We explain what incest is and biological and social explanations for its prohibition. Also, what is exogamy and what does it consist of.
What is incest?
Incest is called consensual sexual relations involving individuals belonging to the same familythat is, they share a direct blood relationship, such as siblings, parents and children, grandparents and descendants, or any other biological link between the two.
In some cases this concept even extends to relationships between cousins, but the greater their blood distance, the less the tendency will be to consider the relationship incestuous.
Incest It is a practice that is culturally condemned, tabooed and even legally prohibited in almost all civilizations.who have always preferred exogamy to endogamy.
However, there were famous cases of incest in the history of civilization, such as eccentric rulers or very closed aristocratic castes, who sought to preserve the “purity” of their lineage. Even in those cases they are mentioned as something extravagant and morally reprehensible.
A biological explanation for the prohibition of incest would point to the fact that individuals who have close blood ties share a high percentage of their genome, so their union would impoverish the genetic pool of the community, that is, decreases the genetic diversity of future generationsincreasing the probability of diseases, mutations or hereditary defects.
Another way of explaining the prohibition of incest has to do with the fact that breaks into the harmony of the family structurewhich is also usually hierarchical: the elders manage the minors and so on. Seen this way, incest deteriorates the culturally constituted order and subverts archetypes ancestrally associated with civilization.
A final explanation, of a population type, would be that, if we evaluate primitive human societies, we will see that they were semi-nomadic hunters and gatherers, with very high mortality rates between young people and adults, which would require greater protection of the offspring by of the mothers, which would make them old by the time the new generation reached sexual maturity. Thus, young people would have had to look for a partner in other social groups.
See also: Otherness
What is exogamy?
Exogamy (with the prefix exoforeign, from outside), opposed to endogamy, consists of the search for viable partners to undertake loving or sexual relationships outside the immediate family environment, that is, between strange or unknown human groups.
Exogamy is a central concept in the constitution of human populations and our civilizationgiven that we are gregarious beings (we tend to be group-oriented) and we seek to maintain genetic, cultural and linguistic diversity in our populations, which enriches our possibilities.
Endogamy (with the prefix endointernal, from within), on the other hand, is the tendency to reproduce or get together only with those considered equal, or those belonging to the same social or family group.
It is a conservative tendency, which perceives diversity as a threat and not as gain, and therefore tends to impoverish (for the sake of preservation) the genetic material of the community.
Both terms can be used not only for genetic or reproductive issues, but also as a political, social and cultural stance in life, depending on whether people prefer the richness of hybridity or the impoverishment of the pure.
