More Openness Is Required To Understand A Lot Many Things and Taboos
By
Sumit Paul, New Age Islam
1 March
2023
Recently,
an English Composition and Comprehension question with clear incestuous
undertones, set by a lecturer at COMSATS University Islamabad, has left
Pakistanis fuming and has become the government’s “top priority.”
While I
don't approve or disapprove of incest, I'm of the view that you cannot ignore
it and say that it doesn't exist or is mortally immoral. Human society is
evolving and every behavioural issue must be dealt with equanimity and without
an iota of prejudice.
The
lecturer in Pakistan may be wrong in the sense that he put this extremely
delicate question before rather young students. In other words, he chose the
wrong students and wrong age for such a complex issue of human (sexual)
behaviour. Advanced students of Psychology and Human Behaviour should have been
asked this question. That said, incest (Gotragaman/Agamya Gaman in
Sanskrit/ Zanaye Mehram in Urdu) is as old as human civilization. Karin
C Meiselman's book, " Incest: A Psychological Study of Causes and Effects
with Treatment Recommendations," states that, ' For nearly 100 years,
researchers have been split on the origin of incest taboos. In 1913, Viennese
psychiatrist Sigmund Freud proposed they exist because we have incestuous urges
that need to be repressed.'
In contrast
to Freud, the Finnish sociologist Edward Westermarck argued in 1891 that people
have evolved a biological mechanism to avoid incest. According to Westermarck,
people who grew up together would find each other unattractive.
For the
past few decades, as Freud's influence has waned in psychology, researchers
have tended to side with Westermarck. Some evolutionary psychologists have
proposed that we subconsciously estimate the relatedness of other people, using
cues such as whether we've played together and spent lots of time together. If
the relatedness is too high, the thought of sex with the other person triggers
"incest avoidance" mechanisms, better known as disgust.
Whether
incestuous urges in all human beings are deep-rooted or not, it's important to
understand that nature has its own way to create restrictions that become
taboos as time marches on. Almost all cultures around the world having
prohibitions against incest, and for good reason because there's no gainsaying
the fact that Inbreeding brings together rare mutations that can cause severe
birth defects. In the 17th century, Charles II of Spain, the last of the
Spanish Habsburgs – known for their inbreeding – was infertile and could not
properly chew his food thanks to a congenital overbite.
Incest was
prevalent in ancient Greek and Roman civilizations but today it's a
psycho-sexual behavioural taboo even in those societies. It has always been a
hush-hush issue. Yet, this issue has never been completely ignored by humans.
Somewhere in the dark crevices of all humans, there're subconscious incestuous
lurking and that's why great writers wrote on this subject overtly or covertly.
Oedipus Rex by Sophocles (this gave birth to Freudian Oedipus Complex),
Metamorphoses by Ovid, Pericles by William Shakespeare, Moll Flanders by Daniel
Dafoe, Laon and Cythna by P B Shelly, Ada by Vladimir Nobokov, The Colour
Purple by Alice Walker, The Cement Garden by Ian McEwan, among others are the
books in world literature that have incestuous elements.
Human
society needs to grow up to analyse this subject. A knee-jerk reaction to it
wouldn't lead us anywhere. Incest is beyond the conventional religious
morality. It relates to cultural and sexual morality in their diversified forms
and facets. Nothing is vulgar or reprehensible. We need to study every subject,
aberration or anomaly in a dispassionate manner. More openness is required to
comprehend human sexual behaviour. Too much prudery will only close all doors
and avenues to finding darker secrets and fantasies of humans.
-------
A regular columnist for New Age Islam, Sumit Paul
is a researcher in comparative religions, with special reference to Islam. He
has contributed articles to the world's premier publications in several
languages including Persian.
URL: https://newageislam.com/spiritual-meditations/openness-taboos-incest/d/129222
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