• Girl Lives In Multiple Countries And Now In Usa Dating Brother Father
• Girl Lives In Multiple Countries And Now In Usa Dating Brother Daughter
• Girl Lives In Multiple Countries And Now In Usa Dating Brother Daughter

Boyfriend and Dating. Einstein is currently in a relationship with her boyfriend Zachary Todd. Todd is a YouTuber who is featured in multiple videos of Einstein. They met each other in 2017 and started dating from the same year. Previously Einstein had a harsh relation with Marcus Peterson, they nearly dated for a year before the breakup. Apr 12, 2016 Ashton was a girl who grew up with a protective brother. She followed the rules, got good grades, and followed her brothers advice. Tyler, her brothers best friend, becomes attracted to her. To Ashton, this is a dream come true. But is it just another fling for the town's bad boy?

Laws regarding incest (i.e. sexual activity between family members or close relatives) vary considerably between jurisdictions, and depend on the type of sexual activity and the nature of the family relationship of the parties involved, as well as the age and sex of the parties. Besides legal prohibitions, at least some forms of incest are also socially taboo or frowned upon in most cultures around the world.

Incest laws may involve restrictions on marriage, which also vary between jurisdictions. When incest involves an adult and a child, it is considered to be a form of child sexual abuse.^[1][2]

Degrees of relationship[edit]

Laws regarding incest are sometimes expressed in terms of degrees of relationship. The degree of relationship is calculated by counting the number of generations back to a common ancestor. Consanguinity (but not affinity) relationships may be summarized as follows:

Degree of relationship	Relationship	Average DNA shared %
Inbred strain	99%
0	identical twins; clones	100%[3]
1	parent-offspring[4]	50%
1	full siblings	50%
2	3/4-siblings or sibling-cousins	37.5%
2	grandparent-grandchild	25%
2	half-siblings	25%
2	aunt/uncle-nephew/niece	25%
2	double first cousins	25%
3	great grandparent-great grandchild	12.5%
3	first cousins	12.5%
3	quadruple second cousins	12.5%
4	triple second cousins	9.38%
4	half-first cousins	6.25%
4	first cousins once removed	6.25%
4	double second cousins	6.25%
5	second cousins	3.13%
7	third cousins	0.78%
9	fourth cousins	0.20%[5]

Most laws regarding prohibited degree of kinship concern relations of r = 25% or higher, while most permit unions of individuals with r = 12.5% or lower. In 24 states of the United States, cousin marriages are prohibited. Also, most laws make no provision for the rare case of marriage between double first cousins. Incest laws may also include prohibitions of unions between biologically unrelated individuals if there is a close legal relationship, such as adoption or step relations.

Laws regarding incest between consenting adults[edit]

Incest between consenting adults by country:

Girl Lives In Multiple Countries And Now In Usa Dating Brother Father

Table[edit]

Country	Incest between consenting adults	Prohibited relationships	Penalties
Afghanistan	Illegal	Death penalty in Taliban-controlled territories[6]
Albania	Illegal	Lineal ancestors and descendants Siblings Related by blood or adoption	Up to 7 years in prison
Argentina	Legal
Australia	Illegal	Varies by state	Varies by state
Austria	Illegal	Lineal ancestors and descendants Full siblings and half siblings	Up to 3 years in prison
Belgium	Legal (since 1810)
Bhutan	Illegal	Relationship by consanguinity or affinity in such a way that they cannot legally marry except otherwise provided in other laws	From 1 to 3 years in prison[7]
Brazil	Legal
Brunei	Illegal	Blood relatives prohibited by religious law	Death penalty
Canada	Illegal	Child/parent or grandchild/grandparent Full and half-siblings	Up to 14 years in prison
Chile	Illegal	Lineal ancestors and descendants Full siblings	Up to 1 year in prison
China	Legal
Cuba	Illegal	Lineal ancestors and descendants Full siblings	From 3 months to 5 years in prison
Czech Republic	Illegal	Lineal ancestors and descendants Siblings Related by blood or adoption	Up to 3 years in prison
Denmark	Illegal	Lineal ancestors and descendants Full siblings	Up to 6 years in prison (direct line) Up to 2 years in prison (siblings)
Eritrea	Illegal	Grandparent, parent, child or grandchild Brother or half brother, sister or half-sister Same-sex relations are always prohibited	From 1 to 3 years in prison[9]
Estonia	Illegal	Grandparent, parent, child or grandchild Related by blood or adoption	From 2 to 8 years in prison[10]
Ethiopia	Illegal	Blood relatives whose marriage is prohibited by respective law Same-sex relations are always prohibited	From 3 months to 3 years in prison[11]
France	Legal (since 1810)
Germany	legal (for same-sex couples and if both over 18) / Illegal (for opposite-sex couples)	Lineal ancestors and descendants Full and half-siblings	Up to 3 years in prison and fine (not punished if both are minors)
Greece	Illegal	Lineal ancestors and descendants Full and half-siblings	More than 10 years in prison for the ascending relative if the descending relative is under 15 years old, imprisonment if 15 but not 18 years old, and up to 2 years in prison if 18 years and older Up to 2 years in prison if siblings or half-siblings
Hong Kong	Illegal	Grandfather, father, brother, son (female) Grandmother, mother, sister, daughter (male)	Up to 20 years in prison (male) Up to 14 years in prison (female)
Iceland	Illegal	Lineal ancestors and descendants Full and half-siblings	Up to 8 years in prison for ascending relative Up to 12 years if descending relative is between 15 and 17 years old Up to 4 years in prison for siblings
India	Not defined	Nothing mentioned about incest in Indian laws but it's considered and punished as rape and sexual exploitation in most cases.
Indonesia	Nationwide not allowed by Marriage , Illegal (Aceh territory)	Aceh territory: Up to 10 months in jail[12]
Ireland	Legal (same-sex couples) Illegal (opposite-sex couples)	Granddaughter, daughter, mother, sister or half-sister (male) Grandfather, father, son, brother or half-brother (female)	Up to 10 years in prison (male and female)
Iran	Illegal	Blood relatives prohibited by religious law Step-mother	Death penalty
Israel	Legal (if both over 21)	Underage relative by blood or adoption	Up to 16 years in prison[13]
Italy	Illegal (if it provokes public scandal)	From 2 to 8 years in prison
Ivory Coast	Legal
Japan	Legal	If one commits an indecent act upon or engages in sexual intercourse, etc. with another person 'under eighteen years of age by taking advantage of the influence arising from the fact of having custody of that person'.[14]	From 6 months to 10 years in prison
Latvia	Legal
Liberia	Illegal	Lineal ancestors and descendants Half or full sibling Uncle, aunt, nephew or niece of whole blood Same-sex relations are always prohibited	Up to 3 years in prison[15]
Lithuania	Legal (if both over 18)
Luxembourg	Legal (since 1810)
Madagascar	Illegal	Lineal ancestors and descendants Full siblings	From 5 to 10 years in prison
Malaysia	Illegal	Relatives prohibited by religious law	From 6 to 20 years in prison
Netherlands	Legal
New Zealand	Illegal	Lineal ancestors and descendants Full or half-siblings	Up to 10 years in prison
Nigeria	Illegal (since 2015)[16]	5+ years in prison (consensual) 10+ years (non-consensual)[17]
Norway	Illegal	Lineal ancestors and descendants Siblings Stepfamily Adopted descendants	Up to 6 years in prison
Pakistan	Illegal	wife or former wife of father, grandfather and further ancestors Mother, grandmother and further ancestors Daughter, granddaughter and further descendants full or half-sister parents' sisters, grandparents' sisters and further ancestors' sisters daughter, granddaughter and further descendant of full or half-sibling suckling ancestor suckling sister Mother, grandmother and further ancestors of wife or former wife Daughter, granddaughter of wife or former wife Wife or former wife of true son or grandson and further descendants
Philippines	Legal (for sexual activity if both over 18) /Illegal (marriage only)	Lineal ancestors and descendants Full and half siblings Collateral relatives by blood within the fourth civil degree
Poland	Illegal	Lineal ancestors and descendants Guardian or ward Full, half and step-siblings	From 3 months to 5 years in prison
Portugal	Legal
Russia	Legal
Saudi Arabia	Illegal	Death penalty[citation needed]
Serbia	Legal (if both over 18)	Underage relative by blood Underage sibling	Up to 3 years in prison
Singapore	Illegal	Daughter or son, mother or father, grandson or granddaughter, grandmother or grandfather Sister or half-sister, brother or half-brother Same-sex relations are always prohibited	Up to 5 years in prison
Slovenia	Legal (if both over 18)	Underage lineal relative Underage sibling	Up to 2 years in prison
South Africa	Illegal	Lineal ancestors and descendants Within the first degree of consanguinuity Within the first degree of affinity Adoptive parent/child	Up to 3 years in prison and fine (not punished if both are minors)
South Korea	Legal
Somalia	Illegal	Death penalty[18]
South Sudan	Illegal	Lineal ancestors and descendants Half or full sibling, uncle, aunt, niece, nephew Same-sex relations are always prohibited	Up to 7 years in prison Fine[19]
Spain	Legal
Sweden	Illegal	Lineal ancestors and descendants Full siblings
Switzerland	Illegal	Lineal ancestors and descendants Full siblings and half siblings	Up to 3 years in prison
Sudan	Illegal	Lineal ancestors and descendants or their spouses Sister, brother or their children, aunt or uncle Same-sex relations are always prohibited	Death penalty if same-sex relations; Additional punishment of up to 5 years in prison otherwise[20]
Taiwan	Illegal	Lineal relatives by blood Collateral relatives within the third degree of relationship by blood	Up to 5 years in prison
Tanzania	Illegal	Granddaughter, daughter, sister or mother (male) Grandfather, father, brother or son (female) Same-sex relations are always prohibited	Up to 5 years in prison[21]
Thailand	Legal (if both over 15)
Turkey	Legal
Uganda	Illegal	Grandmother, mother, half or full sister, daughter, granddaughter, wife's mother, wife's daughter, aunt, sibling's daughter, son's wife, cousin, father's wife (male) Grandfather, father, half or full brother, son, grandson, husbands's father, husband's son, uncle, sibling's son, daughter's husband, cousin, mother's husband (female) Same-sex relations are always prohibited	Up to 7 years in prison Up to life imprisonment if relative is below 18[22]
United Arab Emirates	Illegal	Blood relatives prohibited by religious law	Death penalty[23]
United Kingdom	Illegal	Parent, grandparent, child, grandchild Brother, sister, half-brother, half-sister Uncle or aunt Nephew or niece	Up to 2 years imprisonment for sex between adult relatives (penetration)[24] Up to 14 years imprisonment for sexual activity with a child family member[25]
United States	/ Varies by states	Varies by states	Varies by states
Uruguay	Illegal (if it provokes public scandal)	From 6 months to 5 years in prison
Zambia	Illegal	Granddaughter, daughter, sister, mother (male) Grandfather, father, brother, son (female) Same-sex relations are always prohibited	Up to 5 years in prison[26]

Africa[edit]

Côte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast)[edit]

Consensual incest between adults is legal in Côte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast).^[27]

South Africa[edit]

In South Africa, since 2007, incest is the sexual penetration between persons who are related as follows:

• lineally, that is, if one person is a direct descendant of the other.
• within the first degree of consanguinuity, that is, where one person is a direct descendant of a parent of the other; this category includes siblings as well as an uncle or aunt with a niece or nephew.
• within the first degree of affinity, that is, where one person is the direct ancestor or descendant of the spouse of the other person.
• as adoptive parent and adopted child.^[28]

Before 2007, incest was a common law offence which extended to the same degrees of relationship but which applied only to vaginal intercourse.^[29]

Madagascar[edit]

Incest is illegal in Madagascar. According to Art. 335.3 - Any sexual relationship between close relatives or relatives up to the 3rd degree inclusive, in a direct or collateral line, the marriage of which is prohibited by law or any sexual abuse committed by the father or mother or another ascendant or a person having parental authority over a child is called incest.

Incest is punishable by forced labor in time if it was committed on the person of a child.

In other cases, incest is punishable by five to ten years imprisonment and a fine of 4,000,000 Ar to 20,000,000 Ar.^[30]

Zimbabwe[edit]

In Zimbabwe, most forms of incest are illegal and an offender is currently liable to a fine up to or exceeding level fourteen (about US$5000) or imprisonment for a period not exceeding five years or both.^[31] Incest is classified as 'sexual intercourse within a prohibited degree of relationship'.^[32] A prohibited degree of relationship would be that of a parent and their natural or adoptive child, a step-parent and their step-child, whether the step-child's parent and step-parent are married under the Marriage Act [Chapter 5:11] or the Customary Marriages Act [Chapter 5:07], or are parties to an unregistered customary law marriage, and whether or not the child was over the age of eighteen years at the time of the marriage; a brother and sister, whether of whole or half blood; or an uncle and his niece; or a grand-uncle and his grand-niece; or an aunt and her nephew; or a grand-aunt and her grand-nephew; or a grandparent and their grandchild and any person and their first or second cousin. In cases of first and second cousins an individual charged with such a crime can raise a defense that the cultural or religious customs or traditions of the community to which they belong does not prohibit marriage between first or second cousins; or in the case of a person who is a member of a community governed by customary law, that the cultural or religious customs or traditions of the particular community to which they belong does not prohibit marriage between first or second cousins.

Americas[edit]

Argentina[edit]

In Argentina, incest is legal if both individuals are over the minimum age of consent.^[33] Marriage between third-degree relatives and beyond is allowed, with the exception of marriage involving lineal ancestors and descendants, which is considered null and void disregarding the degree of separation (parent/offspring, grandparent-grandchild).^[34]

Brazil[edit]

Brazil has no criminal punishment if the involved are over the age of 14 (the clear age of consent in force; before 2011, though, sex with people as young as 12 and as elder as 17 was in a legal grey area, with legal guardian-reported sex with those aged 12 and 13 being prosecuted as statutory rape, but unlike as with those aged 11 and younger not directly prosecuted by the State without a report by either the legal guardians or the adolescents themselves—unlike now, where the police forces prosecute all statutory rape-related cases without distinction—, and legal guardian-reported sex with those aged 14, 15, 16 and 17 being prosecuted as corruption of minors, but prosecution as corruption of minors for non-commercial consented sexual activity between people out of a defined hierarchy fell), capable of acting upon their legal rights, and that consent means that the relationship is absent of any kind of coercion or fraud.^{[citation needed]}

First cousin marriages, once fairly common in some regions in the 19th century, are allowed on demand as all other marriages, while avunculate ones (those between uncles or aunts and nephews or nieces), the preferred by some Amazonian Amerindian tribes, and those between half-siblings, are allowed provided that those contracting it have a health check.^[35][36][37] Marriages between parents and their children (both consanguineous and adoptive) or between siblings (both consanguineous and adoptive) are invalid, but, as stated above, non-rape sexual relationships between persons older than the age of consent are likely otherwise treated legally as all others, irrespectively of consanguinity (information over the possibility or validity of uniões estáveis in such situations are nevertheless unclear or unexistent, but since those in these relationships are already consanguineous and thus inherently inside a legal family entity, the rights offered by such unions—recognizing a family entity between unrelated single persons—are most likely pointless, with the exceptional cases being only the remote possibility of people who were adopted contracting a relationship with a biological close family member).

Brazilian law, by the Article 1521 of the Civil Code, also extends the invalidity of marriage between parents and children to grandparents and grandchildren or any other sort of ascendant-descendant relationship (both consanguineous and adoptive), parents-in-law and children-in-law even after the divorce of the earlier couple (see affinity), as well as to stepparents and stepchildren, and former husbands or wives to an adoptive parent who did this unilaterally (regarded as an equivalent, in families formed by adoption, to stepparents and stepchildren); and extends the invalidity of marriage between siblings to biological cousin-siblings.^[36][37] It also formerly prohibited the avunculate marriages and extended the prohibition for marriage between siblings to half-siblings, both cited above, but the Decrete Law 3.200/1941 made marriage possible for those non-ascended/descended in consanguinity of third degree (25%) provided both have health checks.^[36][37]

Brazilian law never held marriages between double first cousins as a reason for invalidity, even though those have a consanguinity as strong as that of half-siblings, and those, as other first cousins, are not asked health checks to marry, doing so in the same way as non-related people. Also legally treated much like non-related people are stepsiblings, while those who are stepsiblings and half-siblings (that is, those who have a half-sibling who is also child of a latter married spouse of one's parent) are treated like half-siblings who are not stepsiblings, being demanded health checks before marrying.

Canada[edit]

Under Canadian federal law, incest is defined as having a sexual relationship with a sibling (including half-sibling), child/parent or grandchild/grandparent, requiring knowledge of the existence of the blood relationship. Everyone who commits incest is guilty of an indictable offence and is liable to imprisonment for a term of not more than 14 years and, if the other person is under the age of 16 years, to a minimum punishment of imprisonment for a term of five years.^[38]

Chile[edit]

In Chile, incest between lineal ancestors and descendants and between full siblings is prohibited. It is punishable by up to 1 year in prison.^{[citation needed]}

Cuba[edit]

Incest in Cuba is illegal. According to article 304.:

1. The ascendant who has sexual relations with the descendant, incurs a penalty of deprivation of liberty for two to five years. The penalty applicable to the descendant is from six months to two years of deprivation of liberty.

2. Siblings who have sexual relations with each other incur a penalty of deprivation of liberty from three months to one year, each.

3. The sanctions provided for in this article are imposed as long as the facts do not constitute a major crime.^[39]

Mexico[edit]

In Mexico, The crime of incest when the ancestors have sexual relations with their descendants will be punished with a sentence of one to six years in prison.^[40]

United States[edit]

Laws regarding incest in the United States vary widely among jurisdictions regarding both the definition of the offense and penalties for its commission. The laws regarding incest in the United States article summarizes these laws for individual U.S. states and the District of Columbia.

In the United States, the District of Columbia and every state and inhabited territory have some form of codified incest prohibition. In most states, sexual activity between a lineal ancestor and a lineal descendant (parent, grandparent with child or grandchild), siblings (brother-sister) and aunt-nephew, uncle-niece is penalized as incest. However, individual statutes vary widely. Rhode Island has repealed its criminal incest statute,^[41] and only criminalizes incestuous marriage.^[42][43]Ohio 'targets only parental figures',^[41] and New Jersey does not apply any penalties when both parties are 12 years of age or older.^[27][41] The most severe penalties for incest are in Massachusetts, Virginia, Texas and Oregon, which punishes incest with up to 20 years in prison, Georgia where a penalty for incest is up to 30 years in prison, Wisconsin where the penalty for incest is up to 40 years in prison, and in the states of Colorado, Nevada, Montana, Idaho and Michigan where a penalty of up to life imprisonment for incest may be given.

In some states, sex between first cousins is prohibited (see cousin marriage law in the United States by state for cousin sex, as well as cousin marriage, being outlawed in some states). Many states also apply incest laws to non-blood relations, including stepparents, stepsiblings, in-laws and people related through adoption.^[44]

Uruguay[edit]

Incest in Uruguay is penalized if it causes a public scandal. As article 276 says: Those who, with public scandal, have sexual relations with legitimate ancestors and natural parents recognized or declared such, with legitimate descendants and natural children recognized or declared such, and with legitimate siblings.

This crime will be punished with six months in prison to five years in prison.^[45]

Asia[edit]

China (Mainland)[edit]

Criminal Law of the People's Republic of China^[46] Chapter 4 prohibit rape and sexual assault, but not consensual incest.

Hong Kong[edit]

In Hong Kong, it is illegal to have sexual intercourse with certain close relatives, even if they are consenting adults. The prohibited relationships are grandfather-granddaughter, father-daughter, brother-sister and mother-son. Punishment is up to 20 years' imprisonment for male offenders and up to 14 years' imprisonment for female offenders.^[47] The law does not cover sexual intercourse with more distant relatives, such as an aunt, uncle, niece, nephew and cousin. It only addresses male-on-female and female-on-male sexual intercourse, and it appears that consensual same-sex incest is not illegal. The law makes an assumption that a female below the age of 16 has no ability to consent to sexual intercourse, therefore a female below 16 cannot commit incest.

On 5 December 2019, the Law Reform Commission of Hong Kong ('LRC') published a report on Review of Substantive Sexual Offences making final recommendations for the reform of substantive sexual offences in the Crimes Ordinance (Cap 200). It recommended that 'the offence of incest should be reformed to become gender neutral; to cover all penile penetration of the mouth, vagina and anus and other forms of penetration; and be extended to cover uncles (aunts) and nieces (nephews) who are blood relatives as well as adoptive parents'^[48]

India[edit]

The Indian Penal Code (IPC) does not contain any specific provision against incest and also there is no law to support incest relationships, but there are general provisions relating to sexual abuse of children by their custodian, such as a parent or teacher.^[49][50] More over the rule of kinship or marriage is governed by the different marriage laws.^{[citation needed]}

Japan[edit]

Consensual incest between adults is legal in Japan.^[51] However, Article 179 of Penal Code stated that a person who 'commits an indecent act upon' or 'engages in sexual intercourse, etc.' with another person 'under eighteen years of age by taking advantage of the influence arising from the fact of having custody of that person' is punished in the same manner as prescribed in Article 176 ('Indecency through Compulsion') ie imprisonment for not less than 6 months but not more than 10 years.^[14]

South Korea[edit]

The Criminal Act does not prohibit consensual incest.^[52] Starting from 20 August 2019, ACT ON SPECIAL CASES CONCERNING THE PUNISHMENT, ETC. OF SEXUAL CRIMES^[53] stipulated that a person who rapes (i.e. through violence or intimidation, has sexual intercourse with) another person in a consanguineous or marital relationship (relatives by blood or marriage within the fourth degree or residing together, including a de facto relationship) shall be punished by imprisonment for a fixed term of at least 7 years, which is heavier penalty than that targeting raping in general (at least 3 years imprisonment) stipulated by the Criminal Act.

Macau[edit]

According to Macau's civil code, people in direct line kinship or in the second degree of collateral kinship cannot marry each other.^[54]

Malaysia[edit]

In Malaysia, it is incest to have sexual intercourse with a person who under the law, religion, custom or usage that applies to the person he or she is not permitted to marry on account of their relationship.^[55]

In addition to whipping, persons convicted of incest face a minimum sentence of 6 years' imprisonment and a maximum sentence of 20 years' imprisonment. It is a defense against the charge if the person did not know the relationship was not permitted or if the sexual intercourse was done without his or her consent. Girls below the age of 16 and boys below the age of 13 are deemed to be incapable of giving consent. (The age of consent for sex in Malaysia is 16 for both sexes.^[56])

While it is unclear to which family members the incest law applies, a verdict from the High Court in Sabah and Sarawak in 2011 provided some indication about the sentencing guidelines. It described incest as a 'heinous crime' but that the degree of kinship between the parties dictates the 'level of repulsion' which the court translates into a sentence imposed. The verdict said the worst on such a scale is incest committed by a father to his biological daughter or a brother to his biological sister, and that such offenders should receive the harshest sentence. It said an uncle and his maternal niece committing incest is not on that same level and, if there was no violence involved, the length of the sentence should reflect it.^[57]

There are more severe sentences for those who commit incest through rape. The offence of incestuous rape is punishable with not less than 8 years' imprisonment and not more than 30 years' imprisonment. In addition, those convicted receive not less than 10 strokes.^[58]

Malaysian law also considers sexual intercourse with the stepfamily to be incestuous.^[59]

Pakistan[edit]

The legal code of Pakistan defines incest as marriage (consortion) between a male and either his:

• wife or former wife of father, grandfather and further ancestors
• Mother, grandmother and further ancestors
• Daughter, granddaughter and further descendants
• full or half-sister
• parents' sisters, grandparents' sisters and further ancestors' sisters
• daughter, granddaughter and further descendant of full or half-sibling
• suckling ancestor
• suckling sister
• Mother, grandmother and further ancestors of wife or former wife
• Daughter, granddaughter of wife or former wife
• Wife or former wife of true son or grandson and further descendants
• Sororal polygyny

Both participants are guilty if they commit the above acts and are charged with zina.^{[citation needed]}

Philippines[edit]

Article 81 of the Civil Code of the Philippines considers marriages between the following incestuous and void from their performance:^[60]

1. Between brothers and sisters, whether of the full or half blood;
2. Between collateral relatives by blood within the fourth civil degree

A similar prohibition can be found in Articles 37 and 38 of the Family Code.^[61]

In the 1973 visa proceedings case of In re: Bautista, an Immigration Officer denied entry to a married couple who were second cousins. In reaching the decision, the immigration officer relied on subsection 1 of Article 81 of the Civil Code. However, on appeal, it was found that the parties were collateral relatives and therefore fell under subsection 2 of the same Code, which prohibits marriages between relatives by blood within the fourth civil degree. The fourth civil degree includes first cousins. Second cousins, who are the children of first cousins, fall under the fifth civil degree and are not covered by the prohibition. The marriage, being valid under the laws of the place of celebration, was then recognized for immigration purposes only.^[62]

In addition, the Code of Muslim Personal Laws of the Philippines^[63] prohibit by consanguinity (tahrimjbin-nasab) the following marriages:^[64]

1. Ascendants and descendants of any degree;
2. Brothers and sisters, whether germane, consanguine or uterine; and
3. Brothers or sisters and their descendants within the third civil degree.

While incestuous marriage is illegal in the Philippines, there is no legislation which prohibits out-of-marriage incestuous sexual acts between two consenting adults.^[65]

Singapore[edit]

Section 376G of the Penal Code specifies that
'Any person (A) of or above 16 years of age who —(a) penetrates, with A’s penis, the vagina, anus or mouth, as the case may be, of a person of or above 16 years of age who is a close family relative (B);(b) sexually penetrates, with a part of A’s body (other than A’s penis, if A is a man) or anything else, the vagina or anus, as the case may be, of a person of or above 16 years of age who is a close family relative (B);(c) causes or permits a man of or above 16 years of age who is a close family relative (B) to penetrate, with B’s penis, the vagina, anus or mouth, as the case may be, of A; or(d) causes or permits a person of or above 16 years of age who is a close family relative (B) to sexually penetrate, with a part of B’s body (other than B’s penis, if B is a man) or anything else, the vagina or anus, as the case may be, of A,knowing that B is a close family relative, shall be guilty of an offence.'^[66]

Taiwan[edit]

In Taiwan, Article 230 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of China^[67] prohibits sexual intercourse between any lineal relatives by blood or collateral relatives within the third degree of relationship by blood. Violators may be imprisoned for up to 5 years.

Article 968 of the Civil Code^[68] states that 'the degree of relationship by blood between a person and his lineal relative by blood shall be determined by counting the number of generations upwards or downwards from himself [as the case may be], one generation being taken as one degree. As between the person and his collateral relative, the degree of relationship shall be determined by the total number of generations counting upwards from himself to the common lineal ancestor and then from such common ancestor downwards to the relative by blood with whom the degree of relationship is to be determined.'

Thailand[edit]

Incestuous relations between persons (over 15 years old) are not prohibited by law,^[69] though a marriage cannot take place if the man and woman have blood relations in the direct ascendant or descendant line, or brother or sister of full or half blood. The said relationship shall be in accordance with blood relation without regard to its legitimacy.^[70][71]

Turkey[edit]

Sibling marriage and avunculate marriage is prohibited, while cousin marriage is legal.^[72] Marriage between parents and offspring is also prohibited, even when there is no blood relationship, i.e. adoptive parent or parent-in-law.^[72]

Vietnam[edit]

Incest between people of direct blood line is illegal in Vietnam and is punishable by sentencing to between 6 months and 5 years of imprisonment.^[73]

Europe[edit]

Most European countries prohibit incest;^[74] apart from those listed below, these include: (all articles refer to the Penal Codes) Albania Article 106,^[75] Ukraine Article 155 Paragraph 2,^[76] Slovenia Article 195,^[77] Slovakia Section 203,^[78] Serbia Article 197,^[79] Poland Article 201,^[80] Norway Article 197 and 198,^[81] Hungary Article 199,^[82] Bulgaria Article 154,^[83] and Cyprus Article 147.^[84]

Countries that allow incest between consenting adult siblings include France, Spain, and Portugal.^[85]

Austria[edit]

In Austria, incest between lineal ancestors and descendants and between full siblings is prohibited. It is punishable by up to 3 years in prison.^[86]

Czech Republic[edit]

Section 188 of the Czech Criminal code^[87] prohibits incest between lineal ancestors and descendants and siblings. The maximum penalty is 3 years of imprisonment.^{[citation needed]}

Denmark[edit]

In Denmark, incest is sex between lineal ancestors and descendants and between full siblings. Sex with a descendant is punishable by up to 6 years imprisonment. Sex between siblings is punishable by up to 2 years imprisonment.^[88][89]

Estonia[edit]

In Estonia, sexual intercourse or commission of another act of sexual nature by a parent, person holding parental rights or grandparent with a child or grandchildis punishable by 2 to 8 years imprisonment.^[10]

Finland[edit]

In Finland, sexual acts between one's full sibling (but not half-sibling), ancestor or descendant are punishable by a fine or up to two years in prison for 'sexual act between close relatives'. However, no punishment is given to a person who was under 18 years old when performing a sexual act with a parent or grandparent or if the person was forced or illegally persuaded to perform the sexual act.^[90] The marriage law defines, that marriage between one's sibling, half-sibling, ancestor or descendant is forbidden.^[91]

France, Belgium, and Luxembourg[edit]

The 1810 penal code, which was promulgated by Napoleon I and adopted throughout most of Europe, abolished incest laws in France,^[35]Belgium, and Luxembourg.

In 2010, France reinstated laws against incest by introducing article 222-31-1 of the penal code. From February 10, 2010, to September 17, 2011, rape and sexual assault were classified as incest when they are committed 'within the family on a minor by an ascendant, a brother, a sister or any other person, including a cohabitant of a family member, who has de jure or de facto authority over the victim.'^[92]

There were subsequently multiple changes to the definition of incest.

On 16 September 2011, the Constitutional Council repealed article 222-31-1 of the penal code, saying that if it was possible for the legislator to institute a particular penal qualification to designate incestuous sexual acts, they could not, without disregarding the principle of legality of offences and penalties, refrain from precisely designating the persons who must be considered, within the meaning of this qualification, as members of the family.^[93]

Incest was once again reinstated on 2016. From March 16, 2016, to August 6, 2018, rape and sexual assault are considered incestuous when they are committed on a minor by:

(1) An ascendant;
(2) A brother, sister, uncle, aunt, nephew or niece;
(3) The spouse or partner of one of the persons mentioned in (1) and (2) or the partner bound by a civil solidarity pact with one of the persons mentioned in the same 1° and 2°, if he or she has de jure or de facto authority over the minor.^[94]

On 6 August 2018, 'if he has minor a de jure or de facto authority' in (3) was changed to 'if he has victim a de jure or de facto authority.'^[95]

Germany[edit]

In Germany, incest is legally defined as vaginal intercourse between lineal ancestors and descendants (parents, grandparents, great-grandparents and their children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren) and between full and half-siblings (due to this definition incest between parties of the same sex are technically not punishable).^[96] The penalty is a fine or up to 3 years of prison. Incest between relatives who are minors (below 18 years old) at the time of offence is not punishable but remains a crime, therefore aiding and abetting of incest between related minors is punishable.^[97]

Regarding marriage, the same rules apply and prohibit marriage between aforementioned relatives. Marriages between siblings by adoption are also prohibited.^[98]

The criminal liability of incest among consenting adults is disputed among German citizens and politicians. In the case of Patrick Stübing, the Federal Constitutional Court ruled in 2008 that the criminalization of incest is constitutional in a 7:1 vote with one judge dissenting.^[99]

In September 2014 the majority of the German Ethics Council recommended that the government abolish laws criminalizing consensual incest between adult siblings, while not broaching the question of to what extent criminal liability for incest between parents and children of legal age might be abrogated.^[100][101]

In a dissenting vote, nine members of the Council explain that they oppose any repeal of Section 173 of the Criminal Code or a change that would qualify criminal liability. In this view, the central concern of the provision is precisely the protection of the integrity and incommensurability of different familial roles as an important precondition to successful personality development. They acknowledge that under the purview of Section 173 of the Criminal Code, some couples run afoul of a tragic life-situation. For these persons, some reckoning could be made, even without a statutory intervention into the process of the application of the law, for instance by closing an investigation by a public prosecutor.^{[citation needed]}

Greece[edit]

Article 345^[102] of the Greek Penal Code as modified by Article 2, Paragraph 8 of Law 3625/2007^[103] and Article 3 Paragraph 10 of Law 3727/2008^[104] prohibits incestuous relations between relatives of both ascending and descending line, and between half or full siblings, and imposes (1) for the ascending relative (for example father, uncle, grandfather etc.): at least 10 years' imprisonment if the descending relative is under 15 years old, imprisonment if 15 but not 18 years old, and maximum 2 years' imprisonment if 18 years and older; (2) for the descending relative (for example child, nephew etc.) maximum 2 years' imprisonment; (3) for half- or full siblings maximum 2 years' imprisonment. Paragraph 2 of Article 345 Penal Code also states that if the descending relative and the half or full siblings were under 18 years old, they might be cleared of any charge.

Also, Article 1357^[105] of the Greek Civil Code prohibits the marriage of relatives of direct blood line in totality, and up the four degrees of consanguinity of the secondary blood line (for example you can marry the first cousin of your mother / father, but not your first cousin). Article 1358 of the Greek Civil Code also prohibits the marriage of relatives in law totally in direct blood line, and up the third degree of the secondary blood line.

Iceland[edit]

Article 200^[106] of the Icelandic Penal Code prohibits incestuous relations between relatives of both ascending and descending line, and between half or full siblings, and (1) imposes for the ascending relative (for example father, uncle, grandfather etc.): imprisonment up to a maximum of 12 years if the descending relative is between 15 and 17 years old, imprisonment up to a maximum of 8 years if 18 years and older; (2) for siblings a maximum 4 years' imprisonment—if the half or full siblings were under 18 years old, they might be cleared of any charge.

Republic of Ireland[edit]

Incest is illegal in the Republic of Ireland under the Punishment of Incest Act 1908,^[107] which pre-dates the foundation of the state.

It is illegal for a male to have sexual intercourse with his granddaughter, mother, daughter, sister, or half-sister; and for a female (over sixteen years of age) with her grandfather, father, son, brother, or half-brother. The act does not refer to other familial relationships (such as grandson-grandmother), or same-sex relations.^[107]

Prior to the amendment of the 1908 Act in 2019, incest was punishable by up to 7 years' imprisonment for a female and up to life imprisonment for a male. The Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) (Amendment) Act 2019 amended the Act of 1908 to provide for a maximum term of 10 years' imprisonment for both males and females.^[108][109]

Occasionally, offenders convicted of incest will be admitted to a psychiatric hospital for psychiatric treatment.^{[citation needed]}

Italy[edit]

Incest is illegal in Italy only if it provokes public scandal, according to Article 564 of the Penal code and punishable from 2 to 8 years' imprisonment, open to more years for the older person if the other was under aged.^[110]

Latvia[edit]

Incest is not criminally prohibited in Latvia except as part of the general protection of adolescents from sexual abuse.^[111]

Lithuania[edit]

Criminal Code of Lithuania does not explicitly foresee a criminal punishment for incest between adults, however it does state that 'A father, mother, guardian, custodian or another lawful representative of a child or a person holding statutory powers in respect of a minor who has sexual intercourse or otherwise satisfied his sexual desires with that minor, in the absence of characteristics of a rape, sexual assault or sexual abuse, shall be punished by a fine or by restriction of liberty or by arrest or by a custodial sentence for a term of up to six years.' Thereby, the law explicitly foresees a criminal punishment for incest between a parent and a child or for persons of similar standing.^[112]

Netherlands[edit]

Consensual incest between adults is legal in the Netherlands.^[27] Marriage is forbidden between ancestors and descendants or between siblings, although the Minister of Justice may grant dispensation in the case of siblings by adoption. Marriage between blood relations of the third and fourth degree are possible, but require both partners to sign a declaration of consent. (Dutch civil law book 1, articles 41 and 42.^[113])

Norway[edit]

Incest is illegal in Norway and is defined as intercourse between ancestors and descendants (including adopted descendants), siblings, and even stepfamily. It is punishable by up to 6 years in prison.^[114]

Poland[edit]

In Poland, incest is defined in Article 201 of the Penal Code^[115] as sexual intercourse with an ancestor, descendant, guardian, ward, brother, or sister, and is punishable by imprisonment for no less than 3 months and no more than 5 years.

Portugal[edit]

Incest is not specifically prohibited under Portuguese law.^[116]

Romania[edit]

Incest is defined in the Penal Code as 'consensual sexual relations between lineal relatives or between siblings' and is punished by a year to 5 years in prison.^[117]

Russia[edit]

In Russia, consensual sex between adults, including incest, is not a crime.^[27][118] However, under the Family Code of Russia, persons who are related lineally, siblings, half-siblings, and a stepparent and a stepchild may not marry.^[119]

Slovenia[edit]

Incest in Slovenia is not criminally prohibited unless one person is a minor. A person who has sexual relations with a blood relation minor is punished to 2 years in prison.^{[citation needed]}

Spain[edit]

Consensual incest between adults is legal in Spain.^[27]

Sweden[edit]

Incest with a descendant or a full sibling is prohibited by law in Sweden.^[120][121] Half-siblings can marry, but require special approval by the government.

Switzerland[edit]

Article 213 of the Swiss Criminal Code prohibits incest. Intercourse among siblings or other persons related by blood in direct line is punishable by up to 3 years' imprisonment.^[122] The federal government proposed to abolish this prohibition in 2010, arguing that in the few cases where persons were convicted of incest (three since 1984), other sexual crimes such as child sexual abuse were also committed.^[123]

United Kingdom[edit]

Legislation regarding sexual offences in the United Kingdom is devolved. Sex with an adult who is related as parent, adoptive parent, grandparent, child, adopted child, grandchild, brother, sister, half-brother, half-sister, uncle, aunt, nephew or niece, is illegal. In England and Wales the offence is against the Sexual Offences Act 2003^[124] which effectively replaced the offence of incest with two new wider groups of offences: familial child sex offences (sections 25–29) and sex with an adult relative (sections 64–65). The punishment for sex between adults knowingly related in the aforementioned ways via penetration is liable to a maximum imprisonment for a term not exceeding 2 years.^[24] While sexual activity with a child family member can incur imprisonment for a term not exceeding 14 years.^[25] These laws are intended to protect the rights of people, so as to avoid potential violation. However, these laws still outlaw consensual sexual relationships between family members, even if they are fully willing and knowledgeable of the potential consequences.^[125] There has been some debate surrounding the rhetoric used by the Sexual Offences Review Team. Roffee discusses how the language used manipulates the reader to deem consensual familial sexual acts as not only illegal, but also immoral.^[126] In Northern Ireland similar offences are against the Sexual Offences (Northern Ireland) Order 2008.^[127]

In Scotland the offence is against the Criminal Law (Consolidation) (Scotland) Act 1995,^[128] the provisions of which effectively replaced the Incest and Related Offences (Scotland) Act 1986^[129] (although the 1986 Act was not actually repealed until 2010).^[130] Prior to the 1986 Act the law was based on the Incest Act 1567 which incorporated into Scots criminal law Chapter 18 of the Book of Leviticus, using the version of the text of the Geneva Bible of 1562.^[131] In January 2016 a petition calling for 'Adult Consensual Incest' to be decriminalised was submitted to the Scottish Parliament's Public Petitions Committee, but the petition was not debated and no change was made to the law.^[132]In August 2016 and December 2017 further petitions were submitted to the Scottish Parliament's Public Petitions Committee.^[133][134]

Oceania[edit]

Australia[edit]

In Australia, federal marriage law prohibits marriage between an ancestor and descendant or siblings (including a sibling of half-blood), including those traced through adoption.^[135] However, under federal law, sexual conduct between consenting adults (18 years of age or older) is legal,^[136][137] which also applies to close family members. Subject to this overriding federal law, incest continues in the statute books as a crime in every Australian jurisdiction,^[138] but what constitutes incest and penalties vary.

In all Australian states and territories except New South Wales, sexual intercourse between a lineal ancestor and a lineal descendant is incest. In New South Wales, incest involves 'close family members', which are 'parent, son, daughter, sibling (including a half-brother or half-sister), grandparent or grandchild, being such a family member from birth'.^[139] In Queensland, unlawful incest also includes sexual intercourse between an uncle or aunt with their niece or nephew, although here its application is curtailed by the effect of the federal Marriage Act 1961, as the Queensland Criminal Code states that the crime of incest does not apply to 'persons who are lawfully married or entitled to be lawfully married'. Thus it is not incest for a niece aged 16 or over to engage in sexual intercourse with her uncle or a nephew aged 16 or over to engage in sexual intercourse with his aunt. The same principles apply in a same-sex context, as the Marriage Act allows same-sex marriage.

In New South Wales incest is generally only applied in cases where both participants are aged 16 or over (the age of consent in the state). Where a participant is aged between 10 and 16 years of age the older participant would generally be charged with sexual intercourse with a child under the age of 16, while in cases when a participant is under 10, the older participant would generally be charged with sexual intercourse with a child under the age of 10.

In the other states and territories, incest can also arise where one of the parties is below the age of consent, but this does not exclude the possibility of bringing the more general charge of sexual intercourse with a child under the age of 10 (New South Wales and Northern Territory), 12, 16 or 17 (South Australia and Tasmania) as the case may be. This is particularly relevant where a certain form of sexual conduct between related persons falls outside of the legal definition of incest in a particular jurisdiction.

In no state or territory is consent a defense to incest. The maximum penalty for incest varies: 8 years' imprisonment in New South Wales;^[139] 10 years' imprisonment in South Australia; 20 years' imprisonment in Western Australia and the Australian Capital Territory; 25 years' imprisonment in the Northern Territory, Victoria, and Tasmania; and life imprisonment in Queensland. After one conviction for incest, the offender's name is placed on the sex offender registry for 15 years, while any offender with two or more convictions for incest has their name placed on the registry for the remainder of their life.

No particular laws apply to relationships arising from a sperm donation.^{[citation needed]}

New Zealand[edit]

In New Zealand, incest is sexual connection between a parent and child (both biological and adopted), grandparent and grandchild (both biological and adopted), and full and half-siblings.

It is a defence if the person was unaware of the relationship at the time of the act (i.e. accidental incest). A conviction for incest attracts a maximum penalty of 10 years' imprisonment.^[140] Incest is the only sexual crime punishable by 7 years or more imprisonment that is not subject to the country's 'three-strikes' law.^[141]

It is also illegal in New Zealand to have a sexual connection with a dependent child under 18; this includes step-children, foster children and wards. A conviction for having a sexual connection, or attempting to have a sexual connection, with a dependent child attracts a maximum penalty of 7 years' imprisonment.^[142]

See also[edit]

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138. ^See NSW: 'Crimes Act 1900 s 78A'.; Vic: 'Crimes Act 1958 s 44'.; Qld: 'Criminal Code s 222'.; SA: 'Criminal Law Consolidation Act 1935 s 72'.; WA: 'Criminal Code s 329'.; Tas: 'Criminal Code s 133'.; ACT: 'Crimes Act 1900 s 62'.; NT: 'Criminal Code s 134'..
139. ^ ^ab'Crimes Act 1900 (NSW), s 78A'..
140. ^'130 Incest -- Crimes Act 1961 No 43 (as at 13 July 2011), Public Act -- New Zealand Legislation Online'. Parliamentary Counsel Office. 13 July 2011. Retrieved 10 February 2012.
141. ^'86A Interpretation -- Additional consequences for repeated serious violent offending -- Sentencing Act 2002 No 9 (as at 22 January 2014), Public Act -- New Zealand Legislation Online'. Parliamentary Counsel Office. 22 January 2014. Retrieved 12 June 2014.
142. ^'131 Sexual conduct with dependent family member -- Crimes Act 1961 No 43 (as at 11 May 2014), Public Act -- New Zealand Legislation Online'. Parliamentary Counsel Office. 11 May 2014. Retrieved 12 June 2014.

External links[edit]

• Hughes, Graham. 'The Crime of Incest.' Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, Fall 1964. Volume 55, Issue 3 (September), Article 2, p. 322-331.

Reprinted with permission from Legal Affairs.

Girl Lives In Multiple Countries And Now In Usa Dating Brother Daughter

When she wrote the letter that she hoped would protect her sister, Mary Byler was lying on a twin bed, surrounded by rainbow-colored walls and a sky-blue ceiling decorated with bright white clouds. A stereo sat on the floor beside her. There were no signs of the Amish upbringing she had left behind-no plain wood furniture or chamber pot. Nothing except a stuffed doll that had belonged to her 6-year-old sister. The little girl had put the doll's bonnet on backward.
Mary fingered her long brown hair as she thought of her sister. And she thought about her older brother, Johnny, and his refusal when she'd asked him to go to therapy the day before. She started writing. 'When I was 4 years old, I was molested, when I was 6, I was sexually abused (rape) from then on till I was 17,' the 19-year-old put down. 'There was nothing I could do about this abuse as it was incest.'

Mary gave the letter to a friend, who drove 30 minutes northwest of the house where Mary was staying in the Wisconsin town of Viroqua, past a couple of dirt roads, a string of red barns, and frozen cornfields. He waited until nearly midnight on a cold evening last February, and then put the letter in the mailbox at the white shingled home of Sam Mast, an Amish minister in the community where Mary's family lived during her teenage years.

Mary's father was killed in a buggy accident when she was 5; she remembers him pulling her onto his lap and fondling her at their home in the small town of Sugar Grove, Pa. After her father's death, Mary's family moved 100 miles south to New Wilmington, Pa., another small town, where the back roads are filled with brown buggies and white shingled homes. There, Mary's two older cousins and brothers began molesting her. Johnny told the police that his cousins encouraged him, 'as far as breaking her in.' (The cousins denied that, but admitted to molesting Mary.) By the time Mary was in her teens, she was being raped regularly by Johnny, who is seven years older, and her brother Eli, who is four years older. Once, Eli climbed on top of her while Johnny held her down.

There was no escape. Mary was grabbed in the bedroom, in the barn, in the outhouse, milking the cows in the morning, and on her way to school. 'It did not matter how hard I tried to hide,' Mary would explain in her letter to Mast, which she also sent to other Amish clergy. 'If I ran upstairs to go to bed or to hide because I was at home with the boys, I'd be locking my door and turn around and there was someone crawling through my window. So my windows were always locked . . . Then they started taking off my door.'

To the hordes of tourists who travel to Pennsylvania Dutch country each year to go to quilting bees and shop for crafts, the Gentle People, as the Amish are known, represent innocence. They are a people apart, removed in place and arrested in time. They reject the corruptions of modernity-the cars that have splintered American communities and the televisions that have riveted the country's youth. The Amish way of life is grounded in agriculture, hard work, and community. Its deliberate simplicity takes the form of horse-drawn buggies, clothes that could have come from a Vermeer painting, and a native German dialect infused with English words.

The myth of the Amish is amplified in movies like Witness and television shows like Amish in the City. It's also fed by a series of practices that reinforce the group's insularity. The Amish want to be left alone by the state-and to a remarkable extent, they are. They don't fight America's wars or, for the most part, contribute to Social Security. In 1972, noting their 'excellent record as law-abiding and generally self-sufficient members of society,' the Supreme Court allowed the Amish to take their children out of school after eighth grade.

The license the Amish have been granted rests on the trust that the community will police itself, with Amish bishops and ministers acting in lieu of law enforcement. Yet keeping order comes hard to church leaders. 'The Amish see the force of law as contrary to the Christian spirit,' said Donald Kraybill, a professor at Elizabethtown College in Pennsylvania and an expert on the group. As a result, the Amish shy away from sending people to prison and the system of punishment of 'the English,' as the Amish call other Americans. Once a sinner has confessed, and his repentance has been deemed genuine, every member of the Amish community must forgive him.

This approach is rooted in the Amish notion of Gelassenheit, or submission. Church members abide by their clergymen; children obey their parents; sisters mind their brothers; and wives defer to their husbands (divorce is taboo). With each act of submission, the Amish follow the lesson of Jesus when he died on the cross rather than resist his adversaries.

But can a community govern itself by Jesus's teaching of mercy alone? It is sinful for the Amish to withhold forgiveness-so sinful that anyone who refers to a past misdeed after the Amish penalty for it has ended can be punished in the same manner as the original sinner. 'That's a big thing in the Amish community,' Mary said. 'You have to forgive and forgive.'

In some church districts, which encompass only two or three dozen families scattered along back roads, there appear to be many crimes like Johnny and Eli's to forgive. No statistics are available, but according to one Amish counselor who works with troubled church members across the Midwest, sexual abuse of children is 'almost a plague in some communities.' Some police forces and district attorneys do their best to step in, though they are rarely welcomed. Others are slow to investigate or quick to let off Amish offenders with light punishments. When that happens, girls like Mary are failed three times: by their families, their church, and their state.

Kathryn Byler, who counts Mary and her family as distant kin, lives more than 600 miles from them, in Morrow County, Ohio. The Amish don't own phones (some use them only for emergencies). Still, news gets around. Kathryn knew Mary's story.

Before her father's death, Mary told her mother, Sally, that he was molesting her. At first, Sally didn't believe her daughter. Mary said that her mother told her, 'He says he's sorry and you have to forgive him.' After her husband's death, Sally raised Mary and her eight sons on her own. Her household wasn't the tidiest, and the children didn't always listen to her. Sally got particularly frustrated with Mary, who had inherited her large almond-shaped eyes and tendency to talk out of turn.

When Mary's brothers began raping her, she turned to her mother again. Sally scolded the boys and gave them what Eli described as a light 'mother's tap.' She also gave them an herb that she hoped would reduce their sex drives. When the abuse resumed and Mary went back to her mother, she said Sally responded, 'You don't fight hard enough and you don't pray hard enough.'

'The boys were doing bad things and the mother knew,' Kathryn said. 'What mother would allow that to happen in her house?' And yet, it happened in her house as well.

When I knocked on her screen door on a recent autumn afternoon, Kathryn was boiling two large pots of water for her husband Raymond's bath. His white shirt hung near the wood-burning stove, along with his spare straw hat. Raymond was out doing carpentry work. Kathryn tied on a black bonnet as she came to answer the door.

I had already encountered Kathryn in court documents. This was the mother who had tried to shield her husband from prosecution, after the boyfriend of one of her three daughters reported to the Ohio police that Raymond was molesting two of the girls. The abuse began when the older girl was 5 or 6; it lasted more than a decade, and included repeated rapes. (The girl grew up in Pennsylvania near Mary Byler, and told Mary that her father was raping her.)

'I may have been to blame, too,' Kathryn Byler said in court at her husband's sentencing in December 1998. In earlier interviews with detectives, Byler faulted herself for failing to sexually satisfy her husband. Like Sally, she talked about administering an herbal remedy to reduce his sex drive. 'She knew what was going on. It was almost, 'Take my daughter by the hand and let's go to the barn,' ' said Sergeant Paul Mills, who helped investigate the case. ' 'So sayeth her husband,' and whatever he says is the way it has to be.'

While we talked, Kathryn sat in a rocking chair, which she'd polished to a high shine. She wore metal-frame glasses and a dark green dress, pinned together because her church doesn't allow zippers. Beneath her black bonnet, her face was plain and open. As her religion dictates, she wore no makeup or jewelry. Though she was afraid to talk and spoke softly, fear didn't stop the words from rushing out of her. It felt good, she said as she settled into her chair.

Kathryn doesn't see her husband as a bad man. She smiled when she showed me a picture of a lighthouse that Raymond had painted, and she praised him for coming home early that day to help can tomatoes. Still, he has a nasty temper. Kathryn hates the foosball table that sits in the middle of her living room, an eyesore of miniature yellow and black men that was a gift from an English friend. But she has stopped asking Raymond to take it away. When he gets upset, he shouts, and then she cries. She has learned to be careful with him.

Years before his arrest, Raymond confessed to molesting one of his daughters and, as Kathryn put it, 'made things right in church.' Kathryn said that she believed he had stopped the abuse, though when her husband sent her out of the house on errands, a part of her wondered. 'I knew he wanted me to go away a lot, but I trusted him,' she said. 'I guess I trusted him too far.'

When their trust is betrayed, women like Kathryn and Sally see themselves as having little recourse. In 1996, Sally remarried a man named William Kempf, whom she'd met on a bus ride. The cabinetmaker, who is now 78, had a mean streak, and he took to hitting Sally, Mary, and Mary's younger half-sister. 'Sally lived eight miles from the nearest police station,' Sally's lawyer, Russell Hanson, said to explain why his client, who declined to be interviewed, didn't report her sons. 'I was told by one of the elders that women are not permitted to take their horses to town.'

Yet in a shed one door down from the Kempfs' house sits a white phone. It's registered in an English neighbor's name but is used by the Amish. Sally didn't call the police because she'd been taught to defer to the men in her household, even if they were her sons, and because she belongs to a community that believes the greater threat comes from without, not within.

Kathryn, for her part, has borne her husband six children. Four older sons and daughters have left home-the oldest girl got married and the middle girl lives with her-but their mother works hard to take care of Raymond and the young son and daughter who still live with them. Even if the church allowed divorce, Kathryn wouldn't want one. She'd like Raymond to take medication to help calm his temper. He won't, though, so she takes pills to ease her own sadness. 'We're supposed to forgive, but that's hard to do,' Kathryn said. 'The only way I can ever truly forgive him is when he dies. Those were our children, and look what he did.'

The Amish church traces its roots to the 16th century, when a group of Swiss dissidents decided the Protestant Reformation was moving too slowly. They embraced baptism of adults rather than children, a practice that was seen as a threat to the civic order and punished by execution. The Amish faced persecution and torture, which they relive in their prayers and hymns every other Sunday, when they worship in each other's homes.

Today, most of the church's 200,000 members live in the United States, and about half of them are in Pennsylvania and Ohio, concentrated in rural counties that are the heart of Amish country. There is a sameness to much of the region, with its white shingled homes, dark buggies, and repeating surnames.

As Donald Kraybill explains in his book The Amish and the State, there are two kingdoms in Amish theology: the kingdom of Christ, inhabited by the Amish, and the one in which everyone else lives. To maintain the boundary between the two worlds, the Amish hold themselves apart from the secular state as much as they can. In the mid-1900s, dozens of Amish fathers went to prison rather than agree to send their kids to public schools with non-Amish children. The community opened its own one-room schoolhouses, where the curricula ignored subjects like science and sex education. A woman who now lives near the Amish in Ohio's Guernsey County reports that many of her neighbors weren't taught that the earth was round. 'A lot of Amish will tell you they don't want their kids to be educated,' she said. 'The more they know, the more apt they are to leave.'

The Amish tightly circumscribe their world in other ways as well. For the most part, they don't file lawsuits, serve on juries, run for political office, or vote (despite Republican efforts to enlist them in the 2004 election). The bishop is the highest clergyman in the hierarchy of each church, and he oversees two ministers and a deacon. Men and women propose candidates for minister and deacon, and in most districts any man with two or three nominations is considered. The 'elected' clergy is chosen according to a biblical method of casting lots: each man chooses from a pile of identical hymnals, and the one who chooses the book marked with a piece of paper bearing a verse from the Bible becomes a church leader.

The bishop, who is chosen the same way from a field of three ministers, has awesome authority. He interprets the Ordnung, the unwritten rules that govern each church district, stipulating everything from the size of a man's hat brim to the paint color on the outside of a house. When a church member violates the Ordnung, the bishop determines the punishment.

When she turned 17 three years ago, Mary Byler joined the church, as Amish adults must do. Johnny had stopped raping her when he got married in 1998. Mary thinks her new status as a church member protected her from Eli because it meant she had a duty to confess to fornication. She tried to forget what had happened with her brothers, but she couldn't. When she was 19, Mary sought succor from her minister, Sam Mast. As she stood awkwardly in his workshop, Mast said he saw that she was 'heavy-hearted.' But Mary couldn't bring herself to tell him what Johnny and Eli had done. Mast suggested that she confess her sins in church. 'I said, 'Why don't you go to somebody and just empty it out?' ' he told me recently.

To some degree, Johnny had confessed his own a few years earlier, when he was 21. But he admitted to fornication without saying that he had committed rape or that his victim had been his sister. The church elders didn't probe. Bishop Dan Miller listened to Johnny's confession, and later Mast gave him the letter Mary had written. But when I spoke with him, Miller said he had 'no sense of what was going on.' He didn't connect Johnny's confession with Mary's plea for help.

Johnny's punishment for his confessed sins lasted two weeks. During that period, he was shunned, the traditional Amish punishment for serious transgressions. As if sin were contagious, the community erects a metaphorical fence around the sinner. Johnny wasn't allowed to leave his home except to attend church. After his punishment, he returned to working in his harness shop. Mary's punishment, by contrast, lasts forever.

Mast took a break from hammering in his workshop to explain the concept of excommunication to me. When Mary left her home, she broke her vow to uphold the Ordnung. The Amish believe that anyone who breaks that vow is damned and must be shunned. Church members may talk to her only to admonish her to repent and return, Mast said. He stroked his full beard as he struggled for the right English words. 'We would tell Mary that we think she done wrong and tell her to come back,' he said. 'We couldn't take her word for anything. We would have nothing to do with her.'

As for Mary's brothers, Miller declared that Johnny and Eli would be shunned for periods of four and six weeks. 'They told us they wanted to quit and were sorry about what happened,' the minister said.

In the shadow of a peeling white house in Guernsey Couny, Ohio, sits a rusty shed. Its wooden door had swung open on an afternoon in October, revealing black letters that spelled out the name N-O-R-M-A-N B-Y-L-E-R.

Now 72, Norman was diagnosed a few years ago with depression and the beginnings of dementia. A photograph of him at the time reveals thin features accented by a coarse white beard and dark, penetrating eyes. Norman has a history of pedophilia that dates to the 1970s, when he allegedly molested several of his eight daughters and at least one young woman outside his family. During that period, he confessed in church, repented, and was banished for four weeks.

Aware of her father's problem, Norman's youngest daughter 'went to great lengths to make sure he wasn't alone' with kids, said his public defender, Diane Menashe. In 1995, the daughter and her husband, Tobie Yoder, let Norman move onto their property. Four years later, the Yoders discovered that Norman was molesting three of his granddaughters, ages 3, 5, and 8.

Tobie went to Bishop Moses Miller and the elders in his Swartzentruber district. That denomination falls on the most restrictive end of the spectrum from Old Order to New Order Amish. (The New Order allows brighter colored clothing and more modern appliances.) Bishops like Miller actively police their congregations. The sins multiply quickly. Driving a car, using a tractor, masturbating, and drinking alcohol can all trigger the maximum six-week ban. (At the same time, some Swartzentrubers make allowances, like permitting tobacco and 'bed courtship': On Saturday nights in Moses Miller's district, teenage boys are allowed to steal into the rooms of girls their age. The teens are supposed to keep their clothes on, but the boy isn't expected to leave until milking time the next morning. Many parents encourage bed courtship because it often leads to early marriages, which make young people less likely to leave the church.)

Moses Miller responded to Tobie Yoder's appeal by scolding Norman, who told him that in molesting his granddaughters, he was acting 'no different than the cows in the field.' Norman was shunned for six weeks. But he remained out of control, so volatile that adults in the area feared for their safety. Eventually Bishop Miller took the unusual step of allowing Yoder to take his father-in-law to a hospital.

Despite Norman's recurring problems, other bishops say they would not have made the decision that Miller did. 'We have to deal with the sin if it's once, twice, or thrice,' said Chris Kauffman, the most respected bishop in the Mt. Gilead area of Ohio's Morrow County.

Yet Levi Schwartz, who lives in Mt. Gilead, said the church's reliance on repentance failed him. 'Sometimes I went into the bedroom and cried because of my sin,' he recalled. In 1989 Schwartz started molesting one of his daughters. He kissed the girl, rubbed her, and bared himself to her until she grew old enough to date, and then he moved on to her younger sister. On a late fall night in his cavernous living room, the 52-year-old, who has since left the Amish, talked about his past with unnerving ease while one of the daughters he molested sat on a nearby couch. 'I confessed in church a number of times,' Schwartz said. 'I wanted to be clean, so I took it to the ministers. I thought that would give me grace, and the power to overcome it.'

Schwartz said his bishop, Eli Raber, discouraged Schwartz's sporadic attempts to get counseling. (Raber declined to comment.) In 1994, Schwartz's son Benjamin began touching his sisters; he confessed in church and was shunned for two weeks. Levi Schwartz, however, was losing faith in the church's method of punishment. After one of his daughters started crying while he was molesting her, Schwartz checked himself into Oaklawn Psychiatric Hospital in Indiana. He asked the girl to pray for him, and she did.

When Norman Byler's family sent him to Mercy Medical Center in Ohio, he received a week of counseling and was given antipsychotic medication and antidepressants, which he burned instead of taking. Still, Yoder believes the 'doctoring' helped his father-in-law. 'I felt like we had him half decent under control,' he said.

But pedophilia is a hard disease to treat. Deborah Love, an English neighbor who lived next to the Yoders, saw Norman take his 3-year-old granddaughter into his woodshed on a fall day in 1999. She knew that one of Norman's daughters had recently moved her family to Iowa after saying that Norman had asked to sleep with one of her girls. 'He was with me enough. He wasn't going to be with my daughter,' Love said the woman told her.

A day after Norman took the 3-year-old into his shed, Love noticed some dried blood on the girl's leg. She called Guernsey County Children's Services. The Amish accused Love of lying, and she said she has felt their anger. When some of the men passed her house, they raised their hats and turned them sideways to avoid looking at her. Love's husband said that one young Amish man warned him during hunting season that, 'Accidents do happen, so you'd better be careful.' In the spring of 2000, the Loves moved out of the neighborhood.

Last March, a detective in Wisconsin phoned trooper Janice Wilson to tell her about statements that Mary and her family had made about rampant incest in the Amish community in which they grew up. That community is in New Wilmington, Pa., near where Wilson works. When she started investigating, she was stunned to hear reports of extensive sexual abuse, and of births resulting from incest.

Amish insiders say the problem is so common that a bishop in the area has preached against it. Johnny Byler said that, growing up in Lawrence County, he thought it was normal to have sex with his sister. 'Other kids would talk about it,' Johnny said. When I asked Mary's cousin, David Wengerd, whether he had molested his sister in addition to Mary, as Mary has charged, he responded, 'I'd rather not answer.'

Janice Wilson and I drove through New Wilmington, past a string of buggies heading to the home of a local Amish man, who was marrying off his daughter. The white houses we passed had pale blue doors, the only touch of color allowed by the church. Wilson was despairing over the cases she'd been unable to crack because no victim would come forward. Her supervisor, Lieutenant Peter Vogel, echoed her frustration, saying, 'The moment we approach them as police, they shut up, the whole clan.'

When the police identify a perpetrator, however, their work in one sense becomes easy. The Amish ethic of confession extends to answering questions asked by outsiders. With little prompting from the detectives who questioned him, Norman Byler admitted to manually penetrating his 8-year-old granddaughter. He said that he hurt the child to get back at her father, who had refused to take Norman to the hospital to treat a torn muscle. (Most Swartzentrubers resort to Western medicine only in emergencies.) Raymond Byler, Levi and Benjamin Schwartz, and Johnny, Eli, and David Byler confessed with similar readiness.

Girl Lives In Multiple Countries And Now In Usa Dating Brother Daughter

Johnny and Eli were each charged with five counts of sexual assault and pleaded guilty, to two counts and one count, respectively. David pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting his little sister. In September, a month before his sentencing, Johnny said he sometimes felt suicidal and couldn't understand why he might go to prison. 'Johnny thinks, 'I did a terrible thing but I've tried to make it right,' ' said Jack Buswell, his attorney. 'He feels let down.'

Yet the confessions of Johnny and other Amish offenders haven't elicited heavy penalties. Levi Schwartz got probation and his son has not been prosecuted. The district attorney in Lawrence County said he had not decided whether to prosecute Mary's cousins, Chris and David Wengerd. Raymond Byler was sentenced to four years, even though the judge in his case found that he posed 'the greatest likelihood of recidivism.' Norman Byler faced a maximum penalty of 25 years in jail, but prosecutor Keith Plummer recommended that he serve no time beyond the two years he had waited to go on trial. The judge set aside the plea, saying he was unwilling to countenance such leniency for an offender who had shown 'no genuine remorse.' Norman was sentenced to five years; before his release last month, he wrote to the Yoders to say he wanted to come home.

The relatively light sentences meted out to these men stand out at a time when sex offenders are punished with increasing harshness. The fear that many pedophiliacs can't be stopped has led Congress to lengthen sentences for child sex offenders and has persuaded some states to use involuntary civil commitment laws to keep them behind bars indefinitely. Why did these Amish, by contrast, receive only mercy?

District attorneys and judges appear to be quick to forgive in the counties that have the largest Amish populations. The 92,000 Amish who live in Ohio and Pennsylvania generate hundreds of millions in annual tourism revenue. Brent Yager, who prosecuted Levi Schwartz, would never say that he spared Schwartz to protect the appeal of Pennsylvania Dutch country. But prosecutors and judges are as steeped in the myth of the Gentle People as anyone. 'Is Schwartz getting a break because he's Amish?' Yager said. 'In some ways, yes. Is he going to reoffend? I don't think so.'

In Wisconsin, where only 10,000 Amish live, Timothy Gaskell took a harder line in prosecuting Johnny, Eli, and David Byler. Gaskell also brought misdemeanor charges against Mary's stepfather, for beating her, and against Sally, for failing to report the abuse of her daughter. As a result of Gaskell's efforts, the Kempfs were put on probation, David got a four-year prison sentence, and Eli got eight years in prison. Johnny, however, was ordered to spend one year at the county jail, and mostly at night. During the day, the judge said, he could work to keep his farm running. A crowd of 150 Amish turned out to support Johnny at his sentencing.

It is hard to think of Mary Byler as lucky, but in one respect she was: The state responded when she asked for help. Anna Slabaugh has a different story. Anna, who is the eighth of nine children, remembers reading books with her mother as a child. Fannie Slabaugh taught school when Anna was young, and though reading books was strongly discouraged by the family's Swartzentruber district, she couldn't bear to get rid of the books she had found in an abandoned schoolhouse.

Maybe it was the Nancy Drew mysteries, but Anna never felt she belonged with the Swartzentrubers. She got upset when her father cut off the tails of the pigs or pulled out the horns of the goats. She liked to draw, which violated the Ordnung. And she didn't like the constant dimness: The church allowed only kerosene, which gives off less light than gas, and candles had to be kept at a low glow.

Whether for wearing her cap too far back on her head or for 'acting around' in church, Anna was often in trouble. Her father was in poor health, because he refused to take insulin for his diabetes, but he knew how to give a good beating. Sometimes he used the strap, a foot-long piece of rubber common in Amish homes; at other times, he took Anna 'to the woodpile' and hit her with a piece of wood.

When Anna turned 11, she told me, her 19-year-old brother began molesting her, stopping just short of intercourse. When he moved away, another 17-year-old brother started raping her. (The court documents involving Anna's family are sealed.) Anna didn't try to stop her brothers at first. 'You don't tell your brothers, who are so much older than you, No,' she said. But when she got her period at 13 and realized she could have a baby, she started fighting back. 'He would make sure he put a lot of pressure on my top so I couldn't breathe,' she said of the younger brother.

Anna wanted help, but she didn't think she would get it from her church. So she began dropping hints about the abuse to English neighbors. When they didn't pick up on her cues, she got bolder. In 2001, while cleaning house for her family's landlord, Anna used the phone to call a battered women's shelter in Mt. Vernon, Ohio. The counselors on the other end of the line didn't take her seriously. But after a month of calls, the shelter alerted Children and Family Services Division of Knox County.

When a social worker visited Anna's home, Anna told her about the sexual abuse. She also reported that her parents were moving the family to Pennsylvania. Laurie Roberts, one of the social workers on Anna's case in Ohio, said she was taught in training that sexual abuse among the Amish is pervasive, and seldom reported. (The problem is significant enough that the counties near Knox publish a pamphlet to educate the Amish about sexual abuse.) Yet the county left Anna in her home. 'Oh Gosh, I wish I could get it in those C.S. people that my parents will absolutely kill me now,' Anna wrote at the time to a cousin who had left the Amish. The social workers 'say you'll have to be hurt by them before we'll do anything about it,' she continued.

Anna tried to run away. But when her parents figured out where she was and called the woman who was sheltering her, Anna was sent home. Fannie began locking Anna in her room. The family moved to Tionesta, Pa., where Fannie tried to get her daughter declared mentally ill. She took Anna to a doctor who found that Anna's eardrum had collapsed from blows to her head and seemed doubtful that the damage had been caused by buggy accidents as he'd been told. Fannie next tried a massage therapist, Barbara Burke. Noticing scars on Anna's legs, Burke called Children and Youth Services in Clarion County. On a later visit, Burke massaged Anna's father while CYS secretly interviewed Anna in the basement. The agency later visited Anna at her home. But it didn't take her into protective custody. (CYS declined to comment.)

When Fannie found out about the CYS visit, she and Anna went with 13 other kids to the home of John Yoder, an Amish dentist who lived an hour and a half away in the town of Punxsutawney. Yoder's living room had a recliner with a tin pan and some needles next to it. Anna watched as the other kids each had one or two bad teeth pulled. When it was her turn, Yoder shot some novocaine into her upper gum. She shook her head and told him that two of her lower teeth had cavities. He shot the lower gum, and asked Fannie which teeth should go. Anna's mother answered, 'Take them all,' and Yoder pulled-along the upper gum, along the lower gum, until every tooth was gone. 'After he had pulled the last tooth,' Anna remembered, 'my mom looked at me and said, 'I guess you won't be talking anymore.' '

Anna bled for three days. Her family ignored her, except to periodically hand her a drink. She couldn't talk, but that didn't matter, because Anna had nothing left to say. At church, she looked away when other kids pointed at her mouth. Fannie Slabaugh told me that Anna had asked for her teeth to be pulled. But the detective who investigated the case, Trooper Michael Pisarchic, said that the other kids who went with Anna to see Yoder said that Anna was being punished. Meanwhile, CYS was continuing to investigate. A court date was set for the spring of 2002. The bishop in Anna's district, Moses Shettler, called Barbara Burke and asked her to testify that Anna had mental problems. Burke refused. On the Friday before Anna was scheduled to appear in court, soon after her teeth had been pulled, Shettler and a group of elders visited Anna's parents. Anna said her parents threatened two days later to take her out to the woodpile, or worse, unless she told her lawyer that she took back her accusations against her brothers. Stripped of faith in the state to protect her, Anna did as she was told.

Neither Anna's parents nor John Yoder were ever charged with abuse. The judge in Anna's case allowed the younger brother to remain under Amish supervision as long as he had no contact with Anna. But Anna said he returned home on the day of the hearing. 'They don't believe it's any of our business,' said Roberts, Anna's Ohio social worker, of the Amish attitude toward child abuse investigations. But it's the job of social workers, police, and prosecutors to make child abuse their business. The state's duty to push past the barriers thrown up by parents and the community can't hinge on the religion they practice. Its role becomes more essential, not less, when adults wall off children from the outside world.

While the authorities idled, Anna was being watched constantly. One of her chores was taking the family's horses out to pasture, within view of the house. On a morning in June when the animals seemed frisky, Anna clapped her hands. The horses scattered and she pretended to chase them, cutting across the field to a mailbox, where she dropped off a letter she'd written to Burke. 'Are you still willing to help, or am I not welcome?' she wrote. 'I need to get out of here.' She asked Burke to put a message in a plastic bottle for her and leave it in a ditch by the mailbox. Two days later, Anna spooked the horses again, and a message was waiting. 'Our arms are open to you and so are our doors,' Burke promised.

Anna burned the note with a lighter and went home. It was her turn to make supper. She lit the stove, began heating water, and sat down to write a letter to her family. The sun was falling when she finished. Anna climbed out of the kitchen window and ran.

When Mary Byler left home, she threw her white cap onto Sam Mast's driveway and screeched off in the car of a woman who took her in. In the two years since, Mary has driven by her mother's house a few times in a black Grand Prix. 'If Mary wants to get away,' Sally asked Eli's lawyer, Greg Lunde, 'why does she keep coming back?'

When I caught up with Mary, six months after she left the Amish, she insisted that her mother and her brothers were dead to her. But in the kitchen of the spotless trailer she rents next to Wisconsin's La Crosse River, she couldn't stop talking about them. Cracking eggs into a mixing bowl to make sugar cookies-never mind that it was after midnight-she dwelt on how much Johnny, Eli, and David loved her baking.

Though Mary can't quite leave her family behind, she ran from the church and didn't look back. She pierced her ears last March, earned a GED in April, and got a driver's license in May. A friend bought her the Grand Prix, and Mary paid him back on the $8-an-hour salary she earns cleaning a hospital in La Crosse.

Mary took me out to her car to play a Loretta Lynn cassette. Dressed in shorts and a tight pink T-shirt with a white angel on the front, she shifted a Doral cigarette from her right hand to her left so that she could jab more effectively at the seek button on the car stereo. She was looking for one song: 'Hey, Loretta.' When it started, Mary jerked her head to the beat. 'Goodbye tub and clothesline, goodbye pots an' pans,' she belted out, flinging her hair and pounding her right leg. Her nails painted a matching pink and a silver necklace hanging from her neck, Mary didn't care how many Ordnung rules she was breaking. She was drunk on freedom.