Couple stand by “forbidden love”

Published by Tom

March 7, 2007

Link: BBC NEWS | Europe | Couple stand by forbidden love.

This brother and sister did not grow up together in the same family. If they had, most people would instinctively find the whole story too revolting for intelligent discussion. They met as adults, but interestingly did know that they were brother and sister when they fell in love. They now live together as a couple and have four children. They wish to continue to live together, but have fallen foul of the law. Patrick has already done jail time for incest and is likely to do more.

There is no doubt that, biologically, incest is a bad idea. The risks of birth defects are much higher. However, that is true in many other cases which are not regulated. Other people whose chromosomes would never ideally be combined can make their own judgements about whether they should have children. I suspect we would all advise this couple not to breed, but should the law interfere in the matter? The attempted interference here has not prevented the birth of four children, who are probably now glad to be alive.

No third party suffers from these people being together. Their one child not already suffering from having been "taken into care", would suffer from them being apart. Generally speaking, the state does not interfere in people’s choices of sexual partner, even though they are often ill-advised. The decision to have sex with someone is often taken on less than rational grounds and falling in love is an even more difficult area for legislation.

We can no longer really run the "unnatural" argument. The British and German States are very strongly in favour of people’s freedom to consort sexually in ways which were, for most of human history (and are still by the majority of living humans) considered "unnatural." Perhaps our view of incest as "unnatural" is also due for revision?

So what do you think? Are these people being unfairly punished for the breach of outdated social and religious norms? Is the German State interfering with their civil liberties? Or is this a valid law which should be enforced? Is it the sexual relationship that should be illegal? Or would it be sufficient to legislate against such a couple reproducing? If we were to legislate against reproduction on these genetic grounds, then why not on many others?

Finally, if incest should be criminal, is it right that the man should be punished and not the woman? How would you feel about Susan doing the next stint in jail? What about the children, while one or both of their parents are in jail? Also, how will they feel when they grow up knowing that German society thought it disgusting, to the point of criminality, that their parents should have produced them?

What is your view?

8 responses to “Couple stand by “forbidden love””

Martin Belam

March 7, 2007

Surely the argument that, oh well, they’ve had the kids now so there’s no point in prosecuting the couple for their crime undermines the whole principle that punishment should act as some sort of deterent. What about if you said “Oh, well, they got the car back now”, would that mean you shouldn’t still punish car theives. There are good reasons why incest is against the law – just because they “got away with it” for so long doesn’t stop it being an activity that society judges to be harmful

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TDK

March 7, 2007

The libertarian argument is that the state has no right to interfere in any act between consenting adults where no others come to harm.
A second premise is that knowing an act is very likely to have harmful consequences for others is sufficient reason to avoid performing that act even though sometimes no harmful consequences will occur. Thus we avoid wondering down the high street swinging an axe round our heads – it is our responsiblility to avoid hurting others not the victim to avoid my axe.
You acknowledge that biologically there is a good reason to avoid incest. Children with such biological problems can be said to have suffered harm as compared to children born to “normal” couples. Having children with your sibling rather than an outside party significantly increases the risk of such harm.
The love is immaterial.
The woman should be punished equally to the man but presumably the courts have determined that she needs to care for the children.
As your previous commentator states – restitution is not sufficent grounds to avoid punishment.

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Tim Worstall

March 7, 2007

Oh for goodness sake. This is just humanity being human. We’re programmed to like genes that are similar to our own. What stops us all from shagging our close relatives is that we actually grow up with them: sensibly, there’s something about seeing your mother care for another child that keeps the agape and removes the eros.

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Tom Paine

March 7, 2007

This is all very interesting. Thanks to everyone who has commented. One small correction, I haven’t argued anything. I really don’t know quite what to think about this one. There’s a real tension between my libertarian thinking and my sense of revulsion. Here’s a rarity. A blogger who doesn’t know what to think, has an open mind and is seeking guidance.
Please keep the comments coming.

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TDK

March 8, 2007

We’re programmed to like genes that are similar to our own.
I would appreciate your eludicidating the reasoning behind this statement.
I would acknowledge that we are programmed to fear strangers. That would produce an effect that was similar to your statement but it wouldn’t be the same thing.

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Croydonian

March 8, 2007

I would argue that it is more nurture than nature that makes us shun our siblings etc – children of kibbutzniks are deeply reluctant to engage in intimacy with each other too.
I suspect that pretty well any chap with a sister, or vice versa, feels quite nauseated at the thought of sibling incest, but instances of sibling incest are so rare that I do not feel that revulsion is a good enough reason to trump personal liberty.

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TDK

March 8, 2007

I would argue that it is more nurture than nature that makes us shun our siblings etc – children of kibbutzniks are deeply reluctant to engage in intimacy with each other too.
Is incest common in the non-human mammalian world?
Historically royal families are over-represented amongst those who have practiced either incest or marriage to close relatives. I would have thought they enjoyed a position that influenced any society’s nurture practices, yet rejection of incest usually reasserts itself after a period of time. It occurs to me that a person with knowledge of natural law might make a useful contribution.
Incidentally, I think “revulsion” irrelevant. I can think of lots of crimes that revolt me that should nevertheless be against the law – murder for instance. Equally I can think of many things that revolt me that should not be against the law – “golden rain”. The harm is not the notional hurt done to society’s sense of propriety, it is the physical harm done to the progeny and their descendents.

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Guthrum

March 8, 2007

Revulsion of this aberration is deeply ingrained in our culture,like croydonian I think it is nuture rather than nature, and probably dates back to when localities had smaller gene pool and every village had its ‘idiot’. When the survival of the group depended on having fit and capable hunters/farmers/workers carrying a weak member would lead to children being left on greek mountainsides to die. One of the greatest leap forwards in extending the gene pool I have heard one geneticist say was the invention of the bicycle. Pharoahs positively encouraged incest to maintain a restricted blood line. As to the Law, obviously in this case in has no deterrent effect, and logically as other ‘deviations’ are being normalised there is no reason why they should be prosecuted. However I think this is going to be very much a one off, until either a major epidemic/nuclear exchange requires a cultural change.

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