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 New Age Islam, Islam Online, Islamic Website, African Muslim News, Arab World News, South Asia News, Indian Muslim News, World Muslim News, Women in Islam, Islamic Feminism, Arab Women, Women In Arab, Islamophobia in America, Muslim Women in West, Islam Women and Feminism