Pros and Cons of Incest
I. THE PROS and CONS
PROS:
New biological studies suggest that couples consisting of third cousins have the highest reproductive success. Scientists came to their conclusions after studying the records of more than 160,000 Icelandic couples with members born between 1800 and 1965. The results of the study are constant throughout the generations analyzed. Women born between 1800 and 1824 who mated with a third cousin had significantly more children and grandchildren (4.04 and 9.17, respectively) than women who hooked up with someone no closer than an eighth cousin (3.34 and 7.31). Those proportions held up among women born more than a century later when couples were, on average, having fewer children. Furthermore, these new studies suggest that mating with a relative can reduce the chances of having miscarriages. One evolutionary argument for mating with a relative is that it might reduce a woman's chance of having a miscarriage caused by immunological incompatibility between a mother and her child. Some individuals have an antigen (a protein that can launch an immune response) on the surface of their red blood cells called a rhesus factor—commonly abbreviated "Rh." In some cases—typically during a second pregnancy—when a woman gets pregnant, she and her fetus may have incompatible blood cells, which could trigger the mother's immune system to treat the fetus as a foreign intruder, causing a miscarriage. This occurrence is less probable if the parents are closely related, because their blood makeup is more likely to match.
In view of History, some incestuous relationships were tolerated. Examples of these are: The Graeco-Roman period of Egyptian history. Numerous papyri and the Roman census declarations attest to many husbands and wives being brother and sister. Some of these incestuous relationships were in the royal family, especially the Ptolemies; the famous Cleopatra VII was married to her younger brother, Ptolemy XIII. Her mother and father, Cleopatra V
PROS:
New biological studies suggest that couples consisting of third cousins have the highest reproductive success. Scientists came to their conclusions after studying the records of more than 160,000 Icelandic couples with members born between 1800 and 1965. The results of the study are constant throughout the generations analyzed. Women born between 1800 and 1824 who mated with a third cousin had significantly more children and grandchildren (4.04 and 9.17, respectively) than women who hooked up with someone no closer than an eighth cousin (3.34 and 7.31). Those proportions held up among women born more than a century later when couples were, on average, having fewer children. Furthermore, these new studies suggest that mating with a relative can reduce the chances of having miscarriages. One evolutionary argument for mating with a relative is that it might reduce a woman's chance of having a miscarriage caused by immunological incompatibility between a mother and her child. Some individuals have an antigen (a protein that can launch an immune response) on the surface of their red blood cells called a rhesus factor—commonly abbreviated "Rh." In some cases—typically during a second pregnancy—when a woman gets pregnant, she and her fetus may have incompatible blood cells, which could trigger the mother's immune system to treat the fetus as a foreign intruder, causing a miscarriage. This occurrence is less probable if the parents are closely related, because their blood makeup is more likely to match.
In view of History, some incestuous relationships were tolerated. Examples of these are: The Graeco-Roman period of Egyptian history. Numerous papyri and the Roman census declarations attest to many husbands and wives being brother and sister. Some of these incestuous relationships were in the royal family, especially the Ptolemies; the famous Cleopatra VII was married to her younger brother, Ptolemy XIII. Her mother and father, Cleopatra V