Whatever Happened to German brother who maried hs own sister ????????????
- From: "Katrina"<blondes_gaulloises@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 18 Aug 2008 08:51:18 +0800
Whatever Happened to German brother who maried hs own sister ????????????
Incest: an age-old taboo
In 2007, a German brother and sister took their fight for the right to a
sexual relationship to the country's highest court, the BBC News website's
Clare Murphy looks at the history of the incest taboo and how it is changing.
When Henry VIII wanted to be rid of Anne Boleyn, he made sure she was
accused of one particularly heinous crime: sleeping with her brother.
According to the great modern anthropologist Claude Levi Strauss, the incest
taboo has been the driving force of humankind. By forcing man to find a mate
outside the home, disparate, warring clans have been brought together and
society has flourished.
Others see the abhorrence for sleeping with relatives as having a primarily
biological motive - a human instinct to prevent defective genes being passed
down.
"Society has long relied on the family unit as its basis," says sociologist
Vikki Bell. "That's why it has been so important to keep family roles clear.
"
It is not hard to see how incest can make family life very complicated,
potentially turning brothers into fathers and mothers into sisters.
Yet while most are clear that sexual acts between a related adult and child
constitute abuse and as such must be punished, there is no modern consensus
on whether society has the right to ban consensual sex between siblings, or
indeed parent and adult child.
Too close to attract
If Sigmund Freud is to be believed, everyone would be sleeping with their
close relatives given half a chance. Society had to keep these deep-seated
desires in check, he argued.
No need, countered Finnish anthropologist Edward Westermarck, who said that
if anything, close association in childhood automatically created sexual
aversion - in other words, familiarity breeds contempt.
His theory was tested in a study of unrelated children growing up together
in an Israeli kibbutz. Despite the parents being keen on their children
forming relationships, the children themselves had no sexual interest in one
another as they began to mature.
The theory was also backed up by another study in Taiwan by a US academic
Arthur Wolf.
He looked at two forms of marriage - one in which the two partners married
as adults, and another in which the wife was taken into her future husband's
household as a young child, growing up with him.
The latter produced more adultery, more divorces and fewer children than the
former. This, he said, indicated closeness as children stifled rather than
stimulated sexual feelings.
Locked up
But these cases, which in any event did not involve actual blood relatives,
fitted uncomfortably with the only well documented case of a society which
embraced sibling incest outright - that of Roman Egypt.
For about 300 years, a significant proportion of all marriages recorded were
between brothers and sisters.
The relationships appear to have been both social and reproductive.
But there might have been years between the siblings given the high rate of
infant mortality, so sibling husband and wives may have barely grown up
together.
The phenomenon of genetic sexual attraction - where siblings fall for each
other on meeting after an estranged childhood - accounts for some of the
high-profile incest cases of recent years.
In the German case, Patrick was brought up in a foster home while Susan
remained with the biological parents, meeting for the first time when she
was 16 and he 23.
And in the US case of Allen and Patricia Muth, which went to the Supreme
Court in 2005, the sister was raised in care, not meeting her brother until
she was 18.
Both of them have served prison sentences for incest.
Biological risks
Both of these relationships have produced children with special needs,
although whether this resulted from their parents' biological proximity is
unclear.
Some geneticists put the risk of producing a disabled child as high as 50%,
but this is hotly debated. Opponents of the incest ban also argue there are
double standards, noting that no-one would ban those with hereditary
diseases from reproducing.
In some countries, the law has tried to take into account the risks while
legalising incest in certain circumstances. In Brazil, an uncle and niece
may have a relationship provided they undergo health checks.
In parts of the US, first cousins may marry if they are beyond reproductive
age or ability.
But even in countries where incest between adults is not prosecuted, the
rights of both parents and children born of incest are not clear cut.
France dropped incest from the penal code under Napoleon - 200 years ago.
But siblings may not marry, and in 2004, a man who was having a sexual
relationship with his half-sister was refused legal paternity of his own
child.
In the Netherlands meanwhile, where consensual incest is no longer
prosecuted, the legal status of the child born of such a relationship is
ambiguous, according to Masha Antokolskaia, an expert in family law at the
Free University in Amsterdam.
Sweden is the only country in Europe which allows marriage between siblings
who share a parent.
"In many ways society no longer wants the state to intervene in private
lives when it doesn't have to," she says. "But it is still not prepared to
grant incestuous couples full rights."
There is also debate over how much laws affect behaviour. Some even argue
that what is proscribed becomes all the more attractive.
Not according to Joachim Renzikowski, a criminal law professor at Germany's
Halle University.
"I don't believe that because incest is banned, there's a certain attraction
about doing it," he says.
"But I doubt equally that getting rid of our incest law will result in any
measurable increase in cases. Our moral guardians don't need to get too
worked up about this."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6424337.stm
url:http://myreader.co.uk/gp/1265-1.aspx
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