harm" when the conduct you want me to prove harmful is already illegal and therefore largely prevented before the actual harm stage.

The same case could be made about apostasy laws in Iran. See, apostasy is already illegal, so they don't have to prove the harm in allowing people to renounce the Islam.

But certainly father-daughter incest is well-established (in fact, it's one of the more common forms of sexual abuse), and I see no reason why it stops being abusive just because the girl turns 12 or whatever the local age of marriage-with-parental-consent is.

You seem determined to handwave father-daughter incest in as the only form of incest. It's not. That's as broad as trying to prevent all sex because some sex is rape. (Oh, wait, you do that about incest too.)

Why should, say, brother-sister marriage should be forbidden just because father-daughter is lumped in the same broad term?

Also, as was said before, statutory rape is already forbidden and punished. Nobody's proposing to legalize rape or paedophilia, so please get off that strawman already.

What if it's not father-daughter at all? Or what if said daughter is 21 already and very capable of doing her own decisions?

That's because I don't care a half cup of warm spit about the genetic problems.

Ah, right, silly me. Sorry, sometimes I'm not very perceptive Then what actual harm are you proposing to legislate against, since again we're _not_ talking about letting adults have sex with underage children. Theirs or other people's.

Because we act to prevent child abuse, not to formally validate it.

And we already have laws about child abuse that nobody here proposed to repel. Nobody proposed to allow an adult to marry a 12 year old. Let's lay that strawman to rest. That's not what's being discussed.

 

[Wings]

I notice this topic was seemingly on just allowing incestuous marriage (unless I read wrong), but I went ahead and just put all my points on incest here.

It's been a while since I've been here and gotten involved in a discussion, so I figure I'll give this thread a crack. I don't personally like the idea of incest, but it's not my position to decide what other consenting adults should do. However the issues with children from incestuous relationships and incest involving an adult and a child are different.

Point 1. Incest between parents / adult siblings and underage children should be illegal. I don't think I'm going to get any disagreement here so I don't really think I need to explain why.

Point 2. As for incest between two underage siblings, I really don't have a good opinion on this one. Who are we going to hold responsible if we do make it illegal? How could we handle it? I'm at a loss here.

Point 3. Adult siblings / parents and adult children, for the most part, should be allowed to have a sexual relationship with each other and marry each other if they wish to. This point doesn't include children. If they are consenting adults, even if they are family, it's not my place to tell them no.

Point 4. Adult siblings / parents and adult children (married or not) having children together. This one is also tricky. It's true that genetic problems and diseases are an issue when it comes to children from incest. I don't personally feel we should penalize or prevent an incestuous couple from having children, but I do think finding ways to deal with the deformities and abnormalities resulting from incest would be very important to deal with.

 

[quarky]

Clearly, sex is the problem. All celibate marriages should be legal, especially man and pig bondings.

 

[JimBenArm]

Actually, the reasons for incest to be illegal is the same as for why polygamy should be. It's so one person doesn't hog all the good stuff. Gotta spread it around!

No fair not sharing!

 

[EeneyMinnieMoe]

So, by those criteria, what other kinds of marriage should be forbidden? Marriages by people with genetically transmitted diseases? Developmentally handicapped people?

The government does take certain measures where that is concerned. Asking for your and your fiance/fiancee's blood type when you get married, for instance.

You have a good point but there's also this. Two people who happen to have the gene for sickle cell or Tay-Sachs falling in love with one another and wanting to marry is natural. You can't blame them, enspecially if one or both of them didn't know they had it. A man who wants to marry his sister, however...that's not a bad stroke of luck. Unless they honestly didn't know they were related (which sometimes does happen), that's a choice. And it's not natural.

 

[HansMustermann]

I understand your point, EMM, but you've already shown there that you can think rationally well past the woowoo level of "consanguinity produces deformities" level. It doesn't. Matching recessive genes do. It's the same difference as between miasma theory and microbiology. Why defend the woowoo empyrical application then?

I'll even illustrate some of the real implications of that difference:

1. You can get the same effects without consanguinity at all, or not at an incest level.

Take a small community, say 12 families or so on their farms or ranches, for example sake. Now let's say they mostly marry inside that community (e.g., because they're Amish or some other defensive minority.) Let's even say they don't even allow cousins twice removed to marry. But the fact is that the same small number of genes are recirculated around. Sooner or later you get your own family's genes back just because your great-grandma's brother married someone from family B, and their daughter married someone from family C, and their daughter married someone from family D, and you now married their daughter.

Give it enough generations and you _will_ get your own family's genes back, just because there's a small static pool of them.

And indeed mutations like those do happen in small villages or communities all the time. It even gave the South a reputation for incest where probably the vast majorities of such cases are just the result of small farmer communities and enough time.

But anyway we know equally well that small closed communities _will_ create more mutations. Should we forbid marrying inside one's community?

2. If you propose to actually protect the resulting children, why wouldn't you test newlyweds?

E.g., as a simple enough example, let's take the (very few and far in between) haemophiliac women. These have the mutation on both X chromosomes. A whole 100% of their sons _will_ carry the disease too. It doesn't matter if the father is healthy. It's not a case of "maybe he'll take after the father", because he won't. He'll get one X chromosome from the mother, and it will be a broken one.

What about men with a genetic deffect on the Y chromosome?

What about women with a mitochondrial DNA problem? There is at least one pretty nasty such genetic disease. And this time all their descendants, both male and female, will always get their mitochondria from the mother.

Why should we allow someone to create broken children with unerring certainty, if for other people we forbid it because _maybe_ _some_ of such children might be deffective? I'm serious.

3. What if a brother and a sister actually voluntarily took a DNA screening and proved that they don't have any (known) harmful recessive genes that both of them have? You know that they won't produce broken children.

 

[Fat Bottom Gurl]

What if the reason for the incest is to concentrate superior genes? They've studied their family background. They have superior intellect, bodies, longevity - for the past 4 generations everyone has lived well into their 80s with hardly any illness, etc. No histories of health problems and all in the first 4 generations have above average intelligence.

Most people think incest produces problems. It will reveal problems, should those genes happen to be there, but the opposite is also true.

Perhaps more people should learn about their own family history and health before pairing and producing offspring, regardless of whether they have close family ties.

Looked up blood testing for marrying in the USA and the reason given was to test for rubella and syphillis. It has nothing to do with testing ones DNA.

 

[KingMerv00]

Given how manipulative abusers can be, I can imagine that they would be able to convince the person they are abusing that the relationship is consensual. Rape would be impossible to prove unless the victim is "de-programed"

Your entire argument is based on speculation and stereotypes not evidence.

We have laws relating to underage sex for similar reasons.

You are wrong. Underage sex is illegal because we see that consent requires a certain age.

In both cases, (Western) society seems to have taken the view that protecting vulnerable people is more important than preserving liberties by assuming that all relationships of this type are abusive and/or the junior partner was unable to provide informed consent.

You are declaring abuse and brainwashing withough evidence.

I got a problem with that. Would you force an incest couple to abort if pregnancy occurs, then?
The argument (possible birth defects) does not hold water anyway, in my opinion. As others have said, following that logic you´d have to outlaw pregnancies for older women as well. What about other persons carrying defective traits with a high probability to inherit them to their offspring? Make it illegal for them to have children as well?
My home country followed those politics some decades ago. Can´t say I like how it worked out (do I get a cookie for Godwinning the thread?).

The imagination of incest is very icky for me, yes. But so are a lot of other things. That should not be the basis for making something illegal, though.

You misunderstand. I'm saying that using birth defects as evidence is a non-sequitur because it is a different topic entirely. I'm not saying anything about what we should do in an incestuous pregnancy.

 

[Ashles]

The government does take certain measures where that is concerned. Asking for your and your fiance/fiancee's blood type when you get married, for instance.

You have a good point but there's also this. Two people who happen to have the gene for sickle cell or Tay-Sachs falling in love with one another and wanting to marry is natural. You can't blame them, enspecially if one or both of them didn't know they had it. A man who wants to marry his sister, however...that's not a bad stroke of luck. Unless they honestly didn't know they were related (which sometimes does happen), that's a choice. And it's not natural.

Define 'natural'?
If, despite their full knowledge of the situation, they stil fall in love why is that not 'natural'? It's not 'artificial'. There are no external forces influencing it.

By your definition is homosexuality 'not natural'?

 

[Ron_Tomkins]

Would lesbian incest be okay?

When would lesbian sex of any kind not be ok?

 

[JimBenArm]

When would lesbian sex of any kind not be ok?

Have you seen my sisters-in-law?

That'll cure you of that idea. The idea of them nekkid is awful enough. Let alone nekkid with each other.

I need to bleach my brain now. Thanks.

 

[Ron_Tomkins]

Have you seen my sisters-in-law?

Nope. Got a pic?

I'm just kidding fella. Just kidding.

 

[bigred]

Not every country can be as modern as Sudan, but it´s a start:


Sudan man forced to 'marry' goat

Honestly, I think this should be legal in the US. Who is someone else to say where to draw the line? As long as they love each other, that's all that matters. They aren't hurting anyone else.

By golly, I may just propose to my chihuahua tonight.

Just kidding.

I wouldn't buy one on a bet. I hate those damn things.

 

[Anna Kadabra]

Although it kind of grosses me out, I don't think that the act itself should be illegal (provided it is between two consenting adults).

However there are definite biological reasons as to why they shouldn't be allowed to have children. The risk of first degree relative's offspring being born with a birth defect/genetic disorder is about 30% (up from 2-3% for offspring of unrelated parents). These are not good odds, when you consider that some of these congenital disorders can be very serious, debilitating or even terminal.

Let them have sex. No kids though - this should be illegal. No idea how one would enforce this though.

 

[KingMerv00]

Honestly, I think this should be legal in the US. Who is someone else to say where to draw the line? As long as they love each other, that's all that matters. They aren't hurting anyone else.

By golly, I may just propose to my chihuahua tonight.

Just kidding.

I wouldn't buy one on a bet. I hate those damn things.

For the millionth time...the line is informed consent.

 

[Anna Kadabra]

What if the reason for the incest is to concentrate superior genes? They've studied their family background. They have superior intellect, bodies, longevity - for the past 4 generations everyone has lived well into their 80s with hardly any illness, etc. No histories of health problems and all in the first 4 generations have above average intelligence.

Most people think incest produces problems. It will reveal problems, should those genes happen to be there, but the opposite is also true.

Perhaps more people should learn about their own family history and health before pairing and producing offspring, regardless of whether they have close family ties.

Looked up blood testing for marrying in the USA and the reason given was to test for rubella and syphillis. It has nothing to do with testing ones DNA.

Sorry but this is just bad science. Mating first degree relatives never leads to a concentration of 'superior genes', in fact the opposite usually occurs. The closer your mate is to you in the gene pool, the more problems you see in offspring (on average). This is why we observe an increase in mental retardation (so a decrease in IQ, not an increase), birth defects and genetic disorders in isolated, close knit communities who have inter-married for generations. So incest will actually increase your likelihood of disease in the family, not decrease it.

We have two copies of each gene from each parent (alleles) for a very good reason. If one allele of a given gene is bad, it is likely that the other parent will have donated a different, functioning allele which will usually makes up for the bad copy, sort of cancel it out (unless the protein product is part of a complex in which case it's usually dominant and one faulty copy will soil the whole lot OR if the amount of good protein you make from one copy of the gene is insufficient - haploid insufficiency). Now if the copy from mum and dad are both very similar (which is likely if the parents are related or from a very close knit community) you can see how this creates problems. If the paternal allele of gene 1 is bad, then it is more likely that the maternal allele of gene 1 is also bad in the same way...because these two parents are more similar genetically than say..completely unrelated parents. This gives rise to defects.

Hope that was clear, I'm none too good at explaining things