levite

Yeah, I can see it also. In many ways, there was a de facto siblinghood established: just like adopted siblings, unrelated by blood, will still consider themselves family, and behave as though bound the by incest taboos. But again, Israel-- like most places in the Western world-- has a society that has a very strong incest taboo, so much so that it reflects itself in many ways in how we treat siblings, how we interact as families, how we live or don't live together.

I'm thinking now of some family friends of mine, who have a nine year old girl and and eight year old boy, and they just began forbidding them from showering together or sleeping in the same bed-- not because they feared the children would interact sexually with one another (that was never even mentioned), but because they presumed that quite soon, the privacy taboos would kick in, and they wished to spare the kids the chore of putting an end to these shared experiences, and (as one of the parents confided to me), they presumed that one or both of the children would begin experimenting with masturbation at some point soon, and it was only right to give them privacy to do so.

I offer that story because of the presumptions and points of view therein. The incest taboo in Western society is so potent and so pervasive that even considering it as a reason for separating their two kids at key moments simply didn't occur to my friends. The act was literally unthinkable.

By the same token, in the discussions within the Jewish community about halakhah (Jewish law) and sexuality, no one has ever, or I imagine would ever, propose weakening or reinterpreting the prohibitions on incest. There has been no communal thought to do so, and it would be phenomenally difficult from a halakhic point of view. But this is all further proof of what I am saying: nobody asks for justifications on the incest prohibitions in the Torah. They want to know why we are prohibited from eating shellfish, or from working on the Sabbath, or from marrying non-Jews; but not incest. That one goes without saying, because at this point, it is presumed by most to be self-explanatory.

And while, as a Jew, I am perfectly happy to let the matter rest as it is, nor do I personally feel any desire to engage in the act, I acknowledge that this is a socially constructed state of mind, both as a Westerner and as a Jew. I still don't believe there is anything "objectively" wrong with incest, provided that it is accompanied by genetic counseling in cases of pregnancy.

__________________
Dull sublunary lovers love,
Whose soul is sense, cannot admit
Absence, because it doth remove
That thing which elemented it.

(From "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning" by John Donne)