Introduction
Father-daughter incest is a form of highly tabooed sexual behavior which, according to experts, come from basically stable pattern. Researchers have discovered that environments where the father is a strong figure, and the home situation of an unstable nature, adds to the odds that sexual intimacies between father and daughter will occur.
The moral taboos against this act, so strongly activated in civilized societies, lead the researchers to the conclusion that the man who does commit the act with his daughter possesses a definite weakness of the mind. Normally, this weakness may be the result of excessive drinking. But in some cases, it is, according to the experts, the result of brain damage or mind-affecting diseases.
The onus of blame and guilt is always placed upon the father in cases of incest. It is up to him, being mature and having been exposed to the taboos against incest, to restrain himself, when this moral armor disappears, it is only him who remains to be blamed for the act.
But in many primitive tribes, there are no such taboos against father-daughter incest. When the girls reach the age of puberty, these cultures practice massive orgies in which the fathers openly perform in sexual intimacies with their daughters. The taboos within these cultures do not exist because their actions are relegated on the assumptions and premises of physical capabilities rather than moral, esthetic considerations.
The warnings lodged by moralists and social thinkers against father-daughter incest revolve mainly around the potential of psychic harm to the daugher. They maintain that because of invasion by her father, she will be traumatized in her future relationships with members of the opposite sex. Psychiatrists do believe the trauma to be a serious one, and do support this sexual taboo.
In this study of father-daughter incest, I have tried to compile case histories which have occurred recently in our society. In most of these examples, the old formulas were consistent and did affect the actions of the people involved. Loss of self-respect, liquor and the presence of the girl in an environment with her father did add to the fact that incest did occur. But also, we must add to these basic patterns the conditions which exist today and did not when the initial observations were made.
Society today is lowering the age of sexual maturation. The young of today are more healthy, more aware and more determined to experience life at an earlier age than any generation that has ever grown up in the United States. This element, combined with the older patterns of incest, does appear as a new pattern emerging in these cases.
It is hoped that a reading of these case histories will provide the reader with a more thorough understanding of father-daughter incest as it exists in the seventh decade of the twentieth century.