Maimonides’s Rationalization of the Incest Taboo, Its Reception in Thirteenth-Century Kabbalah, and Their Affinity to Aquinas

This article discusses Maimonides’s rationale for the incest taboo and traces its reception in Christian and kabbalistic traditions in the thirteenth century. Tracing the reception of Maimonides’s view enables recognition of the resemblance between Maimonides and Aquinas, the ambivalent stance toward Maimonides’s explanation expressed by Nahmanides, and the incorporation of Maimonides’s reasoning in one of the most systematic and enigmatic works of kabbalistic rationalization of the commandments, the Castilian Kabbalist Joseph of Hamadan’s The Book of the Rationales of the Negative Commandments. R. Joseph’s acceptance of Maimonidean principles and his integration of them in the theurgic Kabbalah reveal a conflict in the heart of its system and teach us about an important aspect of the theory of sexuality in Kabbalah. The inquiry offered here examines the inter-relations between divergent medieval religious trends in constructing the role of sexuality. Instead of the common presentation of Kabbalah as diverging from the ascetic positions of Jewish philosophy and Christianity, this analysis will elucidate Kabbalah’s continuity with them.

The Oedipus Tale Type in Azerbaijani: Folklore and its Socio-Psychological Semantics

In this article, I analyze tales collected from Azerbaijani territories from a psycho-semantic perspective, specifically pertaining to the Oedipus tale type (AT: 931, 933). The incest taboo, a common theme in Azerbaijani society, is discouraged in these tales through symbolic behaviors. In these tales, which were collected in different Azerbaijani territories at different times, the transgression of the taboo of incest firstly happens between sisters and brothers, later between mothers and sons. When we approach the fairy tale plots presented in the context of the Oedipus complex, it becomes clear that these fairy tales are also organized on the basis of the son’s point of view. This is evident in the tales because of their descriptions of the father—a common character in the Oedipus tale type—as the culprit of all anti-social and unethical problems. In the texts I present, the heroes of the tales generally derive from the disruption of the incest taboo between the sister and the brother, who has been left to die. I argue that the baby born as a result of dismantling the incest taboo—being removed from the chain (or from the family environment) of the social relations by the parents to be left to die and later living and not recognizing his mother—is portrayed as the main fact in the explanation of the events’ semantics.

A libertanian critique of incest laws: Philosophical and anthropological perspectives

This article is a libertarian critique of incest laws. On the basis of the libertarian “harm principle”, one must ask what exactly is the harm that incest brings forth. Traditionally, anthropologists have tried to rationalize the incest taboo in various theories, and lawmakers have used these principles as grounds for the criminalization of incest. These principles are the preservation of family structure, the enhancement of alliances and the avoidance of genetic risks. While I acknowledge that these rationalizations are plausible, I argue that they are still not sufficient grounds for the preservation of incest laws, and consequently, there is an ethical need to reform them.

Are moral norms rooted in instincts? The sibling incest taboo as a case study

According to Westermarck’s widely accepted explanation of the incest taboo, cultural prohibitions on sibling sex are rooted in an evolved biological disposition to feel sexual aversion toward our childhood coresidents. Bernard Williams posed the “representation problem” for Westermarck’s theory: the content of the hypothesized instinct (avoid sex with childhood coresidents) is different from the content of the incest taboo (avoid sex with siblings)—thus the former cannot be causally responsible for the latter. Arthur Wolf posed the related “moralization problem”: the instinct concerns personal behavior whereas the prohibition concerns everyone. This paper reviews possible ways of defending Westermarck’s theory from the representation and moralization problems, and concludes that the theory is untenable. A recent study purports to support Westermarck’s account by showing that unrelated children raised in the same peer groups on kibbutzim feel sexual aversion toward each other and morally oppose third-party intra-peer-group sex, but this study has been misinterpreted. I argue that the representation and moralization problems are general problems that could potentially undermine many popular evolutionary explanations of social/moral norms. The cultural evolution of morality is not tightly constrained by our biological endowment in the way some philosophers and evolutionary psychologists believe.

The Voice of an Incestuous Sister

This chapter investigates the voice of the sister, Satoko, who has an incestuous relationship with Akiyuki. There is considerable discussion in both Japanese and English scholarship of Akiyuki's breaking the incest taboo with his half-sister as a substitute for patricide. Although a number of these commentaries reference Satoko, little attention has been given to her vulnerability or her response to the incest. Thus, this chapter profiles Satoko's subjectivity by considering her as a sister whose sexuality is exploited as a strategic weapon in Akiyuki's bitter conflict with his father. This conflict is shown as the son's attempt to bond with the father. Drawing on a study of male “homosociality,” this chapter discusses Satoko's subalternity as an object of dispute in her father and half-brother's homosocial bond. A key element of the chapter is the analysis of Nakagami's interpretation and, in turn, a reinterpretation of “Kyōdai shinjū” (“A brother–sister double suicide”), a folk song featured in the Akiyuki trilogy that implies the playing out of a mythic family tragedy in Kasuga.

Evolution of kinship structures driven by marriage tie and competition

The family unit and kinship structures form the basis of social relationships in indigenous societies. Families constitute a cultural group, a so-called clan, within which marriage is prohibited by the incest taboo. The clan attribution governs the mating preference and descent relationships by certain rules. Such rules form various kinship structures, including generalized exchange, an indirect exchange of brides among more than two clans, and restricted exchange, a direct exchange of brides with the flow of children to different clans. These structures are distributed in different areas and show different cultural consequences. However, it is still unknown how they emerge or what conditions determine different structures. Here, we build a model of communities consisting of lineages and family groups and introduce social cooperation among kin and mates and conflict over mating. Each lineage has parameters characterizing the trait and mate preference, which determines the possibility of marriage and the degree of cooperation and conflict among lineages. Lineages can cooperate with those having similar traits to their own or mates’, whereas lineages with similar preferences compete for brides. In addition, we introduce community-level selection by eliminating communities with smaller fitness and follow the so-called hierarchical Moran process. We numerically demonstrate that lineages are clustered in the space of traits and preferences, resulting in the emergence of clans with the incest taboo. Generalized exchange emerges when cooperation is strongly needed, whereas restricted exchange emerges when the mating conflict is strict. This may explain the geographical distribution of kinship structures in indigenous societies.

Destabilizing structuralism in Pauline Melville’s The Ventriloquist’s Tale

This chapter examines the way in which Melville's novel challenges the ongoing influence of classical anthropological discourses of kinship and indigeneity via its parodic representation of Lévi-Strauss, its exploration of the incest taboo, and its interrogation of the power of language and writing. The novel offers several intersecting stories which demonstrate the imbrication of discourses of kinship with those of nation, and it offers instead practices and understandings of kinship which are both Amerindian and diasporic. It stakes a claim for indigenous presence and participation in the cultures of the Black Atlantic, thereby challenging theories that define diaspora against indigeneity. Rather than capitulating to the anthropological claim that kinship is a structural basis for culture, the novel offers an alternative understanding of kinship based not on genealogy or sexual bonds, but on shared labour within a complete ecosystem.