understanding Plutarch's take on the incest taboo in "Roman questions", ¶108

Hi,

One of my "special interests" is the issue of incest, the definition and ban of it or lack thereof in all societies. I usually work mostly with secondary sources (expert books compiling quotes) but whenever possible I go back to the primary source.

Could you explain this ? First off my knowledge of Roman culture is on a need-to-know basis (or rather it grows organically as I find bits that interest me), and secondly English is not my mother tongue so sometimes I don't get the logic of some sentences, what it's supposed to convey.

Could you paraphrase these sentences so that It makes sense to me ?

> Or do they fear the disagreements which arise in marriages of near kin, on the ground that these tend to destroy natural rights?
Or, since they observe that women by reason of their weakness need many protectors, were they not willing to take as partners in their household women closely akin to them, so that if their husbands wronged them, their kinsmen might bring them succour?

Plutarch has something specific in mind with "destroy natural rights" but I don't get it. Jealousy male relatives about who gets to marry and s∃x a hot daughter ?
And in the second sentence, am I right that Plutarch finds strange that Romans, knowing the vulnerability of women and their eternal dependency on their family, did not reach the logical conclusion that they would be safer not leaving it at all ?

Thanks

7 hours ago, sentinel166 said:

> Or do they fear the disagreements which arise in marriages of near kin, on the ground that these tend to destroy natural rights?
Or, since they observe that women by reason of their weakness need many protectors, were they not willing to take as partners in their household women closely akin to them, so that if their husbands wronged them, their kinsmen might bring them succour?

I love using the term incest as a metaphor, as in "your creative process is incestuous". Anyway, we lack a bit of context for the above, such as when was it translated. Natural rights may refer to natural law of marriage The Natural Law, the Marriage bond, and Divorce which for instance has been used to say divorce after children are grown can be rational regardless of what culture or laws ordain. Other natural rights have been proposed over the centuries, I guess from the tension and conscientious resolution of motives stemming from degrees of "otherness".

A longer quote may give more certainty on use of terms like "they"; does "they" always equal husbands or perhaps philosophers? Anyway the second sentence seems to have antique structure. If "their husbands" equates to "they" then it could be simplified down to the wife's close relative defenders being so integrated into the husband's family that he can't escape punishment for his abuse. Older english can be baroque and affected so I am mostly guessing.

Thanks for your interest. The "they" refers to Romans in general: why Romans do this or that, from the perspective of a Greek. Yo can find here. So it's in Greek... But about Roman history so I suppose I'm still entitled to ask here 😅

I see what you mean... Yeah I didn't think of "natural rights" that way. How stupid honestly. I'm used to dubious translations of Plato but it appears everyone got that treatment equally. But not everyone warranted modern retranslations. ... Unless Greeks themselves used this phrasing ?

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It could be simplified down to the wife's close relative defenders being so integrated into the husband's family that he can't escape punishment for his abuse.

So you're right, Plutarch is not justifying the ban but instead saying close-kin marriages should logically be seen advantageous for Romans?

Complete quote:

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108 Why do they not marry women who are closely akin to them?

Do they wish to enlarge their relation­ships by marriage and to acquire many additional kinsmen Eby bestowing wives upon others and receiving wives from others?

Or do they fear the disagreements which arise in marriages of near kin, on the ground that these tend to destroy natural rights?

Or, since they observe that women by reason of their weakness need many protectors, were they not willing to take as partners in their household women closely akin to them, so that if their husbands wronged them, their kinsmen might bring them succour?

On 6/24/2023 at 11:27 AM, sentinel166 said:

Unless Greeks themselves used this phrasing ?

That crossed my mind as well, and we used to have about a dozen experts onboard that might know.

I'm more into architecture and sculpture than sociology, but am intrigued by applying the "natural rights" analysis to an essay from Vitruvius about pitfalls within slave holding families. He warns husbands about indiscretions with slaves; otherwise his wife's offspring from then on may fail paternity tests. With no test and similar looking slaves, the wife's rightful vengeance may never be provable.

That reminds me of media claims of wide paternity fraud by modern wives, perhaps with lookalikes of their husband. health-street.net puts some flesh to superficially alarming 30% numbers:

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>Up to 1 in 3 dads who suspect that they are not the father are right .. DNA tests confirm they are not.

 

>Around 3% of all dads in the USA do not realize that their kid isn’t their biological kid.

 

>Younger, unmarried, and lower income men are more likely to be victims of paternity fraud.

 

>Paternity Fraud is when a woman intentionally tricks a man into thinking that he is the father of her child, when in fact she knows that he is not.

 

It's like the statistical claim that most US marriages fail. wf-lawyers.com explains that only most of serial marry-ers fail; some of them are in lumped in point 7 below and really should be broken out for even lower % for non serialists:

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7.  Researchers estimate that 41 percent of all first marriages end in divorce.

8.  60 percent of second marriages end in divorce.

9.  73 percent of all third marriages end in divorce.