An evolutionary analysis of rules regulating human inbreeding and marriage

Abstract

Evolutionary theory predicts that humans should avoid incest because of the negative effects incest has on individual reproduction: production of defective offspring. Selection for the avoidance of close-kin mating has apparently resulted in a psychological mechanism that promotes voluntary incest avoidance. Most human societies are thought to have rules regulating incest. If incest is avoided, why are social rules constructed to regulate it? This target article suggests that incest rules do not exist primarily to regulate close-kin mating but to regulate inbreeding between more distant kin (especially cousin categories) and sexual relations between affinal relatives (often nonkin). Three evolutionary hypotheses about cousin marriage and affinal kin mating follow from this suggestion: (1) Rules regulating mating between affinal kin are means of paternity protection. Cousin marriage (inbreeding) is regulated because, if it occurs, it can concentrate wealth and power within families to the detriment of (2) the powerful positions of rulers in stratified societies and (3) the relatively equal social statuses of most men in egalitarian societies. Tests using the comparative method on a worldwide sample of 129 societies supported the three hypotheses. Two alternative anthropological hypotheses (derived from Freudian theory and alliance theory) failed to be supported.