y'all have to realize that different societys have a different definition of incest

in almost all societies, parent/child relationships are a nono.

sister/brother relationships are generally frowned upon, although not unheard of- especially in cultural mythology (not just greek and roman)

when one goes to cousins it gets more complicated- in a lot of societies, it depended on which side of the family they were on. in a matriarical society, cousins on the mothers side were off limits, while cousins on the fathers side were fair game, and frequently it was even encouraged...in a patriarical society, the opposite was true... and it has only been a recent thing that first cousins are considered off limits, after we began understanding genetics... before that, it was common to see first cousins marry, because of the stagnat populations...not a lot of people moved around, so their choice of mate was the people they grew up around, generally family- also,, there was the desire to keep money and land in the family

the smaller and more isolated a population, the more likely the people are to have a system of acceptable cousin marriages, etc...

Yeah, in fact, traditionally in China first cousins (on your mother's side) are seen as marriage partners of choice, partly due to the desire to increase the ties between the in-law families.

Like I said, I'd turn a blind eye to brother/sister relationships in the game, but if they'd implement an anti-parent/child-incest thing in the AI, it'd be sweet.

The other thing I wonder about is the promiscuity in the game. Not that I'm expecting VV to be a game about sexual morality, but I'm curious if anyone here had to explain the game to their kids (I don't have kids myself), when they see the villagers just having sex with everyone else in the village?

Kids don't see villagers have sex. Kids see villagers run around kissing people. Like a primary school playground (well, on occasion, anyway). And then they go in the hut and get a baby if they want one.

Yeah, it seems unreasonable in such a small isolated comunity to expect cousin incest taboos. But it would indeed be nice if direct ancestors and decendants, as well as brothers and sisters could be kept from mating. And I'm no anthropologist, but I seem to recall hearing that anti-incest taboos regarding those particular relatives are even STRONGER in isolated comunities because they have more to lose from recessive genetic disorders and other problems associated with incest.

Honestly I would love an auto-genealogy page just for its own sake. It would be so cool to keep track of that, and from comments here I see that even avid village-genealogists can't keep track of it themselves once the population gets to a certain point.

Also, this is my first post here. And it's about incest. Lovely. Well, hi everyon!

Even in this country (the US), cousins married cousins. When I first started working on my family tree, I was appalled at the interfamily marriages. After talking with other tree searchers, I found out this was fairly common.

Guys, don't try to ascribe modern concepts of relationships and lineage to remote, primative tribes, especially ones that aren't real. If you've only got 6 people in your tribe, you're going to have some inter-familial breeding. Siblings, parent/child, cousins, aunts/uncles, whatever.

It is "just" a game.

Tess

Tess: don't worry, I think we're all pretty chill about it. We just like to whine because we can.

Like I said, having a auto-ban on parent/child mating is sufficient to satisfy me.

Iustinus: when you said direct ancestor/descendant, you mean parent/child, right? I've seen some really crazy stories while working with indigenous languages in the Pacific Northwest (including one where this woman dies, then reincarnates as a man and has sex with his/her granddaughters O_o), but I have yet to come across anything where a parent/child relationship is condoned.

Seagull: Ha! Yeah, I mean it would be nice if parent/child could be prevented, but not only that: since vilagers never lose their fertility (er, in VV1, I haven't played VV2 yet) and since mating begins at 18, it's quite plausible that you might need to worry about grandparent/grandchild as well. And I definitely didn't say such relationships were commonly condoned, if that's what you thought I meant.

Tess: Yes, it's just a game, but it's a game that's fun because of our human tendency to anthropomorphize. We all know that the characters aren't real, but I doubt I'm the only one who finds himself fleshing out the action of the game into more developed stories and fleshed-out characters. So it is quite understandable that users would care about incest, and other things that don't actually affect game play.

It is quite true that attitudes towards (and definitions of) incest vary significantly from culture to culture, but the concept is hardly unique to our society. In fact, I'd say that just about every culture has the concept (again, I'm not an anthropologist), even if the details vary. (And as I said above, inhabitants of Isola, if they existed, could never be as fastidious about cousins and more distant relatives as we are.)

And as for lineage, it seems to me that not only is it not a modern concept, but it's even LESS important in our modern culture than it was in antiquity.

I find it too complicated to control
especially with a max population
what I have done though is if you pair off a couple exactly the same age them its probable they will have different mothers as the mum nurses for 2 years and twins/triplets are always the same gender

what really makes me go eurghhhh is when you pick up a child from the "toilet" area to fetch a mushroom then realise they haven't washed their hands!!!

I for one would not like to see an auto-ban on parent/child mating in the game. In real life? You bet! And I believe it is against the law here in the US. But in the game no, it would make it too difficult during the onset of a new game. You would be limiting the rate you could grow your population, so when you need 10 new babies, it would take several generations to do so.