THE ORIGIN AND MAINTENANCE of the incest taboo have been sources of interest and debate for decades in a number of different disciplines. The universality of the taboo, in one form or another, has served to fuel the discussions. Nested within differences in the theorists' orientations and conclusions is a consensus that, with very few exceptions, sexual intercourse is prohibited between members of the nuclear family who are not spouses -- father-child, mother-child, son-sibling, daughter-sibling. Most cultures extend the prohibition beyond the nuclear family to include grandparents, uncles, aunts, nieces, and nephews, both consanguine and affinal (see Fox, 1967, and Schusky, 1972, for examples). Further from the nuclear family, parallel cousins are usually proscribed as sexual partners and cross-cousins often are similarly proscribed. Different cultures then extend the taboo to other kin, depending on the specifics of the culture and its current and historical circumstances. There is then the alignment...