Inceste

The inceste indicates a sexual relationship between members of the same family and subjected to an interdict.

All the difficulty lies in the definition of what are too close parents, and there are great variations according to the companies and the times, and even according to the circumstances (cf the Bible, which shows that the inceste, normally prohibited, becomes a requirement to safeguard a line dedicated without that with the extinction). There is a Typologie of the inceste founded on the social speech in connection with the degree of proximity and kind of the biological, imaginary relationship and symbolic system, social speech from which rises the incestueux feeling.

The term is often and wrongly associated with that of Pédophilie because among all the incestueuses relations, those between a relative and his minor are most violently condemned - although incestueux is seldom paedophile and that a paedophile seldom misuses his own children.

Lastly, the term can be employed in a metaphorical way apart from the field of sexuality to describe the relation between two very close people or entities (for example two companies).

Typology of the inceste

The inceste and the law

The Canadian law

Article 155 of the criminal code defines the inceste as follows: “A inceste whoever Makes, knowing that another person is, by his/her father, blood ties or his mother, her child, his brother, his sister, her grandfather, his grandmother, her grandson, his grand-daughter, according to the case, has sexual relations with this person.”

The French law

The term of inceste is mentioned in none of the two principal codes (penal and civil) of the French right. It disappeared from the penal code after the revolution of 1789. The law substituted the recognition to him, like aggravating circumstance, owing to the fact that a sexual assault, an sexual offense or a rape on a minor are made by a relative or tutor (“ascending legitimates natural or adoptive or any person having authority on the victim”).

Let us recall that an sexual offense qualifies a authorized sexual relationship; it is illegal only if it is made by major on a minor of less than 15 years (articles 227-25 to 227-27 of the penal code) or by a person (not necessarily major) having authority on a minor of less than 18 years, except emancipation by marriage; it is an offense (judged in front of a magistrates' court). The corruption of minor (227-22) is another offense, which implies neither contacts nor sexual relationships, but (inter alia) the exposure to pornographic material or sexual scenes. A sexual assault is a sexual relationship made with violence, constraint, threat or surprised (222-22). Finally a rape is a sexual assault comprising a penetration. It is a crime, judged in Court of Assizes. In all the cases, there are aggravating circumstances, inter alia if the author has an authority on the victim or if it is ascending not having the authority. The assent is considered valid at 15 years (18 if authority).

Apart from these cases, a incestueuse sexual relationship authorized between major individuals is thus not an infringement.

The Civil code prohibited however the marriage between blood relations (article 161), brother and sister (article 162), uncle and niece, and aunt and nephew (article 163). It also prohibits the adoption of a newborn of a inceste by his biological father, if this father is the brother or the blood relation of the mother (article 334-10). This provision makes it possible not to recognize the joint relationship of the incestueux one. The Court of appeal confirmed it in its jurisprudence (stop of January 6th, 2004).

The Swiss law

Article 213 of the penal code Suisse (delivers second, title sixth) clearly condemns the inceste in these terms:

1 the sex act between ascending and downward, or brothers and sisters German, consanguineous or uterine, will be punished imprisonment.

The 2 minors will not incur any sorrow if they were allured.

History

Since the Pharaonic Egypt and still recently in certain countries like the Peru for the family of the Incas, it was frequent, in the nobility, to marry and to have children with a member, more or less moved away, of its family.

These consanguineous marriages had, at least, various more or less dependant directions:

an imitation of divine characteristics (Osiris, husband of its sister Isis);
a demonstration of power (not control with the ordinary rules);
a concentration of legitimacy, ensuring the descendants a maximum of royal ancestors, while excluding the other families from these characteristics of chalk-lining and, by there, a limitation of the political risks.

This tradition disappears little by little: the current emperor of Japan is the first of its dynasty to being married with a woman not forming part of its family.

In the ancient Rome, the violation of the oath of chastity by the Vestale S was taxed with incestus and, regarded as a crime inexpiable, was punished by the death of the culprit, condemned to be buried alive.

With the the Middle Ages, the spiritual relationship also hoped to define the inceste: any union godfather-goddaughter or godmother-godson was thus prohibited, but also any union between a relative (father or mother) and the godfather or the godmother of the one of her children.

The inceste is not always symmetrical compared to the sex (for example: prohibition of the relations uncle-niece without prohibition of the relations aunt-nephew).

The companies which consider the father as negligible quantity (sometimes fault of knowing it) can nevertheless know the inceste (prohibition of the relations uncle-niece, for example).

The prohibition of the inceste

The inceste is often regarded as criminal, falling under an interdict social and penal and punished by the law, especially when it is made on a sexual minor . In this last case, the inceste often has heavy consequences for the victim - some speak about psychic murder - in its psychological, psycho-emotional and psychosexual development. The character of this interdict varied considerably according to the companies and the times but always existed a structuring law which regulates the unions between the beings.

In the Islam

Coran described well the women with whom the marriage is prohibited surate ANNISSAA (IV) verse 22-23:

“And do not marry the women whom your fathers married, except for the past (*). It is a turpitude, an abomination, and what a bad conduct! ”

“Your mothers, girls, sisters, paternal aunts and maternal aunts are prohibited for You girls of a brother and girls of a sister, mothers who nursed you, mother foster sisters of your wives, daughter-in-law under your supervision and resulting from the women with whom you consumed the marriage; if the marriage were not consumed, this is not a sin of your share; women of your sons born of your kidneys; just as two sisters brought together - except for the past (*). Because really Allah is Pardonneur and Miséricordieux; ”

It is noted that the Islam prohibited in hot line the marriage between ascending and downward ad infinitum. In collateral line, prohibition touches the brothers and sisters, nieces and uncles, nephews and aunts. Nevertheless, the marriage is allowed between cousins. Prohibitions resulting from the relationship of milk are the same ones as those of the relationship or of alliance but only the nursed child (**) is regarded as child of the nurse and her husband, other than his brothers and sisters.

(*): The infringements former to the revelation of these verses and opposite with these laws will not be punished.

(**): Breast feeding will be considered only if the age of the newborn does not exceed the twenty-four months (حولينكاملين) “ CORAN ”.

In the traditions judéo - Christian

The inceste is underlined in the talmud with the two others prohibited: the idolatry and the murder. The bible prohibits the inceste 27: “No one of you will not approach his relationship, to discover its nudity” “No one will not take woman, the woman of her father and will not raise the cover of the bed of the father”

The prohibition of the inceste extends to degrees which should be respected: third degree included in hot line, until the second in collateral line.

The sorrows diversified going in the event of inceste father and girl, mother and wire until that of fire. At the very least; the culprit was excommunicated and in the incapacity to marry. The capital punishment was also acquired in the event of inceste spiritual (between a confessor and its penitent) looked like a sacrilege.

The texts imply implicitly and, sometimes mention explicitly, of the incestueuses relations in the accounts:

children of Adam and Eve, except supposing the existence of human of non-adamic stock (what the history of Caïn suggests, marked so that “which meets it does not kill it” (Genesis 4 v.15-17): how its brothers and sisters could not have recognized it?)
Batch with his/her two daughters (they enivrèrent it, after the death of their mother, to perpetuate her line). The account is in Genesis 19 v.30-38;
Amnon and his/her half-sister Tamar, two children of king David in 2 Samuel 13

The universal interdict of the inceste

In general, one meets during all the history of humanity, and that in very diverse cultural communities, very severe interdicts concerning the inceste. This taboo is with few things close universal. Anthropologists refute this claim with the universality of this major Tabou and Malinowski, with its Argonautes of the Pacific went celebrates while supporting that there is no " Oedipus complex " near the population of this Pacific Ocean and consequently not of idea of inceste generated by this social speech. See the Typology of the inceste.

Why there is everywhere prohibition of the inceste

Various theories tried to explain the universal interdict of the inceste:

biological Theories finalists: the inceste would involve a biological danger to the species. These theories stressed the dangers of the marriages between blood relations, dangers announced again by the modern geneticists (risk of externalization of the recessive genetic diseases).

efficient biological Theories: in this type of explanation, the interdict is born from the instinctive, natural horror of the inceste founded on the “voice of blood”.

psychoanalytical Theories finalists:

With Freud, one registers the prohibition of the inceste directly in the order of the desire and the law. In family dynamics, indeed, it is “the father who draws up his opposition vis-a-vis the incestueux desire of wire for the mother”. But “the Oedipus complex is not reducible with a real situation, with the influence actually exerted on the child by the parental couple”. It draws its effectiveness from what it also works on the level symbolic system while utilizing “an authority interdictrice which bars the access to naturally sought satisfaction”. Then on the psychoanalytical level freudien, the taboo of the inceste represents the resultant of interiorized social pressures leading to the repression of sexual ambivalence towards the close relationship.

Prohibition is necessary to maintain the hierarchy between generations, the discipline and family cohesion, to eliminate tensions, jealousies, competitions.

According to Claude Lévi-Strauss, the interdict of the inceste founds the human society because it obliges the men to tie relations with foreigners. Because of this interdict, the men cannot indeed found of family with their sisters and must thus find women out of their community.

Consequences

August 1st

Anthropology

Power of the company marks?

Nowadays, one of the bases of much of human society is to proscribe the inceste. Some are even more categorical: a company is born when it defines the borders of the inceste. Let us say that such an interdict testifies in any case to the power of the social structures which are essential on the choices of the individual.

The danger of vulgarizing and the mesinformation

The risk to standardize this criminal act is to maintain and validate the perpetuation of a transmitted crime in a transgénérationnelle way. One does not know with certainty if that results from biological observations (the Catholic church was opposed to the marriages between blood relations as of the Moyen-âge, and the Islam has been opposed to it for more than 14 centuries, well before the discovery of the Génétique), or simply of a practice coming owing to the fact that the uncommon (which is the brother which can want to marry his/her sister, so much it presents little mystery for him?) in some generations in a usual company the prohibited statute of takes - since one has to make there with a behavior which never saw , with a thing which is usually not made .

The genetic argument

The inceste, before being a factor of degeneration, is a means of reinforcing recessive genes. Although the majority of the recessive genes are harmful (without what they would quickly have become dominant), some are it hardly (neutral changes). Reality has certainly explanations holding with the Sociologie.

The sociological argument

The ethnologists often consider that the prohibition of the inceste is common to all that is not Aristocratie in the human society (from where the exception of the Pharaons, the endogamy of the sovereigns of Europe, the existence of rallys in the very upper middle classes, etc).

Claude Lévi-Strauss sees there the articulation between nature and culture, the social base. The message is not according to him “does not marry your sister” , but well rather: “Gives your sister in marriage to your neighbor” .

The exogamy would be according to him at the base of the exchanges and alliances between social groups, enabling them to continue as such. The prohibition of the inceste would be then the base of the Exogamie by prohibiting the endogamy (whose limits strongly vary from one company to another) and the taboo of the inceste would be then a social construction intended to defend the exogamy as a base of the company.

This approach however was highly disputed by certain ethnologists (see Tabou of the inceste).

The incestueux couples plain in the mutual assent between adults and not-grooms are not always prohibited by the law (in France, the marriage with a degree of relationship higher than that of first cousins requires an exemption), but are it sometimes by manners.

In spite of the interdict which accompanies it and which Freud believed universal, the inceste remains a nonmarginal phenomenon. When it concerns a child (minor sexual) and an adult of the same family, it is often carried out in a context of sexual abuse, accompanied by secrecy and culpability which weigh heavily on the victims of the taboo - or more simply by the Violence carried out in the form of Pression.

The inceste in the myths

In mythology gréco-Roman, Zeus/Jupiter is married with his/her sister Héra/Junon.

Among the Greek myths that of Oedipus which without the knowledge kills his/her father Laïos and marries his/her mother Jocaste. It will be noticed that the city mentioned is Thèbes and the animal a sphinx, which is not without pointing out the role of the inceste in old Egypt.
Théias king d' Assyrie is object of passion of his/her daughter who succeeds in sleeping with her father who is unaware of with which it sleeps, during twelve nights. From this union is born Adonis. (brought back by Pseudo-Apollodore 3.14.4) Adonis is also considered wire of Cinyras, the founder of the town of Paphos in Cyprus, and Ovide tells the account with him in the place of Théias. (the Metamorphoses 10.297)

In the mythology of the ancient Egypt, most of the divine unions was incestueuses. For example, in large the Ennéade of Héliopolis, the couples Cabbage - Tefnout, Geb - Nout, Osiris - Isis and Seth - Nephtys is all of the couples brother-sister. The myth of the brother-husband was very tough.

Historical cases of incestes

With Rome Clodius Pulcher was shown of inceste with his/her Clodia sister;
Jean V of Armagnac married his/her Isabelle sister of Armagnac;
One lends to Ramsès II to have had children with at least two of his/her daughters;
the Ptolémées were incestueux and married between brothers and sisters;
Cléopâtre successively married his/her two younger brothers to respect the will of his/her father (who stipulated that the throne returned to his/her oldest son and his oldest daughter together). She removed them to be able to manage only the country.

Works of fiction treating of the inceste

Sequestered of Altona of Jean-Paul Sartre

Geminis of Argentina Albertina Carri

Viridiana of Shine Bunuel Palme of Gold of the Festival of Cannes 1961 with a rape uncle-niece

Niaye short-measuring of Senegalese Ousmane Sembène left in 1964

the inceste (My to coil, my its), film of John Newland left in 1970 with Romy Schneider

the Breath in the middle film of Louis Malle left in 1971

Luna of Bernardo Bertolucci left in 1979

the young grooms arrive of Emir Kusturica left in 1979

the Hotel New Hampshire John Irving left in 1981

Anna, soror of Marguerite Yourcenar in 1981

Flowers in the Attic adapted by Jeffrey Bloom of a book of 1979 of Virginia C. Andrews left in 1987

The Quiet Jamie Babbit (2005)
Bruits of love of Jacques Otmezguine
Passion Beatrice of Bertrand Tavernier left in 1987
death White-Snow of Jeanne Cordelier, Stock 1993
Sitcom of François Ozon left in 1998
Festen left in 1998, realized by Thomas Vinterberg, a close relation of the realizer Lars von Trier, watch how the inceste emerges in a very suitable family where the father largely misused his/her daughter and her son during long years
The War Zone first feature film of the actor Tim Roth left in 1999 Secret
Yojiro Takita left in 1999
Gladiator Ridley Scott left in 2000, where the son of Marc-Aurèle, Convenient, maintains a relation with strong incestueuse connotation with his Lucilla sister, and wishes to marry it in order to have a descent of " blood pur"
the pact of the wolves of Christophe Gans left in 2001 rape a sister (Marianne de Morangias) by her brother (Jean-François de Morangias).
Visitor Q Japanese film of Takashi Miike left in 2001
Innocent - The Dreamers Bernardo Bertolucci left in 2003
Ken Park Larry Clark left in 2003 with a marriage father-girl and a inceste mother-girl by procuration (the mother sleeping with the buddy of its daughter)
Two books adapted to the cinema with Isabelle Huppert in the main role: the Pianist (1983) of Elfriede Jelinek, Nobel Prize, carried out with the cinema by Michael Haneke in 2001 (inceste unmarried mother) and My mother drawn from the novel of Georges Bataille (1966, posthumous) put at the screen by Christophe Honore in 2004 (inceste mother-wire).
This dirty ground of Andrew Kotting left in 2004
Women in film Bruce Wagner
full moon of Igor Miniaiev
Old Boy of Park Chan-wook
Os Maias of Eça de Queiroz published in 1888
the pencil of dad of Ian Soliane published in 2004
Wounds, black bramble of Claude Louis-Combet, Publié in 1995: Account of a incestueuse relation between a Brother and a Sister
Volver of Pedro Almodovar left in 2006
Cement garden Andrew Birkin film produces in 1992: incestueuse relation between a brother and a sister, which has occurred following the death of their parents
Sinners , a precursory film of The Magdalene Sisters and which treats especially question of the penitent ones, these unmarried mothers sent in convents in Ireland, and which underwent the ill treatments of the sisters there. The film shows the course of an young girl orphenline which falls pregnant from his/her brother and who is sent for that in a convent by his family (her aunt) to avoid the scandal while one arranges oneself to marry the brother with another woman, chosy by the family. It is never known as explicitly that the father of the baby is the brother of heroin but the spectator includes/understands it rather quickly because it is skilfully suggested.
Benevolent the , of Jonathan Littell, published in 2007 and Prix Goncourt Grand Prix of the Novel of the French Academy of this same year, with a inceste brother-sister (max and Uma). Those have even children (Tristan and Orlando) although the narrator (the brother, Maxun Nazi homosexual S and sadist which, when it is made have, “becomes” to some extent his/her sister) does not seem to suspect it. In the book, Uma, the sister, is married with a Prussian aristocrat invalidates war and which one understands rather quickly that it is impotent. The book is in fact a metaphor of the myth of Oreste, probably in love with his/her sister, itself married to a peasant with whom it asks to be able to preserve his virginity after the marriage. The title also probably echoes the Erinyes , Greek divinities called the benevolent ones with a certain irony, since they continued until death the culprits of family crimes (of which Oedipus or Oreste).
If one regards the video game as an art, the play Drakengard , (Drag one dragoon in original version) puts in scene a Furiae young woman, supposed being the reincarnation of a goddess and thus to be of an absolute purity but maintaining in secrecy a incestueux love with respect to his/her brother and hero the play, Caim. The priestess of a dark worship will take a malicious pleasure to overpower it in front of Caim. She will show it to have failed in her role of goddess so much she is perverted and dirtied by this prohibited love. Looking at his/her brother who diverts his glance, horrified by the feeling reluctant desire that it tests in its regard, Furiae, wounded by this reaction and vis-a-vis these proper desires, will commit suicide.

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