If marriage is about loving someone, then why is incest wrong?

Question

That is to say, if the only qualification for marrying someone is that 'I love them', then why can I not marry my sister, my mother, or my daughter?

How does it hurt anyone else if I marry someone within my family?

Do all you people react to gay marriage questions this way? Heck, gay couples can't even have kids and you're telling me I can't marry my sister whom I deeply love just because there's a slight chance our baby MIGHT have birth defects? Come on, someone give my some real answer other than it's "gross".

Answer 1

even this question is WRONG! :O

Answer 2

I don't see that there is anything wrong with marrying anyone you are in love with, family included. Love is the greatest thing on earth. What goes on between 2 consenting adults is their own business. Not the neighbors. Not the government. Not the people asking and answering questions on this site, including myself.
And don't listen to those with their negative incest folklore, because it is just that... folklore. I see Jerry Lewis having telethons every year for children with defects. And they are NOT incest children. The arguments of "Incest is gross." "You need help." "God forbids incest". are not reasons. There has been no research about incest between 2 consenting adults, so they can't use science as a reason.
Gays and Lesbians were outcasts in our society for decades and centuries due to closed minded people. We need to open our minded to different ideas. And loving someone is never a bad idea.

Answer 3

It's a different kind of love, that's why. There is romantic love, and there are other kinds of love. Incest is taboo for a very good reason.
Our instincts tell us it's wrong, so it is.
Inbreeding can cause severe birth defects in babies, which is why you don't see it in the wild, and why people just "know" that it's not okay.
When inbreeding occurs there is not only a greater likelihood of defects, retardation and hereditary disorders, but also a lack of
variation in our genes. It is that variation that makes us, and other species so successful, and allows us to adapt to our environments.

We don't see interbreeding in the wild unless there is an extreme lack of other animals, and the species has no choice but to mate with siblings in order to ensure the survival of the species.
But inbreeding, especially long term inbreeding, is very harmful to our genetic structure, because you and your sister, or mother or daughter share similar genes, and in those genes you carry certain genetic disorders, which only show themselves in the case that both parents share the allele that carries that particular disorder.

I hope I explained that properly.

Answer 4

Well, seeing I've been looking for something like this, I can't resist placing an answer or ideas here.

I have been married almost 20 years and had been with my wife 25 years, I have a son who is 20 and I had a sterilisation done after the birth of my son. I was born as my mother was 17 and never knew my father. Later my mother married and had 3 other children, but at quite a big age difference to me. I later got adopted and we lived as a family together. I left home at the age of not quite 17. At that time my youngest sister was not even quite 6 years old.
Due to many different reasons I did not get on well anymore with my so called parents and therfore lost contact to my sisters and brothers or better said, saw them only very raerly.
Due to a big family reunion about 6 years ago, I saw my little 6 year old sister for the first time in many many years as a grown up woman and just the greeting kiss was for us both like "love at first sight". We both just had to keep in contact and the attraction and arousment between us was undiscribable. My sister over the years had married and had a child too. She too, totally independent to me, had also let herself be sterilised!

So, 5 years ago, we had very intimate chats and exchanged our feelings and on the other hand knew that it wasn't the right thing to do.

To save my marriage I then broke off everything and for the past 5 years we had no further contct and it seemed the story was over.

Unfortunatly I lost my wife 2 years ago and she died on a brain stroke at a very young age.

2006 we had a new family reunion! My sister and I met, and there it was, nothing changed, love at first sight, no explanation and no answers. Feelings like with no other women ever in my life and for her feelings like with no other man ever in her life! This time with a big difference though! Both single again and both with almost grown up children, sick and tired of going into further affairs and sick of restarting a new life with strangers and further with no need, then love was here in all forms.

At this point I must say that we live some 2000 km apart which made the situation even more strange, then both could have just gone back home and said oh well. Strange, but lets forget it!

But no, it just didn't work and finally through another coincidence to which neither of us really had true influence, her way led straight to my doorstep.

The rest of the story should be clear, we could no further resist and we saw no reasons not to, one for the simple reason that we can both not have any further children and therefor there are no risks!

We have also told our children about this although we tried to be very discreet. Strangly even the reactions of our children was just a pure happiness to see us happy (if there's anybody out there capable of understanding that)!

So, what I'm trying to say is, there are situations, well thought about, even stopped, self critisised but with extreem attractions and with unlogical remeetings.

I'd just like to make clear I do not see any incest behind our behaviour, then incest would be the reproductional part of the act. Many many brothers and sisters live their lives, never get married and no one sees behind the walls.

So, why isn't there a law that allows 2 sterilized (half sister, half brother), with no risk, not hurting anyone to enter the state of beeing married, especially due to the fact that both have grown up (or almost grown up) children and could (like gays can now!!) secure one another for life?

I will gladly answer any closer questions to this if asked in a normal human behaviour!

Best Regards

Answer 5

Get real, there are reasons for not marrying a close relative, the most popular being that your children would probably look like a cross between my dog and the creature from the black lagoon. I'm not going to get into the biblical reasons why this is wrong. There are billions of people in this world to choose from, without having to boink your sister.

Answer 6

A free country shouldn't restrict your personal choices if it brings no harm to anybody else. Gay and incest marriage between adults should be legal. No by laws, no frills and no exceptions anything other than that is bullshit. What people do on their own time with somebody else who is consensual is none of the governments business, and that is the way it should be.

Answer 7

Love is not the only determination for marriage. There are disqualifications for marriage. One being a family member another being a person of the same sex. I love my family members but not with a marriage love. Incest is not only wrong but it is dangerous. We all have genetic mistakes. Missing genetic code that really does not affect us that much normally. If two blood family members procrerate they tend to have the same genetic mistakes which will give genetic errors to the child and thus cause mutations and genetic problems.

Answer 8

Because the familly love for a daughter, mother, or sister, is a very different type of love then the love you have for a spouse. Their is a big difference between loving someone, and being IN love with someone. You love your family, your in love with your spouse. Also, most marriages are partially contrived to continue the bloodline of the parents. And since incestual relations lead to horrific results in offspring, that cuts out that reasoning for the marraige.

Answer 9

Even cousins are too close for genetic comfort.
You are 'putting us on' - admit it. Only an idiot would submit such a proposition.
Speaking of idiots - consider the idiots produced by incest between the royal families of Europe..,.in the past. It's said that some traces of those weird couplings persist to the present.
Quit screwing with our minds here.

Answer 10

Loving someone is not the only qualification for being **legally** married. The person cannot be a close relative... (because of incest and other factors), they have to be a certain age, etc. etc.

Answer 11

Forget about love. Forget about wrong, gross, taboo, monsters and idiots and deformities. Ok? None of that is the point.
The point is that the great majority of incestuous relationships do GREAT emotional harm to the participants, and to anyone in the family who knows. There are some temptations that are better left untouched.