curiousbear

In my society first-cousin marriage is prefered. My elders comment that it is mainly to keep family properties intact and prevent defragmentation.

But there is a twist. You can marry your maternal uncle's son/daughter, or a paternal aunt's son/daughter.
Affair / Marriage with your maternal aunt's (or) paternal uncle's son/daugther is treated as INCEST! In my village one such couple who eloped were caught/beaten/separated and forcily married to two different people. I met the girl last time I went to the village. Her husband is a nice guy, I still felt very sorry for her.

Jozrael

Where do you live again?

curiousbear

Also a girl can be married to her maternal uncle.

But paternal uncle is treated like FATHER!

And boys cant even imagine marrying thier paternal aunts, may be due to age difference. But there is heavy teasing thou.
-----Added 24/9/2008 at 05 : 56 : 10-----
I live in the US. But the place I am talking about is India. Specifically south india (its little different in the north and the south).

I went so much in to detail because of the word anthropology in our abaya's post

Anormalguy

Curiousbear, that's quite interesting, thanks for the information.

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lostgirl

My 4 siblings and I were all adopted at birth. I still could not see having this kind of relationship with my brother.

I once had a cousin try to convince me we could have sex, because we were not really related. There was no way I was going there.

abaya

Curiousbear, can I send you a PM the next time I teach Anthro 101?... I teach about "preferred cross-cousin marriage" (which is what anthropologists call your system) all the time, but I have never had any contacts who could give a firsthand account of how it works.

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curiousbear

Sure, why not? But will that involve travel? Will you pay the tickets?
Can I ask what is the significance of the word 'Cross' in the 'Preferred cross-cousin marriage'?

You know my aunt is mad at me (and our family) that I dint marry her daughter!

EDIT: Also the 101 may teach me several other facts too...

dlish

curiousbear - when you say south india, are you talking about Kerala?

all my workers are indian, mostly from Kerala.

interesting concepts you put forward though. i knew it happened, but not to that detail.

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curiousbear

Kerala is small part of South India. There are other states: Karnataka, TN and Andra. Kerala is a beautiful place.

abaya

Hahaha, well no. I just meant, could you write a longer description of the way it works, and what your opinion is of it (do you agree, disagree, does it feel normal, abnormal, etc), and then I could read it out loud in class or something... because the students always benefit from hearing firsthand accounts of cultures that are so different from their own.
"Cross" cousins are those who are children of your mother's brother(s), or your father's sister(s)... your parents' opposite-gender siblings. There are other societies where the preference is reversed, where they marry the children of their mother's sister(s) or their father's brother(s)... those are called "parallel-cousin" marriage preference... and the "cross" cousins are seen as incestuous. Go figure.

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Bill O'Rights

Well...this has taken a rather useful little turn. Good.

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Anormalguy

+1. When I was younger I had offers, subtle & blatant, from female cousins. I don't know if it's genetics or societal mores, but I also passed. I admit that there was some physical attraction, but it would've been way too weird for me.

I firmly believe that what happens between consenting adults is their business & none of mine. However, sexual relations between siblings, even if it's NOMB, crosses the line.

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curiousbear

Forget about family, even with neighbors I always skipped it. I blindly beleive anything sexual is only with your wife (from future). I find it silly now (missed lot of fun).

Thanks for the explanation of cross-cousins and parallel-cousins. In our society parallel-cousin are brothers/sisters. I some how find cross-cousin marriage logical and interesting. I know a friend who wanted to be my sister. She had a elder sister, younger sister, and a younger brother. I was elder to her so she thought I can be an elder brother. (I was pretty much a rogue at that time). I agreed and we were really fine. I had no sisters so I thoroughly enjoyed her relationship. I told her by being brother and sister now our children CANT be brother/sister. And tomorrow if they have a relationship we ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO STAND AGAINST IT. She kept very silent!

So here you go, the permission for opposite gender to mate, is at every other generation! It is weird but that is the logic. Now the repetitive inbreeding is prevented, but the family blood line is kept close. So do the properties (assets). Well I will try to do an article on this with all I know and can find and send it to you...

Personally, I did not want to marry any one from my community. When I was in high school I thought I will marry some one from an other country, religion or state. I thought that will be interesting and exploratory. I liked European girls, Russians, and Whites. To be total frank some one tall, fair, strong, independent. I had liking (not preference) on particular type of nose, hair, and even private parts). But I never was sure whether they will like me.

But at 25, I met my girl, got committed. She was from neighboring state, speaks different language, different community, different customs etc. But not really that different.

abaya

This is fascinating... I would very much appreciate learning more about this (especially the every-other-generation thing, and keeping resources in the family--I knew about the latter, but not the former). Do you mean that you had a fictive "sister" as well? (Fictive is another anthro term, basically for non-blood family, but still considered to be "family" anyway.) Even more fascinating.

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curiousbear

[QUOTE=abaya;2531746] Do you mean that you had a fictive "sister" as well? /QUOTE]
Yes I do. I dont know how one would really feel for a sister because I dont have a biological sister. I dont have any feeling for my cousin-sisters (parallel cousins). But this girl is from a different place, community, family. We just fell in love that way. I dont think her husband completely understands it. But my wife has same feelings that one will have for a sister-in-law!! She has a son now. She is beautiful, highly committed. But she doesnt like to be controlled and will retaliate with rudeness and arrogance.

Cervantes

I'm sorry but this just threw me off, Science doesn't dictate anything of the likes. What you are talking about is Eugenics, which has received bad reputation thanks to Hitler & co.

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curiousbear

I think Eugenics is intellectual natural selection! That is what is natural selection for beings with five senses could be close to Eugenics for beings with sixth sense.

It certainly is NOT natural in animal sense. But in human sense I think it is still natural.

I consider stonage, metalage and modern age as just extensions of evolution itself. Human dont have to get extra perceptions and organs to continue the evolution... Rather the evolution gets very scientific! Without all these developments the human race will be extinct in the centuries to come

But repetitive inbreeding will be problem. I had seen dogs, birds going through that in my own eyes. generation after generation they start losing thier senses one by one. fur is lost, then eye sight... and after 10+ generations they become infertile (not even interest in breeding).

Example: Captive Budgies, A dog breed called Rajapalayam suffers this. I saw it in person.

MayaRose

When I read your story, I was compelled by the sincerity in your narration. I'm a very young biology student, and at 20, I have little to no life experience, especially in such complex life experiences as incest and sex. And, as a bio major and anthro minor, I feel very strongly against incest because of the genetic problems that arise (although you were very good about contraception). But when I read this, I forgot about all that, and honestly, I felt like you had a genuine romance with Daniel. There was no abuse, you both were well aware of the consequences, and you reached an emotional and physical completeness that is very difficult to find with a lover in these times. I kind of felt bad that you didn't take him up on his alternative. Do you ever wonder what it would be like if you and Daniel were together? You seem to miss him.

I think you made a difficult decision, and an extraordinary one at that. I guess I'm just a romantic who sort of saw you and your brother together, regardless of the incest.

I recently met my second cousin, whom I had heard a lot about growing up. Jack was the family golden boy, handsome, smart, successful, talented, and athletic. Jack is a year older than me, and although we both heard about each other growing up, we didn't meet until his first cousin's wedding almost two years ago. I was eighteen and he was nineteen. And there was a pretty strong sexual undertone. I know that this sort of thing tends to happen among relatives who had never met, but I kept telling myself not to feel that way about him. It got confusing because both our mothers were joking about how if we hadn't been related, we would have been perfect for each other. I tried to avoid him for the rest of my trip, but every time I wanted to leave the room, he would be right there. Nothing sexual happened, but the tension was difficult to endure.

You are lucky to have had Daniel, and if I were in your place, I would not have any regrets except of the fact that I would not be able to show my love for him in public, that it would have to be clandestine and secret. Are there any times you wish you had him to yourself? Is he completely faithful to his wife, or are there times he wants you back? I know I should say it's twisted, but it sounded a little beautiful to me.

Strange Famous

I will give three arguments in favour of prohibition

1 - Society DOES have the right to enforce certain norms of behaviour. We, for example, prohibit drug use when it harms no one but the person taking drugs. I wonder people would feel the same level of ambivalence if the narrator of this story was talking about a consensual relationship betwene a father and a daughter? And that isnt a facile question, and I'd ask you to really think about it... because if brother/sister relations are ok, why arent mother/son and father/daughter?

2 - Simply, it IS more likely that children born of closely related parents will suffer serious genetic problems. In some parts of the Pakistani/British community marriage amongst first cousins is quite common - and there is very clear evidence of the vastly increased incidence of serious problems with children in such cases. These people are making choices that someone else may well have to suffer for. This point was dismissed very easily by the person posting the article, it ought not to be

3 - Abuse. Now, I must say that it is possible to have a relationship between closely related people that is genuinely consensual. But I would put it to you that the vast number of incestual sexual relationships which exist in the world involve either physical abuse or abuse of familial position. We have to make laws some how, we have to draw a line

Take the age of consent. In the UK it is 16. If a girl who is 16 years and 10 days has consensual sex with her boyfriend who is 15 and 330 days... I think very few people consider her to be a paedophile or an abuser. But we have to draw a line somewhere

We draw a line at incest because very often it is also abuse, either emotion or in some cases something like rape

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Grampareg

Whats the big deal So what if your brother rides you every once in a while as long as its great sex and both of you are ok with it go for it Its not hurting anyone

Confederate

I can be as freaky as anyone but incest is seriously fucked up.

Buzz

I"ve done some off the wall weird things.... But I'm not sure... about this. Too Each his own. I would say. ??? lost for a reply... sorry.

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StanT

Consenting Adults = none of my business.

Of course, my sisters had cooties. Ewwww

Xazy

I think it is wrong, that simple. There are somethings that just should not be done, even if consented to.

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KirStang

Alright. Tried to refrain from commenting, but does anyone feel like the author is a little naive? "All I had to do was say no, and my brother would not have married her." Yea. Right. And the brother would have probably resented her for a long time, before ultimately saying, "screw this" and marrying his fiance anyway.

I get the impression that the older brother is a bit of a ladies man, and took advantage of the naiveté of his younger sister--precisely why incest is outlawed in many states.

Thoughts?

John$

Sadly we do need laws to protect our culture from abuse. An older brother or sister can force their will on any younger sibling.

However the converse is also true. Two consenting adults, defined as aware of their choices, can have a good and lasting experience with another this way.

Now being aware of that choice is another story. I would speculate that in our culture we are not educated about sex to any degree. It could be because our educators are uninformed. The interpersonal energy exchanges from sex are quite powerful. They do leave a lasting impression and condition a person in very particular ways.

My thoughts are that we need to become better informed so that good and healthy choices are possible.

John

Scotian_

Not to change the subject but it still involves incest, I've read that Mother-Son incest is fairly common (& legal) in Japan. Supposedly the Mother helps the son out sexually to keep his mind on his education.