Sibling marriage in Roman Egypt
This is an essay I wrote for my Classics degree at the University of Western Australia, apart from the images which I added specifically for posting here.
If you would like to use or cite any sections of this essay, please be sure to use the below reference information provided at the end of the essay.
The evidence for Brother-sister marriage in Roman Egypt, and the social and economic actors that led to this phenomenon.
Incest is often believed to be a universal taboo, and yet there have been cases where incest has been not only acceptable, but common in certain societies, with Roman Egypt being a key example of this, “with a range of documents namely census records showing a significant increase in proven cases of full brother-sister marriage after the onset of Roman rule” ¹.
Today we regard a marriage between anyone of close familial relations (siblings, cousins, parents, aunts and uncles) as incest, but it is not as uncommon as we may think, particularly incest between cousins, which is legal in many places including the United Kingdom and in some states in the United States (19 allow all marriages between first cousins and 7 allow some depending on the circumstances). What makes Roman Egypt so unique is the degree to which full sibling marriage was practiced. Incest certainly wasn’t a new thing in Egypt, the…
