Incest Taboo And Family 3b4w3d

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Incest Taboo and Family A STRUCTURAL APPROACH

Approaches to the study of the family  Evolutionary  Functionalism  Structuralist  Constructivist  Post-modern

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Structuralist Approach  Claude

Levi-Strauss – anthropologist

 Discusses

the relationship between incest taboo, marriage and family

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What is the incest taboo?  Prohibition

of sexual relations or marriage between people related by blood or people who are closely related in kinship (consanguines)

 Mother-son,  Oedipus

father – daughter, sister-brother

and Electra Complex (instinctual desire)

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Universality of incest taboo  Found

in every society

 An

abhorrence towards sexual relations between blood relations

 Hence  Severe

forbidden? punishment for transgressing incest taboo

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Why incest taboo?  Is

it because people realize that inbreeding will be detrimental to humans?

 Instinctual

aversion - Is it that we don’t wish to have sexually intimate relationships with people we grow up with ? (Westermack)

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Eugenic, Instinctual theories  However,

eugenic, biological, physiological explanations are not very robust

 Instinctual

aversion - why should the taboo be there if on its own something like this would not happen?

 That

it does happen also does not the instinctual theory

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“Inbreeding is harmful” theory  Levi-

Strauss argues that the dangers of consanguineous marriage are the outcome of the incest prohibition rather than its explanation.

 Inbreeding

weeds out the harmful characteristics after a while…

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Nature and Culture  Incest

taboo sits on the cusp of nature and culture

 Is  Is

it what separates us from animals?

it what helps establish us as ‘social’ beings?

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Levi- Strauss – incest taboo  Incest

taboo is in effect a prohibition against ‘endogamy’ and to encourage ‘exogamy’

 Exogamy

– marrying out

 Families

must marry outside each other and not within each other

 Endogamy

– marrying in

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A social rule to perpetuate society 

If people cohabited within the family, society would not be possible for social reasons. Relationships between families would not emerge.



Families would remain self-perpetuating units that faced the danger of dying out.



Taboos on marriage within family and exchange of women allow families to become inter-related



Gifting one’s sister to a man in another family rather than keeping her for oneself; acquiring ‘brothers-in-law’

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Theory of Alliance (Marriage)  Restricted  Creating

and Generalized exchange

networks in society

 Strengthening

social solidarity

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Social and cultural concept of incest  Ultimately,

the definition of incest is not based purely on avoiding those with the closest biological links

 Societies

decide what to define as an incestuous relationship/marriage

 Some

blood-linked relatives could be allowed while others might be prohibited

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Contd. 

Prohibition of marriage might extend to very distantly related persons on both the maternal and paternal side as in the case of north Indian marriage



However, in the south, marriage with cross cousins is allowed while not with parallel cousins



Maternal Uncle and niece’s marriage is allowed and preferred



Among Muslims cousin marriage on both sides is allowed

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Gayle Rubin’s critique of LeviStrauss from a gender perspective For men, giving the gift of a daughter or a sister to another man for the 

purpose of matrimony allows for the formation of kinship ties between two men and the transfer of sexual access, genealogical statuses, lineage names and ancestors, rights and people to occur.



When using a Marxist analysis of capitalism within this sex/gender system, the exclusion of women from the system of exchange establishes men as sellers and women as their commodities fit for exchange.



Rubin hopes for an "androgynous and genderless" society in which sexual difference has no socially constructed and hierarchical meaning.

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Parsons - a psycho-functionalist approach to understanding the incest taboo 

Links universality of incest taboo to universality of the nuclear family



Incest taboo operates to propel the individual out of the nuclear family



Socialization and personality development of the young child (Freud’s stages of child’s psychological development – oral, anal, phallic, latent, genital)



Attachment to mother

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Parsons - continued  Family

a small group of long duration.

 Apart

from erotic attraction, permits a high level of diffuse affective involvement for its

 Overt

erotic attraction and gratification (between the couple) is given an institutionalized place in its structure

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Contd. 

Sexual-erotic relationship between the marital pair - bond and symbol of solidarity of the marriage pair responsible for the family



Mother-child pre-genital erotic relationship, to some extent also with the father



Organic gratification to a diffuse spreading into a general sensation of well-being



Role in socialization of the child

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process 

Yet, this erotic relationship with the parent cannot be allowed to be dominant in later phases of child’s development.



Taboo on erotic relationship between post-oedipal children and both parents.



Mechanism is that of repression



Diffuse aspect of erotic attachment survives to positively motivate the child to learn a new role

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Contd. 

Distinctive function of the incest taboo is therefore regulation of erotic relationships within the family and in relation to the establishment of new families



New nuclear family is formed by the marriage of the child; cycle closed by his marriage and parenthood



Propelled into non-familiar roles

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Parsons contd. Not that children cannot be socialized outside the small group Larger kinship (lineages and clans, for instance) units might exercise restrictions on intermarriage where these (units) are of critical importance

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