The Westermarck Effect | The explanation of the Tabu of Incest

According to its definition, a "tabu" is a morally unacceptable behavior either by a society, a human group or a religion.Incest is a sexual tabu that is present in most societies.In general, taboos usually be of a food, behavioral or language-related nature.Share in Science Daily Online to know what is called Westermarck Effect, which for many is the explanation of the Tabu of Incest .

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The Westermarck Effect: The psychological explanation of the Tabu of Incest

Although it seems strange to us, not all societies considered incest as a tabu when it came to their rulers.By believing that the origin of kings and queens was divine and in order to preserve that superior blood, in some cultures the real incest was practiced (already in our blog we have addressed Incest among the Egyptian pharaohs and incest among the kings of Hawaii, for example).

Incest is a word that comes from the Latin «incestus» or «incastus», that is to say «not chaste» and is «the practice of sexual relations between very close individuals by consanguinity ».Incest has been rejected by virtually all human societies throughout history, except the cases cited, however the explanation of this fact has been very diverse.Its origin may have an explanation anthropological, biological-genetic, be the result of a sexual selection or have a social or demographic origin.Among the hypotheses most considered is the Westermarck Effect .Let's see what it consists of.

1.What is the Westermarck Effect?

The Westermarck Effect | The explanation of the Tabu of Incest

Eduard Alexander Westermarck was a philosopher and sociologist born in Finland in 1862 and died in 1939. Among his main studies are exogamy, which is "The rule governing the choice of the spouse and prohibiting the marriage relationship between members of the same group " and the incest taboo.Westermarck is known as the first "sociobiologist."

The Westermarck Effect is also known as "reverse sexual imprinting " and defends the hypothetical existence of a psychological effect according to which "people who live nearby during the first years of their life become insensitive to sexual attraction to each other ».Westermarck was the first to mention it and he did it in his book« The history of human marriage »of the year 1891.For him, the reverse sexual imprint represents an evolutionary advantage since avoid inbreeding and at the same time explain the root of the tab u from incest .

The Westermarck Effect | The explanation of the Tabu of Incest

For Westermarck the" Westermarck effect "is a natural mechanism to avoid incest .I thought that up to 30 months the child/a develops an instinctive system that translates into a rejection of the sexual impulse towards people who live with it.Current authors believe that it lengthens during the first six years of a person's life.For the human being does not prevent incest because he will be condemned by society, but because there is something in human nature that drives him to do so, since in doing so he achieves a diversified genetic inheritance and avoids genetic defects derived from consanguinity.

The Westermarck Effect | The explanation of the Tabu of Incest

There are several studies that seem to confirm the Westermarck Effect hypothesis .They have been basically based on two groups: Israeli kibbutz and the pre-revolution Chinese marriage called "Shim-pua" .The Israeli kibbutz are collective farms where children were raised in a communal way until a few years ago.They used to group themselves by age and didn't have among them no type of biological relationship.Later studies have shown that among the 3,000 marriages between people born and raised in kibbutz Only fourteen were among people who had belonged to the same group and in no case had they been raised together during the first six years of life.Nor were sexual intercourse observed in adolescence or once they reached adulthood among those raised together.

The Westermarck Effect | The explanation of the Tabu of Incest

The marriage Shim-pua , in which a family adopted a girl to marry her son and both were raised together, it has been shown that when it is time to marry two were very reluctant and that married wives in these conditions had a fertility rate 40% below normal and also divorced three times more.

Another evidence adduced by advocates of the Westermarck effect is that in a study conducted among American students, people who have been raised with a brother of the opposite sex they have a moral judgment about incest directly proportional to the time of cohabitation with the sibling, even if it was adopted.They definitely believe that the hypothesis is true because the populations that have observed the "reverse sexual imprint" or "Westermarck effect" became predominant as a result of the negative effects of inbreeding in those groups that did not observe it.

2.Westermarck and Freud

Westermarck and Freud had conflicting ideas regarding the incest tabu .For Freud (you can approach his figure through these Sigmund Freud phrases) the incest tabu was created by society because the members of a The same family is attracted to each other and an example of this is the Oedipus complex.On the contrary, for the Westermarck, taboos are the natural result of innate attitudes and the Westermarck Effect explains the incest taboo in this regard.

Although there are voices criticism of Westermarck's ideas, there are many of his defenders and even the effect has been observed in many groups of primates being different according to the species the degree of consanguinity contemplated . Have you heard about the effect Westermarck? What do you think about him? Have you ever thought about it? Share your opinion with us! We will be happy to read you.

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