ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the authors suggests that Robin Fox to write a foreword to their book, with the much less interesting title of Incest: Origin of the Taboo because among all the various theoretical approaches to the topic of incest his came closest to their approach. Fox brought together a rich mosaic of concepts and data from diverse fields to offer what, at the time, was the most sophisticated theory on the origins of the incest taboo. Building on Fox's earlier insights and the accumulated evidence from relevant disciplines—from anthropology to neurobiology to zoology—The Red Lamp of Incest weaved together these elements into a synthetic theory of the incest taboo. Edward Westermarck was a sociology professor at the University of London. In 1891, he published The History of Human Marriage, a magnum opus that reviewed the literature on kinship and marriage patterns in traditional and contemporary societies.
