The Insanity Called Incest

Two stories caught my attention last weekend: “Man Impregnates 19-year-old daughter in Ogun” and “Anambra Govt. rescues 12-year-old girl allegedly defiled by her father.”Basically these two men allegedly (because they have not been convicted) committed incest.

The dictionary defines incest as “sexual relations between people classed as being too closely related to marry each other” and “The crime of having sexual intercourse with a parent, child, sibling, or grandchild” and so forth.

The two stories did not catch my attention because they are new or unexpected; incest has become a regular occurrence in our society, unfortunately.

They caught my attention because these stories keep appearing and it is very difficult to get used to them. Incest is not just a “sin of sexual nature” like adultery and fornication, but it is a crime.

It is more unsettling and repulsive. It is an oddity.  Our society finds it abominable, which is why it continues to make the news. More annoying is the fact that in most cases the men take advantage of the vulnerability of their daughters.

In the first case, the man is separated from his wife and took custody of the daughter at some point. Men do this for three main reasons. One, they feel that they are in a better position to take care of their daughters.

Second, they do not want the new men in their ex-wives’ lives to bring up their children. Three, some men fear that the step-father might take sexual advantage of their daughters. Many of such cases have been reported. Unfortunately, in this case the father turned around to do same thing.

My questions for the first man are: Why not re-marry like your ex-wife did if you cannot do without sex? Why should you use your own daughter to replace her mother as a sex partner? I am sorry to say it but patronizing prostitutes would have been more tolerable than sleeping with his daughter.

It would not have been news, at least. She said that her father had been “sleeping with her since February 2022 with threats to kill her if she informed anybody about it.” Like the rest of these depraved men, he knew what he was doing was wrong, yet he carried on. And when he impregnated the daughter, he decided to pin the pregnancy on a young man.

He apparently knew the young man had or was having sex with his daughter. It is also possible that he had the intention of using the young man as an alibi in the event of a pregnancy. I doubt if he is well read. He would have known something called deoxyribonucleic acid, DNA for short.

Just a little digression here. She confessed that the young man slept with her once, a position the young man and his family held on to for denying the pregnancy. Young people should realize that you do not need multiple sex to get pregnant or impregnate a girl. All that is needed is an insertion of the penis into the vagina and you risk getting pregnant or impregnating a girl out of marriage.

The man does not even need to ejaculate inside the vagina to risk getting her pregnant because once the penis is inserted, some sperms “leak” out before ejaculation and only one sperm out of the multitude is needed to fertilise an ovum (egg) leading to pregnancy. I am reminding you just in case you forgot the reproduction you learnt in secondary school. Anyway, the father is responsible. He has confessed and blamed it on the usual fall guy, the devil.

In the second case, the Anambra State Government said it rescued a 12-year-old girl, alongside her two younger siblings, from their father, who allegedly defiles her. The accused allegedly presents himself as a Christian, who helps to solve his patrons’ spiritual problems, but he apparently has a dark side. Physician, heal thyself, you would say.

The report said that he locked up his three children in a room for five years. He was accused of raping the 12-year-old and fingering the two younger siblings over time. He denied the accusations, but why lock them up for five years. Why are they not in school? The accused also claimed to be married to 11 wives but does not live with any of them.

A husband to 11 women lives without any of them and is now is being accused of sexually molesting his three daughters. Interesting! I have asked this question before and I will ask again, what is sexually attractive about under aged children who have not reached puberty?

Another useless father in another case gave the excuse that she met the daughter of about 20 lying “anyhow” when he came in and the devil (again?) made him to have sex with his own daughter. But for the fact that some people live in small accommodation, I would have said that if you know you lack self-control, why go your daughter’s room?

All responsible fathers love their daughters a lot. But it is phillia love, which is devoid of passion and sexual impulse, and agape love (unconditional and selfless love). That is why such parents invest their time and resources to bring up their daughters to be successful and useful members of the society. Many of these beautiful girls have fathers who love (Phillia and agape) them immensely. Even when they do not have enough resources to go round, some fathers deny themselves and spend it on their children. That is what responsible fathers do.

They do not bring up daughters that have been mentally and psychologically damaged due to incest. There are girls who hate men, but will not come out of the closet to tell you why. Some women have refused to get married because of sexual abuse by male relatives while they were younger. Look at the state of our health facilities that treat people with physical ailments. Then you can imagine what the state of health institutions that deal with mental and psychological issues would look like.

How do we stem this ugly situation? Ordinarily, the law enforcement agencies and judiciary are our last hope. I am reliably informed by a lawyer friend, Barr. P. J. Osuji, that there are laws to punish offenders. In section 214 Criminal Code Cap 77 LFN 2004;

“Any person who has carnal knowledge of any person against the order of nature; … is guilty of a felony, and is liable to imprisonment for fourteen years.” The Act further states the punishment for incest in section 214 (3) where it prescribes a minimum of fourteen (14) years in jail. Offences against morality are termed as felonies which carry a minimum of fourteen (14) years in jail.

If you investigate, you will find out that majority of incest cases are swept under the carpet at the family level. “The good name of the family must be protected.” “Let us not wash our dirty linen in public.” But what about the victims?

The ultimate solution to incest is self-discipline. Take away your eros love (physical sexual desires) and lust far away from other family members. Restrict it to your spouse.

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