Nick Eden:
> But where do social constructs come from? I've always thought that the
> reason that we have toboos about sleeping with our sisters is that over
> the years this has been shown to be a bad thing, leading to stupid and
> deformed children.
Incest taboos are waaaaaaaaay too strong to be (rationally) accounted for by the odd unfortunate genetic result of breaching same. To put this into perspective, supposing one turned into a double-jointed hermaphrodite and (ahem) procreated with oneself (or mated with one's Mee Voralan-mushroom-sex- changed identical twin -- anyone out there scribbling down scenario ideas is a Sick Puppy <g>), and just _happened_ to be a carrier of a genetic disease, one's children would each only suffer it one time in four. And this is the worst possible case of "incest", much worse genetically than merely bonking a sibling.
While on the other hand, "in-breeding" within some rather large population groups still carries a greatly increased risk of certain genetic diseases. (Like sick-cell anemia, Sax-whatsit disease, etc.) But these are generally (heartily!) approved of.
Probably much more of a Freudian thing. Families instill assorted forms of sexual inhibition in their children (deliberately, and otherwise), so exercising oneself sexually _within_ a family cuts uncomfortably right across such strictures.
> Now Sartarites have a similar taboo, but not within the immediate family,
> but within a VERY extended family. So extended that there might not be
> any common blood in the two people. Doesn't make sense to me.
I'm afraid I can't cite any definative numbers, but I'm sure such groups exist in the real world. Some Indian clan (not caste) structures fit this bill, I believe, and are certainly not family-sized. Some of them display yet weirder features, such as double descent, brother clans, as well as being exogamous.
> Does the same thing happen in Scotland? As a member of the MacGregor clan
> (honest I am, even if it is tenuous) should only consider marrying people
> from other clans?
Leaving aside how one can be a tenuous clan member ;-), no, it doesn't. If this were ever true, it hasn't been for a long, long time.
Bad Sandy:
> However, [the taboo against incest]
> clearly is NOT the result of the "fact" that incest kids are
> mongoloid, because if this was the case, then many other animals
> would have evolved such taboos.
While animals don't, admittedly, have taboos, some social ways do have behavioural anti-incest mechanisms, such as booting adolescent males out of the <name of social group>. Though one could question whether they evolved for this "reason".
(For those wondering how Down's syndrome fits into this at all: it doesn't, since that's a quite different kind of "genetic" disease, one pertaining to gametic damage, not inheritance as such.)
> The Sartarites, embroiled in kinship disputes and
> organizations, probably have a very legalistic, carefully figured
> incest taboo system. Something like if you have the same last name
> you can't marry, but if your last name is different you can only
> intermarry if you share no common grandparent.
This invites quibbling as to whether Sartarites have (systematised) surnames, and if so, on what they're based, but this probably comes down to "bloodline".
David Dunham:
> I promised more info on East Ralios bloodlines.
I like David's ideas for social groupings in this part of the world: or rather the ideas of the Irish, to give credit where it's originally due. ;-) But I find it a tad confusing to call a derbhfine a "bloodline", since it isn't, in the sense I'm familiar with. This could get doubly confusing in the context of discussing Dragon Pass bloodlines, which are clearly (in KoS) defined differently.
Though the results aren't necessarily completely different, if founding a new bloodline is relatively common.
Jonas Schiott:
> When we wrote up the Otter clan (for Growing Pains) we
> took the definition literally: the male line is traced to the founding of
> the clan, thus there are only three bloodlines.
Each (DP-style) bloodline has a Founder; that isn't necessarily one of the founders of the clan, or even a contemporary of the Clan Founder.
Alex.
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