Incest Avoidance, the Incest Taboo, and Social Cohesion: Revisiting Westermarck and the Case of the Israeli Kibbutzim1
@article{Shor2009IncestAT, title={Incest Avoidance, the Incest Taboo, and Social Cohesion: Revisiting Westermarck and the Case of the Israeli Kibbutzim1}, author={Eran Shor and Dalit Simchai}, journal={American Journal of Sociology}, year={2009}, volume={114}, pages={1803 - 1842} }
During the past 50 years, a consensus has been forming around Edward Westermarck's idea that incest avoidance results from an aversion that develops when individuals are brought up in propinquity. The argument here presented counters this emerging consensus. Reexamining the case of the Israeli kibbutzim, the authors show that individuals who grew up in the kibbutzim's communal education system were in fact often attracted to their peers, and only rarely did they develop sexual aversion toward…
41 Citations
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