SUMMERS, KAREN CRADY, Ph.D. Reading Incest - The University ...

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CHAPTER V
CONCLUSION
Then had I never come to shed
My father's blood nor climbed my mother's bed;
The monstrous offspring of a womb defiled,
Co-mate of him who gendered me, and child.
Was ever man before afflicted thus,
Like Oedipus.
--Sophocles, Oedipus Rex: c.430 B.C.E
“But then—what is wrong with incest, with or without pregnancy?"
"Aside from moral considerations, you mean? The moral consideration is that it's a
horrifying thought, and it's a horrifying thought because it always has been. Biologically
speaking, I'd say there's nothing wrong with it. Nothing."
--Theodore Sturgeon, “If All Men Were Brothers, Would You Let One Marry Your Sister?: 1967
These two quotes suggest that even after the passage of millennia and many
radical changes in social mores, incest remains a ‘horrifying thought,’ and continues as a
cultural taboo in most of the western world. The story of Oedipus is a story of the moral
blindness and willful selfishness that leads to the downfall of king and
commoner. Gower’s incestuous kings commit a multitude of sins, including adultery,
murder, and total disregard for the wellbeing of their people. Like Amans, Gower’s
readers are taught the value of good governance in a king, and by extension the value of
good governance in the self. When reason and moral vision fail, the result is