Steven Pinker -- How the Mind Works - Hampshire High Italian ...

Family Values 459not a relative, they should be sexually indifferent or repelled. If they donot grow up with a person who is a relative, they should fail to berepelled. Being told in so many words that a date is really your brother orsister may be enough to kill the romantic mood, but an unconsciousimprinting mechanism at work during a critical period in early childhoodis surely even more powerful.Both kinds of illusions have been documented. The Israeli communalvillages called kibbutzim were founded early in the twentieth century byUtopian planners determined to break down the nuclear family. Boys andgirls of the same age shared living quarters from shortly after birththrough adolescence and were raised together by nurses and teachers.When they became sexually mature, the children who had grown uptogether very rarely married or even had sex, though marriages were notdiscouraged. In some parts of China, brides used to move into their inlaws'homes, giving rise to frictions that you can well imagine. Parents hiton the brilliant idea of adopting a bride for their son when she was still achild, guaranteeing that she would forever be under her mother-in-law'sthumb. What they did not realize was that the arrangement mimickedthe psychological cues to siblinghood. When the couple grew up, theyfound each other unsexy, and compared with conventional couples, theirmarriages were unhappy, unfaithful, unfecund, and short. In parts ofLebanon, paternal parallel cousins grow up together as if they were siblings.Parents pressure the cousins into marrying, but the couples aresexually apathetic, relatively childless, and prone to divorce. Unconventionalchildrearing arrangements have been found to have the same outcomeon all continents, and various alternative explanations can be ruledout.Conversely, people who do commit incest often have not grown uptogether. A study of sibling incest offenders in Chicago found that the onlyones who had contemplated marriage were those who had been raisedapart. Fathers who sexually abuse their daughters tend to have spent lesstime with them when they were small. Stepfathers who have had as muchcontact with their young stepdaughters as biological fathers do are no morelikely to abuse them. There are anecdotes that adoptees who seek outtheir biological parents and siblings often find themselves sexuallyattracted to them, though I know of no controlled studies.The Westermarck effect explains the most famous incest offender ofall: Oedipus. Laius, king of Thebes, was warned by an oracle that his sonwould slay him. When Jocasta, his wife, bore a son, he tied the baby up