About this product

Product Identifiers

PublisherOxford University Press, Incorporated

ISBN-100195037545

ISBN-139780195037548

eBay Product ID (ePID)2029820

Product Key Features

Number of Pages204 Pages

Publication NameOriginal Sin : Incest and Its Meaning

LanguageEnglish

SubjectAbuse / General, Linguistics / General

Publication Year1986

TypeTextbook

AuthorWilliam Arens

Subject AreaFamily & Relationships, Language Arts & Disciplines

FormatHardcover

Dimensions

Item Height0.8 in

Item Weight14 Oz

Item Length8.5 in

Item Width5.8 in

Additional Product Features

Intended AudienceTrade

LCCN85-031080

Dewey Edition21

TitleLeadingThe

Dewey Decimal306.877

SynopsisArguing against the conventional view--that the incest taboo developed in response to the act of incest--The Original Sin presents biological and anthropological evidence to demonstrate the innate avoidance of incest as a feature of pre-cultural organization. Arens shows how the taboo evolved as a unique human social mechanism to control the practice among certain social classes, thus drawing the conclusion that incest, rather than its prohibition, is the cultural invention. Arens directly confronts the origin and definition of incest while seeking to uncover the particular and general meaning of this negative form of behavior., The subject of incest has been recognized by many masters of the natural and social sciences, including Darwin, Freud, Frazer, Durkheim, and Marx. For Freud, incest was a historical or contemporary fantasy rather than a reality; for the others, the origin of the incest taboo, rather than incest itself, was the focus of considerable attention. Arguing against the conventional view--that the incest taboo developed in response to the act of incest--The Original Sin presents biological and anthropological evidence to demonstrate the innate avoidance of incest as a feature of precultural organization. Professor Arens shows how the taboo evolved as a unique human social mechanism to control the practice among certain social classes, thus drawing the conclusion that incest, rather than its prohibition, is the cultural invention. Arens directly confronts the origin and definition of incest while seeking to uncover the particular and general meaning of this negative form of behavior. He extracts what has long lain hidden in the human consciousness and questions those tenets of human behavior responsible for propagating the race tha maintaining a basic moral standard, offering a revsionary view of human nature itself.

LC Classification NumberHQ71.A73 1986