バートランド・ラッセル『ヒューマン・ソサエティ-倫理学から政治学へ』- Human Society in Ethics and Politics, 1954
* 原著:Human Society in Ethics and Politics, 1954* 邦訳書:バートランド・ラッセル(著),勝部真長・長谷川鑛平(共訳)『ヒューマン・ソサエティ-倫理学から政治学へ』(玉川大学出版部,1981年7月刊。268+x pp.)
第1章 n.9 |
Human Society in Ethics and Politics, 1954, chapter 1, n.9 | |||
|
One of the best examples of tabu is the prevalence of laws or rules prohibiting various forms of endogamy. Sometimes a tribe is divided into a number of groups, and a man must take his wife from a group other than his own. In the Greek Church, godparents of the same child may not marry. In England, until recently, a man might not marry his deceased wife's sister. Such prohibitions are impossible to justify on the ground that the forbidden unions would do any harm; they are defended solely on the ground of ancient tabu. But further, those forms of incest which most of us still regard as not to be legally sanctioned are viewed, by most people, with a horror which is out of proportion to the harm that they would do, and which must be regarded as an effect of pre-rational tabu. Defoe's Moll Flanders is far from exemplary, and commits many crimes without a qualm ; but when she finds that she has inadvertently married her brother she is appalled, and can no longer endure him as a husband although they had lived happily together for years. This is fiction, but it is certainly true to life. |