Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: The near universality of the incest taboo against inbreeding between three sets of dyads in nuclear kinship units is an ideal topic for co-evolutionary analysis that is, the interaction effects between biological and sociocultural processes during the course of hominid and human evolution. Drawing from primatology, neurology, the sociology of emotions, evolutionary biology, anthropology, clinical psychology, and sociology, this paper not only seeks to shed new light on the origins of the taboo itself, but also on variations in (1) the power of the taboo to regulate mother-son, brother-sister, and father-daughter sexual relations; (2) the differences in the rates of incest among these incestuous dyads; and (3) the resulting differences in the psychopathologies that emerge when the taboo is violated.