ABSTRACT
Les Structures élémentaires de la parenté is intended to be an introduction to a general theory of kinship systems (Lévi-Strauss 1949: xi), and it starts with the explanation of a universal phenomenon: the prohibition of incest. The first chapters of the book are devoted to the consideration of this problem and are reprinted without modifications in the second edition of the book (1967). In the preface to this second edition Lévi-Strauss states, however, that ‘many new facts and the development of my own thought mean that nowadays I would no longer express myself in the same way’, although he still believes that ‘the prohibition of incest is to be explained entirely in terms of sociological causes’ (1967: xv).
