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Incest - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Incest

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Incest is sexual activity between close family members. Incest is considered taboo, and forbidden (fully or slightly) in the majority of current and past cultures. This is and was often the case even in cultures that are or were sexually permissive in other ways, such as the French Polynesian Marquesas prior to Western influence, who permitted child sexuality and experimentation, but disallowed incest.

The precise meaning of the word varies widely. Different cultures have differing notions of what behaviors constitute sexual activity, and what familial relationships are considered "close". Some cultures consider only those related by birth, while others include those related by adoption or marriage. Some prohibit sexual relations between people who grew up in the same household, while others prohibit sexual relations between people who grew up in related households.

Incest can occur between same-sex as well as opposite-sex relatives. It can occur between related children, between parents and their children, or between adult relatives.

Incest between close blood-relations is a crime in most jurisdictions even in cases where the sex is consensual, although again the extent of the definition of "close" varies. However, since incest is an interpersonal act that takes place in private, it is a difficult law to enforce. There are wide differences between nations as to how serious the crime of incest is. In some countries, such as Australia, incest is a serious indictable offence, while in others it is a minor crime with much less serious consequences.

Contents

[edit] Inbreeding among animals

In some species, most notably bonobos, sexual activity, including between closely related individuals is a means of dispute resolution or even a greeting.

Inbreeding between close relatives, including parents and children, has been observed in some species although patterns of parenting behavior and the structure of dominance hierarchies serves to discourage inbreeding. For example, offspring, in some cases only the male offspring, are often driven away by the mother at about the same age they reach sexual maturity.

The consequence of inbreeding is to increase the frequency of homozygotes within a population. Depending on the size of the population and the number of generations in which inbreeding occurs, the increase of homozygotes may have either positive or negative effects.

[edit] Distinctions between incest and inbreeding

The concepts of incest and inbreeding are distinct. Incest refers to socially taboo sexual activity between individuals who are considered to be too closely related to enter into marriage. In other words, it is a social and cultural term.

Inbreeding, on the other hand, refers to procreation between individuals with varying degrees of genetic closeness only, regardless of their relative social positions. It is a scientific term rather than a social or cultural term.

In many societies, the definition of incest and the degree of inbreeding may correlate positively. For example, sexual relations between people of a given degree of genetic closeness is considered incestuous. In other societies, the correlation may not be as obvious. Many cultures consider relationship between parallel cousins incestuous, but not those between cross cousins, although the degree of genetic relationship does not differ. Relationships may be considered incestuous even when there is no genetic relationship at all: stepparent-stepchild relationships, or between a man and his sister-in-law, or a woman and her brother-in-law, have been considered incestuous, even though they involve no risk of inbreeding above that of the original marriage.

[edit] Genetics

Table of prohibited marriages from The Trial of Bastardie by William Clerke. London, 1594.
Table of prohibited marriages from The Trial of Bastardie by William Clerke. London, 1594.

While the exact nature of kin-recognition psychology is still waiting to be defined, and to what degree it can be overcome by cultural forces is as yet poorly understood, an overwhelming body of research now shows that evolutionary biology and evolved human psychology plays a central role in human aversion to incest.

Inbreeding leads to an increase in homozygosity, that is, the same allele at the same locus on both members of a chromosome pair. This occurs because close relatives are much more likely to share the same alleles than unrelated individuals. This is especially important for recessive alleles that happen to be deleterious, which are harmless and inactive in a heterozygous pairing, but when homozygous can cause serious developmental defects. Such offspring have a much higher chance of death before reaching the age of reproduction, leading to what biologists call inbreeding depression, a measurable decrease in fitness due to inbreeding among populations with deleterious recessives. Recessive genes which can contain various genetic problems have a tendency of showing up more often if joined by someone who has the same gene. If a man who has hemophilia has a child with his sister who is a hemophilia carrier, the odds are 25% that the child will have hemophilia as well.

Leavitt (1990) has argued that inbreeding in small populations can have long-term positive effects: "small inbreeding populations, while initially increasing their chances for harmful homozygotic recessive pairings on a locus, will quickly eliminate such genes from their breeding pools, thus reducing their genetic loads" (Leavitt 1990, p.974). However, other specialists have argued these positive long-term effects of inbreeding are almost always unrealized because the short-term fitness depression is enough for selection to discourage it. In order for such a "purification" to work, the offspring of close mate pairings must be either homozygous dominant (completely free of bad genes) or recessive (will die before reproducing). If there are heterozygous offspring, they will be able to transmit the defective genes without themselves feeling any effects. What is more, this model does not account for multiple deleterious recessives (most people have more than one), or multi-locus gene linkages. Furthermore, the introduction of mutations negates the weeding out of bad genes, and evidence exists that homozygous individuals are often more at risk to pathogenic predation. Because of these complications, it is extremely difficult to overcome the initial spike in fitness penalties incurred by inbreeding. (see Moore 1992, Uhlmann 1992)

Therefore, it is not surprising that animals only inbreed under extremely unusual circumstances, either in major population bottlenecks, or forced artificial selection by animal husbandry. Pusey & Worf (1996) and Penn & Potts (1999) both found evidence that some species possess evolved psychological aversions to inbreeding, via kin-recognition heuristics.

Evolutionary psychologists have argued that humans should possess similar psychological mechanisms. The Westermarck effect is one strong piece of evidence in favor of this, indicating that children who are raised together during the first five to ten years of life find each other sexually uninteresting. In what is now a key study of the Westermarck's hypothesis, the anthropologist Melford E. Spiro demonstrated that inbreeding aversion between siblings is predicatably linked to co-residency. In a cohort study of children raised as communal, that is to say, fictive, siblings in the Kiryat Yedidim kibbutz in the 1950s, Spiro found practically no intermarriage between his subjects as adults, despite positive pressure from parents and community. The social experience of having grown up as brothers and sisters created an incest aversion, even though genetically speaking the children were not related.

Further studies have backed up the hypothesis that some psychological mechanisms are in play that cause children who grow up together to have no sexual attraction to one another. Spiro's study is corroborated by Fox (1962), who found similar results in Israeli kibbutzum. Likewise, Wolf and Huang (1980) report similar aversions in Taiwanese "child marriages", where the future wife was brought into the family and raised together with her fiancee. Such marriages were notoriously difficult to consummate, and for unknown reasons actually led to decreased fertility in the women. Lieberman et. al (2003) even found that childhood co-residency with an opposite-sex sibling (biologically-related or not) strongly increased moral repugnance regarding third-party sibling incest.[1]

On the other hand, it is not unusual for biological siblings who did not know each other in childhood to be attracted to each other when meeting as adults (see genetic sexual attraction).

[edit] Endogamy Versus Exogamy

Close Relationships

AffinityAttachmentBisexualityBondingCohabitationCompersionConcubinageCourtshipDivorceFriendshipFamilyHomosexualityHeterosexualityIncestInfatuationIntimacyJealousyLimerenceLoveMarriageMonogamyNonmonogamyPassionPartnerPederastyPlatonic lovePsychology of MonogamySexualitySeparationWidowhood

v  d  e

Anthropologists have found that marriage is governed, though often informally, by rules of exogamy, which is marriage of individuals outside their own groups, and endogamy where individuals marry inside their own group. What is considered a group, for purposes of either exogamy or endogamy, varies considerably between societies. Thus, in most stratified societies one must marry outside of one's nuclear family, a form of exogamy, but is encouraged to marry a member of one's own class, race, or religion - a form of endogamy. In this example, the exogamous group is small and the endogamous group is large. But in some societies, the exogamous group and endogamous group may be of equal size. This is the case in societies divided into clans or lineages.

In most such societies, membership in a clan or lineage is inherited through only one parent. Sex with a member of one's own clan or lineage — whether a parent or a genetically very distant relative — would be considered incestuous, whereas sex with a member of another clan or lineage — including the other parent — would not be considered incest (although it may be considered wrong for other reasons).

For example, Trobriand Islanders prohibit both sexual relations between a man and his mother, and between a woman and her father, but they describe these prohibitions in very different ways: relations between a man and his mother fall within the category of forbidden relations among members of the same clan; relations between a woman and her father do not. This is because the Trobrianders are matrilineal; children belong to the clan of their mother and not of their father. Thus, sexual relations between a man and his mother's sister (and mother's sister's daughter) are also considered incestuous, but relations between a man and his father's sister are not. Indeed, a man and his father's sister will often have a flirtatious relationship, and a man and the daughter of his father's sister may prefer to have sexual relations or marry. Anthropologists have hypothesized that in these societies, the incest taboo reinforces the rule of exogamy, and thus ensures that social ties between clans or lineages will be maintained through intermarriage.

Chinese and Indian society provides an example of a society with a very broad notion of the exogamous group, as relations between two individuals with the same surname may be banned.[citation needed]

Some cultures cover relatives by marriage in incest prohibitions; these relationships are called affinity rather than consanguinity. For example, the question of the legality and morality of a widower who wished to marry his deceased wife's sister was the subject of long and fierce debate in the United Kingdom in the 19th century, involving, among others, Matthew Boulton. In medieval Europe, standing as a godparent to a child also created a bond of affinity.

The Bible, primarily in Leviticus, contains prohibitions against sexual relations between various pairs of family members. Father and daughter, mother and son, and other pairs are forbidden on pain of death to engage in sexual relations. (Father/daughter incest is covered by a prohibition on sexual relationships between a man and any daughter born to any woman he has had sexual relationships with, thereby prohibiting not only incest between father and any possible daughter, but many women where it would be impossible for the daughter to be the man's.) It prohibits sexual relations between aunts and nephews but not between uncles and nieces.

The Qur'an mentions incest in the Surat An-Nisa, which prohibits men from having sexual relationships with the following closely-related women and/or girls: one's mother, daughter, sister, paternal aunt, maternal aunt and niece. Relations with wet nurses are also prohibited.

[edit] Forms of incest

[edit] Parental incest

Incest between parents and children can occur in same-sex or opposite-sex forms, in a wide age range.

[edit] Sibling incest between children

Consensual incestuous interactions between similar-age brothers and sisters sometimes occur according to a study by Floyd Martinson who found that 25-40% of college students had childhood sexual experiences with a brother or sister, a form of child sexuality.[citation needed] However, where significant differences in age or capabilities occur between siblings, where elders fail to provide functional families, and/or where force or deception is used, childhood sibling incest can cause serious psychological damage to the younger or less capable sibling according to researcher Richard Niolon. Sibling incest can also damage or destroy the sibling bonds. [specify][citation needed]

[edit] Sexual relations between cousins and other distant relatives

Map of the legality of marriage to first cousins in the USA.
Map of the legality of marriage to first cousins in the USA.

In most of the Western world, incest generally refers to forbidden sexual relations within the family. However, definitions of family vary. Within the United States, marriage between (first) cousins is illegal in some states, but not in others, and sociologists have classified marriage laws in the United States into two categories: One, in which the definitions of incest are taken from the Bible, and which frowns upon marriage within one's lineage but less so on one's blood relatives, and another group which frowns more on marriage between blood relatives (such as cousins), but less on one's lineage.

Twenty-four states prohibit marriages between first cousins, and another six permit them only under special circumstances. Utah, for example, permits first cousins to marry only provided both spouses are over age 65, or at least 55 with evidence of sterility. North Carolina permits first cousins to marry unless they are "double first cousins" (cousins through more than one line). Maine permits first cousins to marry only upon presentation of a certificate of genetic counseling. The remaining nineteen states and the District of Columbia permit first-cousin marriages without restriction.

Legal in: Alabama, Alaska, California, Colorado, Connecticut, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Vermont, Virginia

Illegal in: Arkansas, Delaware, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Texas (no new ones as of 1 September 2005; previous marriages are still legal), Washington, West Virginia, Wyoming

Legal under Certain Circumstances: Arizona, Illinois, Indiana, Maine, Utah, Wisconsin

On account of the Full Faith and Credit Clause of the United States Constitution, a marriage between two cousins where it is legal generally remains valid in any state where it would be illegal. Therefore, two cousins who are legally resident in Virginia and marry there, and then move to Michigan will still be recognized as married under Michigan law. However, in the absence of a Supreme Court ruling, the scope of the Full Faith and Credit Clause is not clear in this context, especially as it would have implications on whether states were required to recognize marriages commenced in Massachusetts between same-sex couples. There are conflicts and courts have interpreted the clause differently. Also: some states (such as Wisconsin [2]) have marriage abroad laws which make marriages by their residents in another jurisdiction in order to circumvent their state's marriage restrictions null and void; and marriages contracted in that state to avoid restrictions in another jurisdiction likewise void.

See also: Cousin couple

[edit] Covert incest and emotional incest

Covert incest and emotional incest are controversial terms used by some therapists to describe situations between relatives, usually parents and children, where there is no actual sexual contact, but, rather, an inappropriate emotional relationship. An example is that of a parent who interacts with their child in the same way as they would with a sexual partner, without engaging in sexual activity with the child. Those who use the term covert incest may use the term overt incest to describe sex acts which occur between relatives, although almost everyone simply calls this "incest" without qualification. Several books have been written on the topic of covert incest.[1][2][3]

The concept of covert incest is criticized as trivializing the gravity of incest. It is also criticized as demonizing parents who do not perpetrate sex acts against their children. Critics charge that the relatively new concept of "covert incest" is not associated with serious academic research, and that it is a creation of pop-psychology.

[edit] Laws regarding incest

[edit] Degrees of criminality

The laws of many U.S. states recognize two separate degrees of incest, the more serious degree covering the closest blood relationships such as father-daughter, mother-son and brother-sister, with the less-serious charge being pressed against more distantly-related individuals who engage in sexual intercourse, usually down to and including first cousins and sometimes half cousins. In New York State, close-blood-relation incest is a felony with a maximum penalty of four years in prison, while the less serious charge is usually only a misdemeanor. Curiously, many incest laws do not expressly proscribe sexual conduct other than vaginal intercourse — such as oral sex — or, for that matter, any sexual activity between relatives of the same gender, so long as neither party is a minor. This legal position is in stark contrast with that in Australia, where incest is punishable by a maximum of 25 years imprisonment for the more serious form of penetrating a child, even if that child is over 18, and 5 years for the less serious charge of sexual penetration of a sibling or half-sibling.

For many years, Andrew Vachss has written about the incest loophole in the laws of most U.S. states that "gives privileged treatment to child rapists who grow their own victims".

New York's law—much like that of most other states—allows the possibility of privileged treatment for a special class of offender: the perpetrator who is related to his prey. In other words, the penal code gives a discount to child rapists who grow their own victims.

In New York, sex with a child under the age of 11 is a Class B felony, punishable by up to 25 years in prison. The law is indexed appropriately, in the chapter on sex offenses. If, however, the sexually abused child is closely related to the perpetrator, state law provides for radically more lenient treatment. In such cases, the prosecutor may choose to charge the same acts as incest. This is not listed as a sex offense, but instead as an "offense affecting the marital relationship," listed next to adultery in the law books. It is a Class E felony, for which even a convicted offender may be granted probation.

Andrew Vachss, New York Times Op-Ed, November 20, 2005

The New York incest loophole was finally closed through legislative action in 2006.

[edit] Adult incest

Incestuous relations between adults, such as between an adult brother and sister, are illegal in most parts of the industrialized world[citation needed] [specify] These laws are sometimes questioned on the grounds that such relations do not harm other people (provided the couple have no children) and so should not be criminalized. Proposals have been made from time to time to repeal these laws — for example, the proposal by the Australian Model Criminal Code Officer's Committee discussion paper "Sexual Offenses against the Person" released in November 1996. (This particular proposal was later withdrawn by the committee due to a large public outcry. Defenders of the proposal argue that the outcry was mostly based on the mistaken belief that the committee was intending to legalize sexual relations between parents and their minor children.)

In the wake of the Lawrence v. Texas (539 U.S. 558 2003) decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, striking down laws criminalizing homosexual sodomy as unconstitutional, some have argued that by the same logic laws against consensual adult incest should be unconstitutional. Some civil libertarians argue that all private sexual activity between consenting adults should be legal, and its criminalization is a violation of human rights — thus, they argue that the criminalization of consensual adult incest is a violation of human rights. In Muth v. Frank (412 F.3d 808), the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals interpreted the case applying to homosexual activity, and refused to draw this conclusion from Lawrence, however — a decision that attracted mixed opinions.

In France, incest isn't a crime in itself. Incestuous relations between an adult and a minor are prohibited and punished by law, but not between two minors or two adults.

In February 2007 a German brother and sister, Patrick Stübing and Susan Karolewski,[4] called for the country's incest laws to be abolished so that they could continue their sexual relationship. Although they were born into the same family, Patrick was not living with them when Susan was born and they met for the first time in 2000. Between 2002 and 2006 they had four children together although three have been taken into foster care. Two of the children have disabilities and whilst it is probable that these were caused by inbreeding, premature birth may also have contributed.[5]

The siblings' lawyer, Endrik Wilhelm, has lodged an appeal with Germany's highest judicial body, the federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe, in order to overturn the country's ban on incest.[6]

[edit] History

[edit] Ancient civilizations

It is relatively accepted that incestuous marriages were widespread at least during the Graeco-Roman period of Egyptian history. Numerous papyri and the Roman census declarations attest to many husbands and wives as being brother and sister (Lewis 1983, Bagnall and Frier 1994, Shaw 1993). However, other scholars believe[citation needed] that this impression is due to the common practice of lovers in Ancient Egypt to refer to themselves as brother and sister as a term of affection, not in reference to any sibling relationship. Some apparently incestuous relationships involved members of the royal family (see below for details).

Incestuous unions were frowned upon and considered as nefas (against the laws of gods and man) in Roman times, and were explicitly forbidden by an imperial edict in AD 295, which divided the concept of incestus into two categories of unequal gravity: the incestus iuris gentium, who was applied to both Romans and non-Romans in the Empire, and the incestus iuris civilis which concerned only the Roman citizens. Therefore, for example, an Egyptian could marry an aunt, but a Roman could not. Despite the act of incest being unacceptable within the Roman Empire, Roman Emperor Caligula is rumored to have had open sexual relationships with all three of his sisters, killing his favorite sister/lover when she became pregnant with his child.

[edit] In religious traditions

Examples of incest in mythology are rampant. In Greek mythology Zeus and Hera are brother and sister as well as husband and wife. They were the children of Cronus and Rhea (also married siblings) and, according to some sources, grandchildren of Uranus and Gaia (a son who took his mother as consort, in some sources as brother and sister, first people on Earth). Cronus and Rhea's siblings, the other Titans, were also all married brothers and sisters. Poseidon also managed to produce a child by Gaia namely Antaeus.

The play Oedipus the King features the Ancient Greek King having an inadvertent incestuous relationship with his mother.

In Norse mythology, Loki accuses Freyr and Freyja of committing incest, in Lokasenna. He also says that Njörðr had Freyr with his sister. This is also indicated in the Ynglinga saga which says that incest was legal among the Vanir.

Hinduism speaks of incest in highly abhorrent terms. Hindus were greatly fearful of the bad effects of incest and thus practice to date strict rules of both endogamy and exogamy, that is, marriage in the same caste (varna) but not in the same family tree (gotra) or bloodline (Parivara).

In the Hebrew Bible, Lot's daughters wanted to continue their family line, because their mother had died without leaving any sons to continue their family. They assumed it was their responsibility to bear children and enable the continuation of their family. On two subsequent nights, according to the plan of the oldest daughter, they got their father drunk enough to have sexual intercourse with them, drunk enough that he is described as being unaware of what was happening. Soon afterwards they each became pregnant. The first son was named Moab (Hebrew, lit., "from the father" [meh-Av]). He was the patriarch of the nation known as Moab. The second son was named Ammon or Ben-Ammi (Hebrew, lit., "from our nation"). He became the patriarch of the nation of Ammon. The resulting unusual complicated family relationships are explored in a riddle in the Exeter Book, which says that of Moab and Ben-Ammi, each is the other's uncle and nephew.

There are more examples of incest in the Hebrew Bible: see Biblical references to incest.

[edit] In folklore

In Icelandic folklore a common plot involves a brother and sister (illegally) conceiving a child. They subsequently escape justice by moving to a remote valley. There they proceed to have several more children. The man has some magical abilities which he uses to direct travelers to or away from the valley as he chooses. The siblings always have exactly one daughter but any number of sons. Eventually the magician allows a young man (usually searching for sheep) into the valley and asks him to marry the daughter and give himself and his sister a civilized burial upon their deaths. This is subsequently done.

In Norse legends, the hero Sigmund and his sister Signy murdered her children and begat a son, Sinfjötli. When Sinfjötli had grown up, he and Sigmund murdered Signy's husband Siggeir. The element of incest also appears in the version of the story used in Wagner's opera-cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen, in which Siegfried is the offspring of Siegmund and his sister Sieglinde.

The legendary Danish king Hrólfr kraki was born from an incestuous union of Helgi and Yrsa.

Sibling incest forms an important part of the plot in the story of Kullervo in the Finnish national epic, the Kalevala, as also in medieval versions of the British legend of King Arthur.

In Sri Lankan folklore, there are at least three significant instances where incest is mentioned. The forefather of the Sinhala race, "Sinhabahu", is a king who married his own sister "Sinhaseevali". Incest is again mentioned when King Vijaya's son and daughter fled to the jungle together in protest of their father's second marriage. Also, the brother "Dantha" and the sister "Hemamalini" who brought the sacred tooth relic of Lord Buddha to the island, seemed to also have a married relationship. Despite the liberal mentioning of incest in folklore, Sri Lankan culture regards incest as a taboo. Then again, contemporary Sri Lankan culture is heavily influenced by the cultures of former colonial rulers, during the last couple of centuries.

In fairy tales of Aarne-Thompson folktale type 510B, the persecuted heroine, the heroine is persecuted by her father, and most usually, the persecution is an attempt to marry her, as in Allerleirauh or Donkeyskin. This was taken up into the legend of Saint Dymphna.

Several Child ballads have the motif of brother-sister incest, such as Sheath and Knife. This is usually unwitting (as in The Bonny Hind, the siblings usually have not seen in each in a long time, or at all) but always ends tragically.

In ancient Vietnamese folklore, there is a tale of a brother and a sister. One time, when the brother fought with his sister over a toy, he mashed a stone to her head. She fell down unconscious. He thought he killed his sister. Afraid of the punishment, he fled. Years later, by coincidence, they met each other, fell in love and married without knowing they were siblings. They built a house along a seashore. He was fisherman, she was housewife. They had a son. One day, he discovered a scar in her head. She told him about the childhood fight with her brother. He discovered that his wife was his little sister. Overwhelmed with incest’s guilt, he left for the sea. She came to the top of the hill looking and waiting for him everyday. He never came back. She died in waiting and became "Hon vong phu" (The stone’s waiting for her husband).

[edit] Fiction

Main article: Incest in fiction

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

[edit] Support organizations

[edit] Political organizations

  • PROTECT is a national pro-child, anti-crime membership association working to eliminate the "incest exception" laws in states where they still exist.

[edit] Published articles

  • Intrafamilial (Incest) Abuse Resources provided by Andrew Vachss, an attorney who represents children and youth exclusively, with 30 years experience in child protective work.
  • Article: The Gentle People -- "Impressed by their piety, courts have permitted the Amish to live outside the law..."
  • Forbidden Fruit -- "Inbreeding among polygamists along the Arizona-Utah border is producing a caste of severely retarded and deformed children."

[edit] Social issues

[edit] Legal issues

[edit] Science and Biology

[edit] Statistics

[edit] References

  1. ^ Silently Seduced: When Parents Make their Children Partners - Understanding Covert Incest (ISBN 1-55874-131-3)
  2. ^ When He's Married to His Mom: How to Help Mother-Enmeshed Men Open Their Hearts to True Love, Kenneth Adams
  3. ^ The Emotional Incest Syndrome: What to Do When A Parent's Love Rules Your Life by Pat Love
  4. ^ http://www.berlingske.dk/udland/artikel:aid=870966
  5. ^ Sky News "Challenge To Incest Laws".
  6. ^ BBC News "Couple Stand by Forbidden Love".

[edit] Further reading

  • Adams, Kenneth, M., Silently Seduced: When Parents Make Their Children Their Partners, Understanding Covert Incest, HCI, 1991.
  • Adams, Kenneth, M., When He's Married to His Mom: How to Help Mother-Enmeshed Men Open Their Hearts To True Love, Fireside, 2007.
  • Anderson, Peter B., and Cindy Struckman-Johnson, Sexually Aggressive Women: Current Persectives and Controversies, Guilford, 1998.
  • Bagnall, Roger S. and Bruce W. Frier, The demography of Roman Egypt: Cambridge, 1994
  • Bixler, Ray H. "Comment on the Incidence and Purpose of Royal Sibling Incest," American Ethnologist, 9(3) (Aug. 1982), pp. 580-582.
  • Blume, E. Sue, Secret Survivors: Uncovering Incest and its Aftereffects in Women, Ballantine, 1991.
  • DeMilly, Walter, In My Father's Arms: A True Story of Incest, University of Wisconsin Press, 1999.
  • Elliot, Michelle, Female Sexual Abuse of Children, Guilford, 1994.
  • Forward, Susan (1990). Toxic Parents: Overcoming Their Hurtful Legacy and Reclaiming Your Life. Bantam. ISBN 0-553-28434-7. 
  • Gil, Eliana, Treating Abused Adolescents, Guilford, 1996.
  • Herman, Judith, Father-Daughter Incest, Harvard University Press, 1982.
  • Hislop, Julia, Female Sexual Offenders: What Therapists, Law Enforcement, and Child Protective Services Need to Know, Issues, 2001.
  • Leavitt, G. C. "Sociobiological explanations of incest avoidance: a critical claim of evidential claims", American Anthropologist 92: 971-993, 1990
  • Lew, Mike, Victims No Longer: Men Recovering from Incest and Other Sexual Child Abuse, Nevraumont, 1988.
  • Lewis, Naphtali, Life in Egypt under Roman Rule: Oxford, 1983
  • Lobdell, William, "Missionary's Dark Legacy," Los Angeles Times, Nov. 19, 2005, p. A1.
  • Love, Pat, Emotional Incest Syndrome: What to Do When a Parent's Love Rules Your Life, Bantam, 1991.
  • Méndez-Negrete, Josie, Las hijas de Juan: Daughters Betrayed, Duke University Press, 2006. ISBN 978-0-8223-3896-3
  • Miletski, Hani, Mother-Son Incest: The Unthinkable Broken Taboo, Safer Society, 1999.
  • Miller, Alice, That Shalt Not Be Aware: Society's Betrayal of the Child, Farrar Strauss Giroux, 1983.
  • Pryor, Douglass, Unspeakable Acts: Why Men Sexually Abuse Children, New York University Press, 1996.
  • Rosencrans, Bobbie, and Eaun Bear, The Last Secret: Daughters Sexually Abused by Mothers, Safer Society, 1997.
  • Scruton, Roger, Sexual Desire: A Moral Philosophy of the Erotic, Free Press, 1986.
  • Shaw, Brent D., Explaining Incest: Brother-Sister Marriage in Graeco-Roman Egypt, Man, New Series, Vol. 27, No. 2 (Jun., 1992), pp. 267-299 JSTOR article
  • Shaw, Risa, Not Child's Play: An Anthology on Brother-Sister Incest, Lunchbox, 2000.
  • Tyldesley, Joyce, Ramesses: Egypt's Great Pharaoh: London, 2000.

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