AHC: Decriminalize incest in Austria before 1900.

Challenge: Decriminalize incest between full siblings in Austria (or at least, in Austria proper) before 1900, if possible, spread to other South German states.

Since make it legal would be a bit too implausible, so decriminalize it would be good enough.

Consider the Habsburg's notoriety on such subject, would they be supportive of such policy? Or would they be overwhelmed by religious pressure?
 
Even the Hapsburgs didn't go for full-on brother-sister incest. And given that only a tiny minority of societies have ever sanctioned such relationships (and even then it was usually only the royal family who were allowed to marry their siblings), and given that the Church would be dead against the idea, fulfilling the OP would probably require some sort of fundamental change in European culture, possibly even preventing the Christianisation of the continent in the first place; in which case Austria and the southern German states most likely wouldn't exist in any recognisable form in the first place.
 
The Habsburgs wouldn't support it since they only married cousin/cousin and uncle/niece. The Catholic Church wouldn't support it since it goes against church beliefs. Non-Catholics wouldn't support it because they think it's weird. Therefore, there is no one to support it, so why should anyone do anything about it?

You need to have European culture view victimless crimes (like consenting sibling-sibling incest) in a different light and have that movement gain power. There were people in the 19th century who thought that way, but it would be very difficult for them to gain power, I think.
 
The famed marriages of Habsurgs to relatives usually was with cousins, if that. Charles V got his empire through inheritance, and the Habsurgs were not keen on everything moving too far apart. Though they did tend to use their relatives as dukes, governors, etc, but that isn't really on topic. Let's see... Why would the Habsburgs support this? Or Hapsburg-Lorraine, since the full-blood Habsburgs died off due to all the inbreeding. I feel that, even under orders from the Emperor, NO ONE would agree to an arranged marriage involving the past arranged marriages had failed because two people grew up with each other and thus were not sexually attracted to the other. Kind of gets into the whole thing with Sigmund Freud and his theories of an Oedipus complex, which happened to him (to an extent) because he had been raised through childhood by a nanny, and so his body/subconscious didn't recognize his mother as being his mother when... actually, this is getting too creepy to even finish the sentence of. If you feel discomfort reading that though, just imagine two people who knew each other through their lives, both as friends and siblings, and imagine their thoughts if someone said they should get married. Kinda like in the Lion asking, with Nala and Simba. I have some doubts they would have been attracted to each other quite as much if they grew up with each other, rather than knowing each other as kids, then meeting again as young adults.
 
The famed marriages of Habsurgs to relatives usually was with cousins, if that. Charles V got his empire through inheritance, and the Habsurgs were not keen on everything moving too far apart. Though they did tend to use their relatives as dukes, governors, etc, but that isn't really on topic. Let's see... Why would the Habsburgs support this? Or Hapsburg-Lorraine, since the full-blood Habsburgs died off due to all the inbreeding. I feel that, even under orders from the Emperor, NO ONE would agree to an arranged marriage involving the past arranged marriages had failed because two people grew up with each other and thus were not sexually attracted to the other. Kind of gets into the whole thing with Sigmund Freud and his theories of an Oedipus complex, which happened to him (to an extent) because he had been raised through childhood by a nanny, and so his body/subconscious didn't recognize his mother as being his mother when... actually, this is getting too creepy to even finish the sentence of. If you feel discomfort reading that though, just imagine two people who knew each other through their lives, both as friends and siblings, and imagine their thoughts if someone said they should get married. Kinda like in the Lion asking, with Nala and Simba. I have some doubts they would have been attracted to each other quite as much if they grew up with each other, rather than knowing each other as kids, then meeting again as young adults.
Thanks for the reply.

I'm working on a novel, after all the construction and writing I realized I fucked up: my protagonist is one of the high members of Austrian government, and he banged his elder sister and married her.

I originally thought as the society moving towards secularism, it won't be an extremely major problem.

But then I think again and again, and realized nope, it ain't gonna work. Considering even now atheist cannot hold high position in certain places, religion are still alive and kicking, it would be much worse back in the 1850s.
 
and he banged his elder sister and married her

1 - Change it to elder brother with younger sister (better if she is underaged and make lewd art).
2 - Make it a light novel with a title that has more words than the LN has pages.
3 - Release it in Japan.
4 - Profit!
 
Yes, that would be rather a problem. Even the book Frankenstein had the cousin Victor was going to marry be changed to someone adopted into the family from far off when it went from its glorious first edition to the somewhat watered down, make-Victor-less-of-a-callous-monster second edition. Mary Shelley was planning a third edition to make it even more family friendly, as she needed the money. Anyways, you can probably have it be a ward of the family or something. Perhaps an illegitimate daughter of his father. If you don't mind the woman being younger, you can have your character practice wife husbandry of sorts, raising a girl from when she was young so he could marry here. All of this really depends on if you are trying to shock the readers. If though choose any of the above, expect the man's social status to crumple, as no period of Austrian history would have been especially okay with it. either he is committing incest, marrying a person outside his social class, or taking advantage of his position of authority over someone when he should be protecting and nurturing them.
 
1 - Change it to elder brother with younger sister (better if she is underaged and make lewd art).
2 - Make it a light novel with a title that has more words than the LN has pages.
3 - Release it in Japan.
4 - Profit!
The sad thing is that this would actually work.
 
A sudden fad for Zoroastrian practices in an Austria that allied with Persia and the Ottomans both to deflect Russian interest in the Balkans? That would be more of a parent-child thing, though...

More seriously, you'd need a really weird (like Cathar-level weird) heresy to become popular in Austria during the Reformation, as no mainline strain of Protestantism, nor the Catholic Church, nor any of the Enlightenment ideologies would bless such unions.
 
Thanks for the reply.

I'm working on a novel, after all the construction and writing I realized I fucked up: my protagonist is one of the high members of Austrian government, and he banged his elder sister and married her.

I originally thought as the society moving towards secularism, it won't be an extremely major problem.

But then I think again and again, and realized nope, it ain't gonna work. Considering even now atheist cannot hold high position in certain places, religion are still alive and kicking, it would be much worse back in the 1850s.

Even pretty secular modern countries don't approve of incest, so moving towards secularism has nothing to do with it.
 
Even pretty secular modern countries don't approve of incest, so moving towards secularism has nothing to do with it.

Yeah, but the individualist liberal and proto-libertarian thought that existed in the 19th century would be in favour of abolishing incest laws, the same way they were on sodomy laws. And that was pretty damn secular.

Incidentally, this movement would probably also lead to the abolition of the Habsburg monarchy in favour of a republic.
 
1 - Change it to elder brother with younger sister (better if she is underaged and make lewd art).
2 - Make it a light novel with a title that has more words than the LN has pages.
3 - Release it in Japan.
4 - Profit!
Honestly, don't even need to switch the sibblings around. Older sister x younger brother is just as popular. I'm going to regret contributing to this topic, aren't I?
 

Deleted member 97083

Kind of gets into the whole thing with Sigmund Freud and his theories of an Oedipus complex, which happened to him (to an extent) because he had been raised through childhood by a nanny, and so his body/subconscious didn't recognize his mother as being his mother when... actually, this is getting too creepy to even finish the sentence of.
As far as I know, Freud never did what Oedipus did, so I don't see where you're going here.
 
Incest may have been tolerated amongst the Hapsburgs but to decriminalize it an entire country?

Heck even the Roman's didn't approve of incest(Caligula), you'd need to radically change western culture and history probably going back to the Bronze Age or prior.

So to have an early modern society that approved of incest would require a radically different world that would be unrecognizable to us.
 
Secularism and legalising incest have nothing at all to do with each other, no matter what Keith Pullman tells you.
 
Top