THERE IS NO SUCH AS THING AS "THE INCEST TABOO".

Any anthropologist worth their salt knows that incest is a social construct.

Hey Folks,

Awhile back, I published an article with a title intended to hook people’s attention: THERE IS ONLY ONE UNIVERSAL SEXUAL TABOO.

If people were free subscribers, they were surely disappointed, because I left them hanging without ever revealing what exactly I was referring to. The part of the article that actually talks about the only universal sexual taboo was behind a paywall. I thought that maybe I’d try baiting people with a cliff-hanger.

It didn’t really win me any new subscribers, but hey, it was worth a shot. The paywall on that article has now been removed.

Go read it! This article will still be here when you’re done.

SEXUALITY MUST NOT BE UNREGULATED BY THE TRIBE

What was behind the paywall was an excerpt from Robert Anton Wilson’s masterpiece Prometheus Rising.

I’ll provide a snippet for context:

It is sometime mistakenly stated that there are no universal sexual taboos. This is not true. There is one omni-purpose taboo which exists in every tribe.

That taboo stipulates that sexuality shall not be unregulated by the tribe. That is, even though no other taboos are universal, the taboo against living without taboos remains constant. Every tribe has its own set of verbots and thou-shalt-nots, but no tribe allows the individual to choose his or her own set.

An American President may not marry his own sister (if he wants to get re-elected); an Egyptian Pharaoh had to marry his own sister.

Because free subscribers were not allowed to leave comments, I don’t know what people were thinking when they were asking themselves what “the only universal sexual taboo” might be. I’m guessing that 9 out of every 10 people figured that it had something to do with incest, though.

Here’s the thing, though. While it is true that every culture that I am aware of has rules about who is allowed to legitimately fuck whom, incest taboos actually vary quite a bit from culture to culture, because kinship systems vary widely from culture to culture.

In a minute, I’m going to give some clear examples, but first I need to explain something about how language alters perception.

If you’ve got 10 minutes to spend on a fascinating video about linguistics, I encourage you to watch the following video:

In it, the amazing Mr. Void explains how different languages actually cause people to perceive reality differently.

For example, take a look at these two colours. They’re both blue, right? Not to Russians!

Because the Russian language has two distinct words for them, Russian speakers see these two colours as completely different. They are not perceived as two shades of blue, but as fundamentally distinct from one another. How trippy is that?

This is why Julian Jaynes said:

Language is an organ of perception, not merely a means of communication.

In other words, languages are not neutral. Speakers of different languages perceive reality differently, which means that different languages train our brains to interpret the electrical signals provided by our senses differently.

WHO IS THE MASTER WHO MAKES THE GRASS GREEN?

Robert Anton Wilson was fond of asking people “Who is the master who makes the grass green?”

The answer is simple: you are. The perception of colour that you experience when looking at grass is not caused by the grass. It is produced by your brain.

According to Chat GPT:

Color is the perception of light as interpreted by the human brain, based on the different wavelengths of light that are reflected or emitted by objects. Light consists of electromagnetic waves, and the visible spectrum includes wavelengths from approximately 380 nanometers (violet) to about 750 nanometers (red).

When light hits an object, certain wavelengths are absorbed while others are reflected. The reflected wavelengths are detected by the photoreceptor cells in the retina of the eye, known as cones. There are three types of cones, each sensitive to different ranges of wavelengths corresponding to red, green, and blue. The brain processes the signals from these cones to create the perception of color.

Color can also be influenced by factors such as lighting conditions, the presence of other colors, and the observer's unique vision capabilities. Additionally, color perception can vary across different species and even among individuals.

COLOUR IS A SOCIAL CONSTRUCT

So, it is quite literally true that colour is a social construct. After all, different colours are all made of the same stuff. Call it light, call it energy, call it electromagnetic waves or photons or whatever else you want. But colour doesn’t exist until it is created by the central nervous system. Colour is a way of slicing up the light spectrum so that speakers can communicate their perceptions to one another with a higher degree of specificity.

You know how people colour-code documents to help them organize information? That’s what human brains are doing all the time. And there’s quite a lot of variability in how different languages colour-code. Believe it or not, some languages only have three colour terms - black, white, and red. Apparently that’s all you need.

I’m focusing on colour because it is a particularly clear example of how speakers of different languages perceive reality differently, but the same general principle is true for your other senses as well.

As Alan Watts explains:

All your five senses are differing forms of one basic sense, something like touch. Seeing is highly sensitive touching. The eyes touch, or feel, light waves and enable us to touch things out of reach of our hands. Similarly, the ears touch sound waves in the air, and the nose tiny particles of dust and gas.

So, basically, your five senses are all ways of gathering information from the world around you. All languages refer to the same reality, but they slice it up in different ways. If you ask me, there’s a substantial amount of arbitrariness involved. Who can say why Russians wound up with two different terms for what we perceive as blue? Who can say why English-speakers don’t see goluboy and siniy as different colours?

If you ask me, there’s no logical reason. That’s just the way that things wound up. There’s more than one way to skin a cat, and the Russians slice their pussies up differently.

How different languages slice up reality into different colours isn’t even the trippiest example of how different languages train people’s brains to perceive reality differently.

That prize (as far as I’m aware) would have to go to how different languages perceive time. Believe it or not, Mayan languages have neither a past nor a future tense. And yet somehow they’re able to communicate everything that they need to communicate. Try wrapping your mind around that one.

But I digress. Back to the topic at hand.

WHY ARE INCEST TABOOS SO IMPORTANT IN ANTHROPOLOGY?

Anthropologists study taboo. Anthropology is, in the broadest sense, the study of human beings.

One of the things that anthropologists want to understand is why people do the things they do. And you can’t study that without simultaneously asking yourself why they don’t do the things they don’t do.

Why are Jews and Muslims forbidden from eating pork, for instance? Why do Hindus revere cows? There must some kind of rhyme or reason to these things, right?

Clearly, one of the biggest taboos that exists amongst human beings regards sex between family members. Furthermore, incest taboos are nearly universal, meaning that they are extremely important to human social organization.

For a few hundred years at this point, anthropologists have been debating about incest taboos. Lewis Henry Morgan, Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Sigmund Freud, and Claude Levi-Strauss all wrote about the importance of incest taboos.

Yet the matter has never really been settled, as far as I can tell. Different schools of anthropologists have different theories. Although some modern-day anthropologists, such as Helen Fisher and Christopher Ryan, still write about incest, most seem embarrassed by the inability of anthropology to refute the Structuralist theory that the incest taboo originated so that men could exchange their sisters to men of other tribes for their sisters.

That doesn’t seem particularly convincing to me, but I have yet to read The Elementary Structures of Kinship, the book in which Claude Levi-Strauss presents the idea.

I’ll let you know what I think when I get around to reading it.

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS “THE INCEST TABOO”.

It should be noted that there is no such thing as “the incest taboo”. In reality that there any many different taboos in different cultures which define who is off-limits to one another sexually.

In China, Taiwan, and North Korea, for instance, it is illegal to marry your first cousin, period. In other cultures, cousin marriage is encouraged. In others, it is discouraged but permitted. In still others, marriage between first cousins is off-limits if they share a maternal grandmother, but permitted if they shared the same grandfather.

There are also many kinship systems which are much more restrictive. In Haida Gwaii, for instance, you may only marry outside of your clan, and there are only two clans. That means a full 50% of women are off-limits to any given man, and vice-versa.

See what I mean? You probably thought I was being facetious, but it truly is accurate is say that there is no such thing as “THE incest taboo”. There are a multitude of different incest taboos that are more or less strict. The system that we’re familiar is pretty easygoing compared to many others.

This subject really does get quite mind-bending, and not in the way you might be thinking. In order to study incest taboos, you have to understand different kinship systems, and studying different kinship systems makes you aware of the extent to which our perception of reality is shaped by the language we speak.

Which brings us back to linguistics. In order to understand what I mean, I ask that you please indulge me and watch the following YouTube video, in which a linguist explains different kinship systems found around the world.

To get the most out of this article, you’re going to have to watch this video:

Pretty crazy, eh?

For all of the hundreds of languages in the world, there are only seven known kinship systems. That itself is fascinating. It suggests that there is a limited number of possibilities for human social organization. These are the kinship systems that have stood the test of time. If we want to conceive of the full range of possible societies, we should study each of the seven.

I won’t get into all of them here, and I won’t pretend to understand them all. But I really would suggest that people take the time to learn about them. Once you understand one other system, you have something to compare your own kinship system to, and you will understand that the possibilities for human social organization are much vaster than most people realize.

For my purposes here, I’m only going to talk about two kinships systems - the Inuit and the Iroquois.

THE ENGLISH, FRENCH, AND SPANISH LANGUAGES ALL USE THE INUIT SYSTEM OF KINSHIP

The system that we use in English is actually known as “the Inuit system”. Here’s what it looks like:

Given that you have been using this system since you learned to speak, it requires no explanation. It may never have occurred to you that things could be otherwise. But in fact the Inuit system is used by just 10% of the world’s population.

It is of course dominant in Europe and the Americas, but 90% of human beings on planet Earth do not conceive of kinship in the same way that you and I do.

A great example is the Iroquois kinship system, which to me is the next-easiest to understand.

THE IROQUOIS KINSHIP SYSTEM

Traditionally, almost all Iroquois people would have had more than two parents. Some had two mothers and a father. Some had one mother and four fathers. Some individuals would have had three mothers and three fathers.

“Impossible,” you say? “That makes zero sense. It’s physically impossible for someone to have more than two parents. Stop being ridiculous!”

The reason you’re thinking that, dear reader, is because you are thinking in English, and the English language uses the Inuit kinship system.

But in the Iroquois system, the word for your mother’s sister was the same as the word for mother. If your mother had one sister, you would have had two mothers. If she had two sisters, you would have had three mothers. And so on.

Likewise, your father’s brother was your father. So if your father had three brothers, you would have four daddies.

There are still kinship terms for uncle and aunt, however. Your father’s sister is not your mother. She is your aunt. And your mother’s brother? Not your daddy. He’s your uncle.

This stuff is honestly pretty tricky to wrap your mind around, but things should make sense if you refer to this chart.

DID THE HAUDENOSAUNEE PRACTICE COUSIN MARRIAGE?

The Iroquois System also differentiated between different types of cousins.

If you’re into anthropology, you have probably come across the terms “parallel cousins” and “cross-cousins”. But do you know what they mean?

As Chat GPT explains:

The Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) generally practiced exogamy, meaning they were required to marry outside their own clan. The matrilineal clan system prohibited marriage within the same clan, which would include parallel cousins (children of one's mother's sister or father's brother) since they belonged to the same clan.

Cross-cousin marriage, where one marries the child of their mother's brother or father's sister, could be permissible under Haudenosaunee kinship rules. Since cross-cousins would belong to different clans, marrying a cross-cousin would comply with the requirement of exogamy.

Therefore, while the Haudenosaunee did not practice marriage with parallel cousins, marriage with cross-cousins was generally acceptable within their social structure.

You having fun yet?

WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN PARALLEL COUSINS AND CROSS-COUSINS?

The children of your mothers (your mothers and her sisters) are your parallel cousins, whereas the children of your aunts (your mother’s brothers) are your cross-cousins. Likewise, the children of your father’s brothers would be your parallel cousins, whereas the children of your father’s sisters are your cross-cousins.

This is a lot easier when you look at the Inuit System to the Iroquois System side by side, though.

REMEMBER, YOUR MOTHER’S DAUGHTER IS YOUR SISTER

Hopefully, things are starting to make sense now. I assure you that there is a logic to this. After all, it’s not hard to wrap your mind around the idea that your mother’s children are your brothers and sisters, is it?

This doesn’t change if your “mother” isn’t actually the woman who gave birth to you, but her sister. Remember, for all intents and purpose, your mother’s sister IS your mother. Therefore, her children are your siblings. Same goes on your father’s side. Even if you have five fathers, all of their children are your brothers and sisters.

So far, so good? Give yourself a pat on the back if you’ve made it this far. This wasn’t at all easy for me to figure out.

So what’s left? Well, you still do have cousins in the Iroquois kinship system - they’re the sons and daughters of your aunts and uncles, just like in the Inuit system we’re all familiar with. The only difference is that they’re considered marriageable.

So there you have it. Now, if anyone asks you whether the Haudenosaunee practiced cousin marriage, you’ll have the answer: “Depends what you mean by “cousin”.”

Although it might appear that the Haudenosaunee system is more permissive than the Inuit one, one must also take into consideration the fact that incest taboos also applied to member’s own clan, even to people very distantly related.

If a complete stranger from a far away land turned up in your Haudenosaunee village but happened to be of the same clan as you, it would have been considered incest to have sex with them, even if no member of your family had ever met them before.

Like I said, the Inuit System is pretty permissive.

WHAT IS INCEST, ANYWAY?

The primary definition of incest is actually “sexual relations between people classed as being too closely related to marry each other”.

This of course begs the question: Classed as being too closely related by whom? According to which system are they being classed?

One thing is clear - if given the choice, many people will marry their cross-cousins. In The False Coin of Our Own Dreams, David Graeber even goes so far as to say that humans tend to prefer marrying cross-cousins.

For those of us who are into political anthropology, there are also questions about the relative merits of different kinship systems.

Personally, I am a big advocate for the Feast System, and the potlatch tends to go hand in hand with the clan system. Why is this?

WHY I BELIEVE THAT KINSHIP SYSTEMS ARE THE KEY TO SUCCESSFUL STATELESS SOCIETIES

Part of the reason that I became so interested in this subject is when I realized that kinship systems are absolutely key to stateless societies. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: anarchist societies do not govern themselves by written legal codes, but by custom and taboo.

Custom and taboo are really two coins of the same coin. Custom refers to things you must do, taboo refers to things you must not do. Both are transmitted through culture and are encoded in the mythology and spiritual life of any given polity.

In stateless societies, there is no welfare state to pay your rent when you’re recovering from an injury or suffering a bout of serious illness. There are no government handouts to provide for widows, orphans, elders, disabled people, or the chronically lazy. But in every traditional society, there is such a thing as a social safety net.

Rights come along with responsibilities, and providing for those who can’t provide for themselves is part of the “custom” part of “custom and taboo”. Usually, the social safety net is the responsibilities of different clans, moieties, houses, phratries, or societies, which are permanent sub-groups within a given tribe or nation.

At the end of the day, this does come down to extended families taking care of their own family members more often than not.

It’s not hard to imagine why this would be so. Almost everyone is more generous with their family members than with strangers, and we are biologically hardwired to provide for our family members.

So, no, anthropologists are not a just a bunch of perverts. Incest is actually a super-important subject if you’re trying to understand human beings, which is what anthropology is all about.

For those of us who are into political anthropology, where the goal is to learn about different human societies with the hope of learning lessons that can be applied in real life, we should compare the relative merits different systems of kinship. These structures are the foundation of every stateless society I know of.

WHICH KINSHIP SYSTEM IS BEST?

I’m guessing that there are pros and cons to each of the seven systems. Presumably, some would be better-suited to an egalitarian society than others.

The Inuit System draws a sharp distinction between “immediate family” and “extended family”. Why is this? Is this a good thing? How does this relate to inheritance? Could it be that Europeans favour the Inuit System because it makes it easier to justify sharing less? Are white people stingy? What are the relative merits of the Inuit System when compared to the six other systems?

I’ll leave it there for now. As always, I’d love to hear what you think! How do you think that language shapes perception? Is it possible that part of the problem with the world today is how the English language shapes our worldview? Do you have any examples of neat ways in which the speakers of different languages perceive reality differently?

I want to hear from you!

Love & Solidarity,

Crow Qu’appelle