CULTURAL DETERMINANTS OF BEHAVIOR 



1469 



traction within the biologic family, between 

 parents and children, and between brothers 

 and sisters, which is dealt with by the uni- 

 versal incest taboo. Without the incest ta- 

 boo, the family as we know it would be im- 

 possible. Daughters would succeed their 

 mother in their father's affections, and 

 brothers would fight their father and each 

 other for the possession of their sisters. 

 There seems to be no evidence for any bio- 

 logic basis for the universal incest prohibi- 

 tion, and it has instead to be explained 

 psychologically and sociologically as neces- 

 sary for the protection of the family unit 

 (Murdock, 1949; Seligman, 1929; Mead, 

 1949b; Spiro, 1958). Levi-Strauss (1949) 

 identified the point at which the incest taboo 

 came into existence with the beginning of 

 culture as such, a figurative statement of 

 its importance. A variety of practices 

 around the world testifies to the close con- 

 nection between incest prohibition and so- 

 cial order; brother-sister and occasionally 

 father-daughter marriage may be permitted 

 or even enjoined as a way of differentiating 

 a royal or noble line from the bulk of the 

 populace who must live by a rule which only 

 the royal can break. 



The various social devices used to en- 

 force incest prohibitions may be prolifer- 

 ated, so that a community is divided in two, 

 with one-half of one's age mates classified 

 as sexually unavailable; sex relations with 

 a first cousin twice removed may be treated 

 as incest ; the relationships between brothers 

 and sisters may be governed by strict codes 

 of avoidance, coupled with myths which 

 trace the origin of love magic to an incestu- 

 ous relationship between brother and sister. 

 E(|ually convincing evidence of the social 

 cliaracter of the incest taboo can be found 

 in the occurrence of incest, especially 

 father-daughter incest, under conditions of 

 social breakdown among outcast groups who 

 live in slums or on the periphery of society. 

 Sudden changes in patterns of living (for 

 example, migration from a peasant village 

 in Europe, in which there are strict social 

 sanctions in which the entire community 

 shares, to the anonymity of a large Ameri- 

 can city) may endanger adolescent daugh- 

 ters left alone with their fathers. Both the 

 l)recautions which have been elaborated in 

 human societies and the i)oints of break- 



down suggest that the father-daughter re- 

 lationship and the elder-brother and 

 younger-sister relationship which mirrors 

 it, are the key positions, congruent as they 

 are with the attractiveness of the less ma- 

 ture female to the more mature male. The 

 opposite peril, attraction between son and 

 mother, although it seems to have less 

 strength, is also a biologic potentiality. 

 There has even been recorded a marriage 

 system in which grandsons occasionally 

 marry their grandmothers and have children 

 by them (Baiga, Elwin, 1939J. 



Whatever the arrangements, the univer- 

 sality of the incest taboo within the primary 

 biologic family means that all human beings 

 are reared to recognize forbidden as well as 

 permitted sexual partners, and this experi- 

 ence of prohibition becomes a component 

 (sometimes as incentive, sometimes as de- 

 terrent) in subsequent mating behavior. 

 Where the prohibition has been unusually 

 strongly enforced, all attraction to the op- 

 posite sex may be inhibited, or a type of 

 promiscuous search for the unattainable in- 

 cestuous object may be set up. But, always 

 beside the range of forbidden acts, words, 

 thought, which characterize the sex behavior 

 of human beings, we must consider also the 

 specifically forbidden objects, parent and 

 sibling of the opposite sex. In many cul- 

 tures, especially where all human relation- 

 ships are highly conventionalized, the regu- 

 lation of sexual attitudes includes a series of 

 avoidances toward relatives-in-law who 

 may in some way be identified with forbid- 

 den relatives, the most conspicuous of which 

 is the taboo between a man and his mother- 

 in-law which functions to reduce rivalry 

 between mother and daughter over the pos- 

 sible attractiveness of the young son-in-law. 

 Thus, before the marriage of the female it 

 is the attitudes of older males toward 

 younger females which must be kept in 

 check; after marriage, the focus shifts to 

 the tension between the older woman and 

 younger mature men between whom a re- 

 lationship is both tempting and socially dis- 

 rujitive of the marriages of the next genera- 

 tion. Various bizarre arrangements occur; 

 for example, a man may marry a widow 

 with a daugliter, and later, when the daugh- 

 ter comes of age, marry the daughter and 

 turn his fornuM' wife into a mother-in-law 



