INCEST, the crime of venereal commerce between persons who are related in a degree wherein marriage is prohibited by the laws of the country.
Some are of opinion, that marriage ought to be permitted between kinsfolks, to the end that the affection so necessary in marriage might be heightened by this double tie: yet the rules of this church have formerly extended this prohibition even to the seventh degree; but time has now brought it down to the third or fourth degree.
Most nations look on incest with horror, Persia and Egypt alone excepted. In the history of the ancient kings of those countries we meet with instances of the brother's marrying the sister; the reason was, because they thought it too mean to join in alliance with their own subjects, and still more so to have married into any foreign family.