INCEST, carnal connexion between persons so related that marriage could not take place between them according to the Levitical rules. In England incest has not generally been treated as a crime, although, along with other offences against morals, it was made punishable by death in 1650. Since the Restoration it has, to use Blackstone’s phrase, been left to the “feeble coercion of the spiritual courts.” Under the divorce law, incest is one of the aggravations of adultery which entitle a wife to divorce her husband. In the law of Scotland, it is a crime nominally punishable with death, but the penalty usually inflicted is penal servitude for life. This sentence was actually pronounced on a man in 1855. In the United States, as in England, incest is not an indictable offence at common law, but it has been made so by the legislation of some of the States.

an unlawful conjunction of persons related within the degrees of kindred prohibited by God. In the beginning of the world, and again, long after the deluge, marriages between near relations were allowed. In the time of Abraham and Isaac, these marriages were permitted, and among the Persians much later: it is even said to be esteemed neither criminal nor ignominious among the remains of the old Persians at this day. Some authors believe that marriages between near relations were permitted, or, at least, tolerated, till the time of Moses, who first prohibited them among the Hebrews; and that among other people they were allowed even after him. Others hold the contrary; but it is hard to establish either of these opinions, for want of historical documents. The degrees of consanguinity within which marriage was prohibited are stated in Lev. xviii, 6–18. Most civilized people have looked on incests as abominable crimes. St. Paul, speaking of the incestuous man of Corinth, says, “It is reported commonly, that there is fornication among you, and such fornication as is not so much as named among the Gentiles, that one should have his father’s wife,” 1 Cor. v, 1. In order to preserve chastity in families, and between persons of different sexes, brought up and living together in a state of unreserved intimacy, it is necessary, by every method possible, to inculcate an abhorrence of incestuous conjunctions; which abhorrence can only be upholden by the absolute reprobation of all commerce of the sexes between near relations. Upon this principle, the marriage, as well as other cohabitations, of brothers and sisters, of lineal kindred, and of all who usually live in the same family, may be said to be forbidden by the law of nature. Restrictions which extend to remoter ...