Westermarck Hypothesis Reconsidered: A Comment on Kushnick and Fessler more

Westermarck Hypothesis Reconsidered: A Comment on Kushnick and Fessler Author(s): Fadwa El Guindi and Dwight Read Reviewed work(s): Source: Current Anthropology, Vol. 53, No. 1 (February 2012), pp. 134-135 Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/663576 . Accessed: 05/02/2012 03:44 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. The University of Chicago Press and Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Current Anthropology. http://www.jstor.org 134 Current Anthropology Volume 53, Number 1, February 2012 Westermarck Hypothesis Reconsidered A Comment on Kushnick and Fessler Fadwa El Guindi and Dwight Read Qatar University, P.O. Box 2713 Doha, Qatar (fg77@anthro .ucla.edu)/Department of Anthropology, University of California, Los Angeles, California 90095, U.S.A. 2 VIII 11 Kushnick and Fessler (2011) invoke Westermarck’s (1891) hypothesized origins of sexual aversion and incest taboos and use existing ethnography to assert that “cousin marriage among the Karo of Indonesia . . . reveal[s] Westermarckian patterns” (2011:443). The Karo are patrilineal Batak from North Sumatra practicing clan exogamy with marriage between matrilateral cross cousins (known as impal) valued for maintaining proper kinship relationships (Singarimbun 1975). Impal marriages are reported to be rare (Singarimbun 1975). The authors claim that “impal have a stated aversion to intermarriage . . . consistent with the Westermarck hypothesis,” with the provision that “impal are cosocialized” since “early life association leads [marriageable cousins] to erroneously view one another as siblings” (2011:443). There are several problems with this study. First, the evidence for the supposed Westermarckian aversion is equivocal. Second, no evidence is demonstrated for a persistent or transmitted folk model of aversion. Third, there is no evidence of a link between the presumed folk model and frequency of cross-cousin marriages. Each problem is considered in turn. First, the examples offered as evidence for the Westermarck hypothesis (Israeli kibbutzim, Taiwanese minor marriages, and patrilateral parallel cousin marriage in Lebanon) use rates of divorce and fertility to infer aversion. However, data from interviews with those raised in kibbutzim challenge this: “many described strong attraction to peers” (Shor and Simchai 2009:1833, emphasis added). Also problems described for Taiwanese minor marriages (Wolf 1970) can be accounted for by dissonance resulting from son and adopted daughter raised as siblings (Wolf 1970:504), thus prohibited to each other, and then suddenly made to marry (Wolf 1970:508). The Westermarckian idea of natural aversion resulting simply from cosocialization is too simplistic and ignores this relevant ethnography. Further, a study on Moroccans finds no Westermarck effect in males (Walter and Buyske 2003). Additionally, in Roman Egypt, census data show that brother-sister marriages were frequent for at least two hundred years (Parker 1996; see also Huebner 2007). Cousin marriages in Qatar relate to structural, classificatory, and alliance mechanisms, not to natural aversion (El Guindi 2009– 2010). Recent Qatar census figures (al-Raya 2011) show that 49% of marriages but only 39% of divorces are between first 2012 by The Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. All rights reserved. 0011-3204/2012/5301-0012$10.00. DOI: 10.1086/ 663576 and second cousins. A study sharing the authors’ behavioralist orientation demonstrates the desirability for marriage among close kin in the tight-knit endogamous Chaldean community in Detroit, Michigan (Henrich and Henrich 2007). In general, cousins in many traditional Arab social systems live close to one another, engage in daily interactions, are considered to be ideal spouses, and form stable marriages. In an extensive review of evidence for the Westermarck effect and of sexual imprinting, Rantala and Marcinkowska concluded: “more robust studies are needed . . . before any conclusions about their role in human mate choice can be made” (2011:869). Second, Karo postmarital residence patterns were examined to test the claimed cosocialization-aversion idea. When no support was found, Kushnick and Fessler asserted, without presenting evidence, a folk model of aversion purportedly spreading among the people. Kipp, referenced for the claimed aversion, rather discusses a more nuanced relationship: “impal, who start with sibling-like feelings of love, come to share the sexual intimacy of spouses” and contrasts this with lovers who begin with sexual intimacy and “become like siblings” (1986:642). Third, and importantly, impal marriages, reported as rare, occur with a frequency close to the expected rate for such marriages given that the “Karo do not ‘prescribe’ . . . impal marriage, neither do they ‘prefer’ these forms of marriage” as they do not “encourage these forms of marriage above all others” (Singarimbun 1975:193). According to the authors, a male ego has eight female impal for idealized two-son/twodaughter families. This and Singarimbun’s (1975) two constraints on marriage—only the eldest sister is eligible for impal marriage and she must be younger than the groom—mean a male ego has, on average, only two potential impal marriage partners out of all marriageable females. Kunstadt et al. (1963, their fig. 2) use simulation to demonstrate how, in the absence of a preference for matrilateral cross-cousin marriage, rates for these marriages are around 1%–2%, or 2%–4% if including matrilateral second cross cousins, which brackets the 3.5% rate reported by Singarimbun (1975:158). There is no systematic bias against impal marriages as expected under the Westermarck hypothesis. Finally, “impal-as-sibling” is one wrong assumption built on another naive assumption. Why should there be a natural aversion among siblings? If natural, there would have been no need for rules to enforce aversion (Frazer 1910). The universality of the incest taboo is itself a cultural negation of natural aversion. Why would social systems variably build elaborate structures to prevent a naturally tabooed pattern? Kinship, cognitive and in practice, is unique to humans precisely because of its freedom from the natural component (Sahlins 1976), despite facts of birth. Kinship is much more than birth, constituting cultural categories given meaning by coherent conceptualizations of shared knowledge and universe (El Guindi 2010, 2011–2012, 2012; Read 2001, 2007, 2012), which are not located at the behavioral level (El Guindi 135 2006). Chopping culture, a complex human cognition system, into quantifiable bits to prove a priori postulations diminishes it. References Cited Al-Raya. 2011. Stability of cousin marriage. http://www.lahaonline .com/index2.php?optionpcontent&taskpview&idp36893& sectionidp1&Fprintp1. Accessed on July 20, 2011. El Guindi, F. 2006. Shared knowledge, embodied structure, mediated process: the case of the Zapotec of Oaxaca. Proceedings of Cognitive Science 2006, the 28th annual conference of Cognitive Science Society, Vancouver, British Columbia. ———. 2009–2010. Milk kinship: the Khaliji case. [UREP 06-0125-003]. Qatar: Qatar National Research Fund. ———. 2010. The cognitive path through kinship. 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