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The nature and distribution of political power in Europe during the Neolithic era remains poorly understood 1 . During this period, many societies began to invest heavily in building monuments, which suggests an increase in social organization. The scale and sophistication of megalithic architecture along the Atlantic seaboard, culminating in the great passage tomb complexes, is particularly impressive 2 . Although co-operative ideology has often been emphasised as a driver of megalith construction 1 , the human expenditure required to erect the largest monuments has led some researchers to emphasize hierarchy 3 -of which the most extreme case is a small elite marshalling the labour of the masses. Here we present evidence that a social stratum of this type was established during the Neolithic period in Ireland. We sampled 44 whole genomes, among which we identify the adult son of a first-degree incestuous union from remains that were discovered within the most elaborate recess of the Newgrange passage tomb. Socially sanctioned matings of this nature are very rare, and are documented almost exclusively among politico-religious elites 4 -specifically within polygynous and patrilineal royal families that are headed by god-kings 5,6 . We identify relatives of this individual within two other major complexes of passage tombs 150 km to the west of Newgrange, as well as dietary differences and fine-scale haplotypic structure (which is unprecedented in resolution for a prehistoric population) between passage tomb samples and the larger dataset, which together imply hierarchy. This elite emerged against a backdrop of rapid maritime colonization that displaced a unique Mesolithic isolate population, although we also detected rare Irish hunter-gatherer introgression within the Neolithic population.

In the psychohistory of the antebellum South, the extent of child abuse in slaveholder families is important for understanding how members of the southern elite were reared and the extent to which they were infected with the toxic residue of their elders’ passions and rages. It is argued that the Old South was a developing region, rather than an already developed one. Consequently, the rate of child abuse that is characteristic of contemporary postindustrial societies is not the proper paradigm for conceptualizing the abuse rate in slaveholder families. It is proposed instead that the rate of child abuse in contemporary developing societies is a better fit for estimating abuse in the antebellum South. Societal and familial variables impinging on the abuse of slaveholder children—corporal punishment, alcohol consumption, hyper-masculinity, a traumatogenic culture of violence, wife abuse, maternal ambivalence and neglect, miscegenation and incest are discussed, as is the likelihood of maltreatment by slaves. Using a study of child abuse across 28 nations, tentative rates of abuse are proposed.

There is no question about the negative effects of child sexual abuse. Freud's seduction theory asserts that psychoneuroses in adults are caused by reactivation of forgotten recollections of gross sexual abuse (involving the genitals) that had taken place prior to the age of 8 to 10 years. His contribution consisted in the discovery of specific events, prior to puberty, which were indispensable to the formation of psychoneuroses. If an adult patient recalled an infantile sexual experience, Freud assumed the interference of a pervert: a child was sexually innocent unless it had been traumatized. But Freud's technique of clinical exploration had not attained adequate reliability and was not immune to prejudices. Freud himself dropped his mechanical, static theory that presupposed a single type of accidentally occurring trauma prior to puberty, allowing him to develop his new drive and fantasy theory.

Between 1908 and 1913, Freud and his disciples debated different theories of the origins of mankind, which Freud analysed in the context of his theory of neuroses. Wittels was the first of this group to present, in 1908, what Freud labelled a "fantasy" on the subject. Wittels contemplated various prehistoric scenarios (such as a murder of the father by his children) which he postulated as potential explanations for the origin of man's conception of religion, law and state. Freud (1913) eventually conceived his own human prehistory which differed significantly from the ideas of Wittels and his other disciples (Jung, Tausk) and allowed him to claim he now held a "historical" point of view that his disciples were missing.

During 2008, rumours about revolting incestuous encounters between sons and their mothers circulated in the Bushbuckridge municipality of the South African lowveld. This article views these rumours as expressing moral panic, paying particular attention to the historical contexts of their emergence and circulation, and to their temporal orientation. I locate these rumours in the periphery of South Africa's de-industrialising economy, marked by increased unemployment and criminality among men and by a growing prominence of women-headed households. They express a regressive temporalisation and pessimistic vision, not of development, progress and civilisation, but rather of deterioration and de-civilisation. Through the alleged act of incest, sons who engage in crime usurp the authority of fathers who once produced value in strategic industries and mines. As such the rumours envision a dystopia marked by the 'death of the father' and chaotic disorder without morality and law.

Using the controversy surrounding marriage with a deceased wife’s sister that occupied Presbyterian and Congregationalist theologians of the early Republic, this essay explores the eroticization of the sentimental family and the contours and crises of the incest prohibition in the wake of the Revolution. The essay begins by tracing the history of ecclesiastical trials of incestuous marriage in the Presbyterian church, arguing that the failure of the synods and General Assembly to offer definitive judgments of such marriages suggests a tension in the force of a transcendent incest prohibition. Two cases from the late 1820s, in particular, gained national attention in both the theological and secular press, and force the Presbyterian church to explore the legitimacy of their incest prohibition, and exploration that lead, ultimately, to a constriction of the incest prohibition as written in the Westminster confession of Faith. I then turn to the conjunction of kinship, sexuality, and sentiment that animates the texts comprising the controversy and argue that, in an effort to defend an expansive interpretation of the Levitical incest prohibitions these theologians were among the earliest writers to argue that sentimental, affectionate relations between family members were inherently erotic. In this sense, the family becomes the primary site for the deployment of sexuality. Such a concern about the incestuous nature of family relations, in turn, forced theologians to consider the problem of incest in the postlapsarian origins of society.

Two generations of a family who lived in mid-nineteenth rural Sweden are described. Domestic violence was a common feature in the first generation family. The salient feature there was undoubtedly the incestuous father-daughter relationships. The way incest appeared in Sweden about 150 years ago, the role of local authorities, and the serious consequences to those victimized is analyzed with reference to both the cultural context of that time and to modern theories of incest. Seemingly puzzling violence committed by a second generation family member is related to the domestic violence in the previous generation. Due to the extraordinary character of the incest cases and the specific church council sessions in which the incest case was treated, aspects of family life normally hidden behind curtains of conventions were made public. Reaction patterns drawn from this case indicate a patriarchal system of oppression and badly-directed considerations.

Problem: Research indicates that full disclosure of the events surrounding child sexual abuse, while therapeutic, is often difficult to achieve., Methods: A nonconventional research approach was employed in order to examine more closely the lived experience of these children. Two novels were analyzed using close reading., Findings: Details of the events and resultant dehumanization of the children were uncovered, as well as the rescuing role of the ancestor. Writing emerged also as a therapeutic tool that facilitated disclosure and helped to promote healing., Conclusions: The analysis of imaginative literature enables the reader to examine sensitive topics like sexual abuse and contributes to its treatment.

This paper examines the problem of Ptolemaic incest from a variety of cross-disciplinary perspectives. Specifically, it seeks to establish the following: that there is little in the ancient record to support the common claim that the Ptolemies suffered extensively from the deleterious genetic effects of inbreeding; that the various theories so far put forward as explanations for Ptolemaic incest offer at best only a partial rationale for this dynastic practice; that the most compelling rationale for Ptolemaic incest is to be found in complex, and perhaps unconscious, symbolic motivations analogous to those observed by anthropologists in other cultures; and finally, that, for the Ptolemies, incest was, like the "truphê" for which they were so notorious, a dynastic signature which highlighted their singularity and above all, their power.

Objective: The aim of this article is the presentation and brief analysis of some historical cases, unknown in the broader medical bibliography, of child sexual abuse in Byzantine Society (324-1453 A.D.)., Method: The original texts of the Byzantine historians, chroniclers and ecclesiastical authors, written in the Greek language, were studied in order to locate instances of child sexual abuse., Results: Although the punishment provided by the laws and the church for cases of child sexual abuse were very strict, a number of instances of rapes under cover of premature marriages, even in the imperial families, are revealed in these texts. Furthermore, cases of child prostitution, pederasty, and incest are included in the historical texts and some contemporary authors confirmed the presence of many such cases in all classes of Byzantine society., Conclusion: The research of original Byzantine literature disclosed many instances of child sexual abuse in all social classes even in the mediaeval Byzantine society which was characterized by strict legal and religious prohibitions.

After identifying that social scientists and historians have long believed (and vigorously defended) that the only universal trait found in every known culture is the prohibition against incest, occurrence of incest and child sexual abuse is traced first through Western culture from antiquity to the present with special emphasis on Sigmund Freud's "reversal." It then is traced through Eastern culture from ancient to modern times. Contemporary trends of self-disclosure of incest and child sexual abuse are examined, and current incidence data are provided. The backlash phenomenon is then explored, and conclusions are drawn.

The present article explores the sexuality in ancient Egypt. In particular in this article are presented the ways of concubinage (marriage, concubinage, adultery), the incest, loves of the pharaohs and of the common people, the freedom of choice in garments, the status of the hetairas and of the whores, the sexual perversions (male and female homosexuality, necrophilia, sodomism, bestiality, rape, masturbation, exhibitionism), the operations of the genitals (circumcision, excision, castration) and finally the level of knowledge in gynaecology, fertility, contraception and obstetrics that even today demands our admiration.

This article surveys the history of Freud's attitudes and theories about the etiologic role of actual incest and seduction and neurosis. It also surveys the debate in historical writing on that topic, much of which oversimplifies complex and contradictory data. Here is an instance in which history is being written and used as part of current debates and polemics, principally to either monolithically defend or attack Freud. This article argues that Freud's motives for downplaying the etiologic role of seduction in the neuroses were complex, did not involve cowardice, and need to be understood both in terms of internal developments in Freud's thinking as well as in terms of relevant external (for example, historical) factors.

In the last century and a half, public and professional awareness of sexual abuse has emerged and been suppressed repeatedly. The 20th-century suppression of the problem has been linked to Freudianism, sexual modernism, and gender politics. Recent awareness of sexual abuse differs from awareness in the past because of the significant amount of current research attesting to the prevalence of sexual abuse and its injurious impact on human development. However, in the contemporary mental health professions, the courts, and the media, there has emerged an influential backlash against the latest discovery of child sexual victimization that utilizes arguments employed during earlier periods of suppression. Knowledge of the earlier cycles of discovery and suppression can assist professionals in understanding and countering present attempts to deny or minimize the problem of child sexual abuse.