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When brother–sister marriage becomes incest
Author(s) -
Evans Grant
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
the australian journal of anthropology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.245
H-Index - 25
eISSN - 1757-6547
pISSN - 1035-8811
DOI - 10.1111/j.1757-6547.2010.00080.x
Subject(s) - brother , taboo , sister , genealogy , history , criminology , sociology , anthropology
This essay traces how marriages between brothers and sisters in the Lao and Thai royal families came to be conceptualised as ‘incest’ and therefore taboo over the first half of the twentieth century. This change was associated with changing royal marriage strategies and changing ideas about the nature of royal persons. The article concludes with some broader theoretical reflections on incest.