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From: bryans@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (B. Charles Siegfried)
Subject: Re: Incest avoidance
Message-ID: <1991Apr15.044023.14297@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
References: <8987.27f748d9@jetson.uh.edu> <1991Apr2.035304.11461@leland.Stanford.EDU>   <21487@crg5.UUCP> <1991Apr5.233453.3577@leland.Stanford.EDU> <21529@crg5.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 15 Apr 1991 04:40:23 GMT
Lines: 46

szabo@crg5.UUCP (Nick Szabo) writes:

>In article <1991Apr5.233453.3577@leland.Stanford.EDU> repnomar@leland.Stanford.EDU (Janet M. Lafler) writes:

>>[I write, proximate cause is avoidance of those associated with at
>young age]
>>Do you know about the traditional Chinese practice of young men marrying
>>an adopted sister (who was adopted specifically to be his wife?  

>I don't know this case, but would also like to find out.  If the adoption 
>took place at a young age, the children were raised together
>(frequent interaction), and the husband and wife had sex, it would 
>pose a problem for this proximate cause.  If no other proximate cause 
>could be observed, such as kin recognition, it would pose a problem for 
>the theory in general.  I hope to see more experiments and observations 
>done on sociobiological anthropology;  it is new enough that not enough 
>rigorous research has been done on the proximate causes for most of its 
>theories.

	In fact, these matches do occur.  In what is called *sim-pua*
marriages, the wife is raised as a daughter from a very young age.
Here is a quote from Robin Fox:

	The Chinese traditionall had two forms of marriage.  In the
	major form, the bride came to the husnad's household as 
	an adult.  In the minor form, she came as a *sim-pua*: virtually 
	an adopted daughter of the the family who came in during 
	childhood and lived there until old enough to marry a designated
	son of the household.

	The situation is much like a kibbutz, where the sabras [members
	of a peer group that is very sibling like] are expected to
	marry [but never do].

	Fox goes on to state that sim-pua marriages are often wrought
with difficulties.  Both spouses often enter into it very unwillingly.
Fox gives several account of where one of the spouses had to be threatened
by their parents before they would marry.  In China, the sim-pua marriage
is considered inferior to the major form of marriage.

Source : Robin Fox, _The Red Lamp of Incest_ (New York, Elsevier-Dutton
		Publishing, 1980) pp.37-8

__
Bryan Siegfried
Biology and Economics