Preliminary Remarks on a Study of Incest In England

Abstract

Anthropology has largely concerned itself with explaining the incest taboo and has had little to say on its violation, incest itself. This state of affairs has not passed without comment from those concerned with the sexual abuse of children (Forward and Buck 1978, Willner 1983). As early as 1963, Masters remarked, “One should always keep in mind, as anthropologists often do not, that the existence of a formal incest prohibition does not mean that it is enforced, or that people pay much attention to it.” (1963: 45) Anthropologists would undoubtedly agree that the existence of prohibitions does not mean that the forbidden behaviour does not occur. Yet there are few discussions of incest to be found in the anthropological literature.

The research is being funded by the Economic and Social Research Council whose support I am glad to acknowledge here. I am also indebted to the Institute of Child Health of the University of London, who made me a Senior Research Fellow. A particular debt of gratitude is owed to the members of the Child Sexual Abuse Team of the hospital in which I am working, for their hospitality and help. I do not identify them or the hospital in order to preserve the confidentiality of their records. A draft of this paper was read at a seminar in the University of Rochester, in December 1985. I thank members of the seminar for helpful comments but they are not responsible for what I have written.