Surely not. Setting aside the religious significance marriage has for some people (but not others), a legal marriage confers survivorship, inheritance, and tax benefits that can have a major impact on the individuals involved. These rights and benefits are available only to people who enter into marriage contracts recognized by law. In other words, marriage isn’t just about sex and procreation, and may have nothing to do with physical love. So, now that same-sex marriages are legal throughout the United States and must be recognized in all jurisdictions, should the incest barriers to legal marriage also be removed for couples incapable of procreating?
Historically, the incest taboo has been one of the most universal social rules of human societies. While preventing inbreeding is the most commonly cited justification for the incest taboo and, in modern societies, laws against incestuous marriages and relationships, it is not the only one. Participants in incestuous relationships often have unequal power, and these relationships often are coercive, frequently abusive, and are likely to cause serious and long-term psychological damage to the victims.
But what about a simple legal marriage between same-sex siblings, or for that matter opposite-sex siblings, or parent and child, for practical legal reasons which don’t involve sex? Doesn’t that remove the incest issue altogether?
This is a more complicated issue than can be discussed in a short article, and I’m sure it’ll be debated in the days and years ahead. Some people see a slippery slope. What I see is that non-biological considerations are also in play. Incest laws often extend to adoptive and step siblings, so obviously there are familial, emotional, and social interests being protected by these laws.
My knee-jerk reaction is that the Supreme Court’s same-sex marriage ruling isn’t an invitation to simply treat marriage as a legal contract between anyone choosing to enter it, nor should it be seen as a step toward an anything-goes society. I’m pretty sure the correct interpretation of the ruling is that it only removed the gender qualification for legal marriage, and all other existing legal restrictions on marriage remain in place. It doesn’t mean people will soon be marrying their dogs as a tax strategy.