The point is the thing that makes sibling incest so weird isn't that we're physically repulsed by people closely related to us but that we grow up not thinking of them that way, which suggests in a different culture we might grow up thinking of them that way. It also seems that people are now pretending that cousin incest is this incredibly bizarre thing when, uh, why?
The physical repulsion between full siblings is actually very much an evolutionary adaptation (presumably to the "nine heads" phenomenon). But cousins? Not really, if at all. People have studied this in various species of non-human mammals and found a certain degree of "kin selection." That is, where an individual would avoid a sibling (and I forget how it is they can tell...), they will still consistently choose a cousin, sometimes even a half-sib over a "complete stranger", i.e. one they share a smaller proportion of genes with. The reasoning behind this is that individuals try (not consciously, but through evolutionary adaptation) to pass more of their own genes to progeny (I should note not all species do this; but it's certainly not uncommon). So, I tend to agree with the cultural source of "marrying your cousin is bad." It is interesting, too, that this a law here in the U.S., where the average individual is far more diverse genetically, having a more mixed ancestry than the average European. This has changed in the past 10-20 years or so, but when I was growing up in Greece (mostly), I was unusual for having one completely "foreign" parent, and another "only" half-Greek. The majority of my friends had all-Greek, or all-English, or all-French ancestors for at least a couple generations back. Yet marriage between cousins isn't illegal many places in Europe - where, one would surmise, it would be more "dangerous."
I also found your point about siblings who have grown up separately intriguing. I don't know if you've read The God of Small Things, and I don't want to give too much away so I'll be vague... But I wonder if it's a case of siblings trying to recapture something that was taken from them. And I'm really sorry if this last bit is completely incomprehesible :-)
It makes sense to me that we could see something in a full sibling that just said TOO CLOSE. Even psychologically it would make sense. You could be drawn to the familiar, like a cousin, but at the same time you'd also not want something that was too much like yourself. That would have to be a strange thing about twincest, really--I expect it's an aspect that's exploited a lot in fics--that when you're watching a twin it's very much like watching yourself.
The new cousin=bad thing is very strange, especially adding the information you just gave about people in the US being more diverse anyway, since we are also the ones who seem to have a big taboo about it. I wonder why that is.
Heh, who knows... Perhaps Europeans are a bit more used to this since, not that long ago, all of European royalty was pretty much related to each other :-)
Actually, "kin selection" is actually something entirely different than what I was describing above. The term I was looking for is nonrandom mating, in particular inbreeding (duh!.. *slaps own forehead* )
The physical repulsion between full siblings is actually very much an evolutionary adaptation (presumably to the "nine heads" phenomenon). But cousins? Not really, if at all. People have studied this in various species of non-human mammals and found a certain degree of "kin selection." That is, where an individual would avoid a sibling (and I forget how it is they can tell...), they will still consistently choose a cousin, sometimes even a half-sib over a "complete stranger", i.e. one they share a smaller proportion of genes with. The reasoning behind this is that individuals try (not consciously, but through evolutionary adaptation) to pass more of their own genes to progeny (I should note not all species do this; but it's certainly not uncommon). So, I tend to agree with the cultural source of "marrying your cousin is bad." It is interesting, too, that this a law here in the U.S., where the average individual is far more diverse genetically, having a more mixed ancestry than the average European. This has changed in the past 10-20 years or so, but when I was growing up in Greece (mostly), I was unusual for having one completely "foreign" parent, and another "only" half-Greek. The majority of my friends had all-Greek, or all-English, or all-French ancestors for at least a couple generations back. Yet marriage between cousins isn't illegal many places in Europe - where, one would surmise, it would be more "dangerous."
I also found your point about siblings who have grown up separately intriguing. I don't know if you've read The God of Small Things, and I don't want to give too much away so I'll be vague... But I wonder if it's a case of siblings trying to recapture something that was taken from them. And I'm really sorry if this last bit is completely incomprehesible :-)
/long (again!) ramble
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It makes sense to me that we could see something in a full sibling that just said TOO CLOSE. Even psychologically it would make sense. You could be drawn to the familiar, like a cousin, but at the same time you'd also not want something that was too much like yourself. That would have to be a strange thing about twincest, really--I expect it's an aspect that's exploited a lot in fics--that when you're watching a twin it's very much like watching yourself.
The new cousin=bad thing is very strange, especially adding the information you just gave about people in the US being more diverse anyway, since we are also the ones who seem to have a big taboo about it. I wonder why that is.
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Heh, who knows... Perhaps Europeans are a bit more used to this since, not that long ago, all of European royalty was pretty much related to each other :-)
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