When is it not incest?

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Taking a religious point of view, we are all sons and daughters of Adam and Eve. So therefore any relationship we have with another human is incestual in nature. Now obviously if that's the case the word 'incest' really has no meaning.

But ignoring that, when is a relationship with a member of your blood related family not incest? How many generations need to pass before the offspring can create their own?

Sadly I can't draw a family tree here but we'll take an example of a married couple called Bob and Sarah and they have two children called Jacj and Jill, those children marry other people and they have two children, those children marry... and so forth. When can the great-great-etc.etc. grandchildren have a sexual relationship with each other? How far 'diluted' must they be from their origional parents?

Every generation the blood of Bob and Sarah is halved in the children. What amount of similar blood is 'allowed'? Obviously Bob and Sarah's immediate children will have 100% blood (or 1/1) of their parents whereas Bob and Sarah's grandchildren will have 50% or 1/2 blood ties to their grandparents and therefore 50% relation to their cousins. The next (3rd) generation would be 1/4. The 4th generation would be 1/8.

Obviously they can't just have a relationship with their immediate cousin. For this to work they would have to have a relationship with their opposite on the other side of the family tree. Say the 4th grandchild of Jack could have a sexual relationship with the 4th grandchild of Jill. Remember Jack and Jill are both the children of Bob and Sarah.

 

From a non religious point of view: It would depend on how many "bad traits" are carryied by the family line and just how bad they are. First cousins seems to be to close, many of my 14 grandchildren (smiles with pride, best kids in the world) look and act too much alike to not be carrying a lot of what could be trouble. Second cousins seems to be about as close as is safe and that is also what the laws are in most states AFAIK but I could be out of date about the law.

 

Fourteen... bloody 'ell. Don't be telling my mother or she'll want me to catch up... being only child and all, gah!

 

??? Just got knocked off trying to post.
I tell my kids since I stopped with 3 I am the smartest one in the bunch. Stop when the parents get outnumbered!

 

Lol, Old one, your children must be nuts.

Incest is actually a bit more complex than that, depending on what society you take it from. Some say anyone raised in the same household, regardless of blood relatives or not. This means marrying your sister is fine if she was raised by the neighbors. Others are more like the standard today, but say relation by marriage or adoption is just as bad as by blood, so the brother of a now deceased husband can't marry the widow, nor can two children who were both adopted (from seperate families) by the same parents.

As for blood relations, second cousin seems to be the modern standard, but I doubt many would claim more than 1/16, and all human beings is rediculous. There must be a 'close family relation' and stretching that to a whole species which is ~150K years old and spans the entire planet is insane. You might as well say we're all 'close family relations' of cockroaches and black mambas at that point.

 

To clarify. A Second Cousin then would be for example your parents's parents's sibling's child's child? Therefore having 1/4 similar blood ties to each other.

 

I forget whether the threshold is 3rd or 4th cousins (5 or 6 generations). I think 5 Generations from the common ancestors is fair game.

 

@Abomination: To tired to figure yours out. Try this Someones grandchildren are 1st and their kids are 2nd so..great grandkids. I think in my muddled way we said the same thing?? Pretty far removed. Yes my little ones who are all but the girl much bigger then I am are a wee bit touched sometimes, get it from me :-D

 

First cousins are fine from a genetic point of view. The genes are sufficintly "diluted" for there not being higher risks than with any other couplings. In Sweden and I think in most countries first cousins can marry and such. It is mostly a social stigma and even as that a fairly recent one. Pretty sure that through history cousins marrying have been quite common.

From a personal view there is quite a large difference between screwing the cousin you spent your entire childhood with and the cousin you met twice before accidentely bumping into a hot chick on hte dancefloor and bring her home just to find out afterwards that it was your cousin you only met twice before.

 

If you count being allowed to marry as an indication of incest, then in England this includes:

Grandparents
Parents
Parents Siblings (Uncles, Aunts)
Parents half-siblings
Adoptive Parents
Siblings
Half-Siblings
Children
Adopted Children
Siblings Children (Nieces, Nephews)
Half-Siblings Children
Grand Children

In Scotland, Great grand-parents/grand-children are added to the list.

So having sex with your Cousin doesn't count as incest in the UK.

 

Wow, I hold a belief that 3rd Cousins would be pushing it. I mean I have several female cousins, all rather attractive, but the idea of 'having it off' with them disgusts me. I mean my mother and their mother share identical blood so my cousin's blood is 50% the same to my own...

I thought there were numerous reports that the children of first cousins were often deformed.

 

I was dead worried some time because I have a cousin who is fit as ****. If I didn't know who she was, I'd proper knock her hips out. Cousins aren't technically incest, but it is a bit... dodgy, pml.

 

@Abom:

I can't say I disagree with your feelings, although from a personal standpoint it's irrelevant.
Genetics are not quite as simple as your percentages either -

So unless your Mother and Aunt are identical twins and then married identical brothers (Which would be 50%), your "sameness" to your cousins is probably about 12.5%

The risks don't appear to be massively increased. From the NHS (UK National Health Service):

It particularly increases in families with a history of consanguineous marriage. (Second cousins or closer).

It's also worth remembering that we're all 99.9% the same anyway, and there's more genetic diversity in your average tribe of chimps than in the entirety of the human race.

 

From a religious point of view, it would be quite bad to disregard the genetic problems, as well. At least depends what religion and what point of view it is, but I wouldn't really be able to reconcile my religion with the idea of not giving a thought to what kind of stuff my kids are about to be born with.

There are two problems with incest: 1) genetics, 2) family relations.

For both of the reasons above, sexual relations between ascendants and descendants are particularly freaky. Between siblings, it also has to feel weird. As for further degrees of kinship, it depends on the culture, I guess, especially the social customs and the living circumstances. For example, it would be much freakier to go out with cousins if all the offspring of the given patriarch lived in the same place. The fact that siblings are off limits gives certain opportunities and keeps certain things straight that could otherwise go bad.

If anyone is interested, in most jurisdictions there's a marriage ban between ascendants and descendants, siblings and often also aunts or uncles and nephews or nieces, maybe even first cousins.

In the Catholic canon law (link), as a rule, you can't marry up to fourth degree collateral line (roughly translates as four births between you and the other person, it not being an ascendant-descendant kinship). You can receive dispensation up to 3rd degree (means you can't marry yourself or your siblings, but aunts and uncles or nephews and nieces are a different story). Suffice to say I don't really like the way certain people already know they are related before they marry and then they make some fuss and actually get the marriage declared null (the marriage once contracted can't be declared null for reasons of consanguinity unless any degree of direct line or 2nd degree collateral line, if consent persists in both parties).

 

To build on what Carcaroth is saying, brothers and sisters are not 100% identical, unless we're talking about identical twins. They are (regardless of gender) 50% genetically similar.

So when we're talking about 1st cousins, that's what the relationship would be if one of my brothers and I have children. Our wives aren't related in any way. Therefore, since my brother and I share 50% of the same DNA, our children will posess 25% of the same DNA relative to each other. With 2nd cousins, it drops to 12.5%, and 3rd cousins 6.25%.

 

With a nod to Chevalier who I tend to agree with my opinion as to second cousins being the closest anyone should consider chancing kids with stands. The first cousin risk of more than doubling lethal conditions is just too much.

 

Chinese aren't supposed to marry people with the same family name, since they would be considered brothers/sisters in a sense (and to prevent inbreeding/incest in every generation).
For example, my family name is Wong, and I can't marry another Wong (but only if the person's family name has the same meaning, since there are more than one word in Chinese pronounced as Wong).

Kinda flawed actually, since a girl would have to change her family name when she marries out of the family and her children would have the father's family name instead.

How much it is adhered to depends on the society I suppose, but my parents are still pretty much against such marriages. I guess even now, its still frowned upon.

 

I'd say at least second cousin, and you must also be unaware of your blood relationship with the other person.

For example, in my school, there is a girl who I suspect is the grandchild of my grandfather's brother. She has the exact same last name, and to make it even more freakier, she has the same first name as my sister. Needless to say (?), I avoid even looking her way.

 

I understand genetically the non-identical twins wouldn't be genetically identical, but to say they're 50% is also incorrect since there are so many genetic combinations possible between the two. It's not a matter of just X and Y, there is the eye and hair color, bone structure, facial features, height etc. and your sibling won't have brown eyes BECAUSE you have blue eyes. It is entirely possible for your year younger sibling to have identical DNA to you, however the PROBABILITY is low.

I was using blood-ties since it's the only thing one can be 100% sure about the division. I know it doesn't have much scientific backing but it sure as hell has some social backing.

 

No, it's absolutely correct that it's 50% genetically identical between siblings. If you have 10 brothers and 10 sisters, you will share 50% of your DNA between all of them, and all of them will share 50% of their DNA with each other. I have two brothers. 50% of my DNA is the same as theirs, and 50% of their DNA between them is also in common. You're correct that gender has nothing to do with it.

It is because of the very thing you mention that this is true - there are literally billions of genes that are passed on by each parent, and for each gene, you have a 50-50 chance of getting either of the two genes that each parent possesses. It's just like flipping a coin two billion times. Maybe you won't get exactly 1 billion heads and one billion tails, but with a sample size that large, you will still approximate a 50-50 distribution. Siblings are 50% genetically identical, even though in reality you may only be 49.9999% identical or as much as 50.0001% identical - that's still 50-50 for all practical purposes.