Incest and exogamy are, therefore, the opposite sides of the same penny, and the incest taboo (a rule about sexual behavior) is the cornerstone of society – a structure of social and political relations. In a succinct explanation of Levi-Strauss’ position on the incest taboo and its occurrence in myths, Edmund Leach wrote: Every human being is born out of a union of two others and each of those two was born out of the union of an earlier two and so on into an infinite regression. to find a satisfactory transition between this theory and the knowledge that human beings are actually born from the union of man and woman.” (1967:212) Having stated this problem, Levi-Strauss notes that this is obviously a problem that cannot be solved. In his famous discussion of the structural approach to myth, Levi-Strauss deconstructed the Oedipus myth and observed, “The myth has to do with the inability for a culture which holds the belief that mankind is autochthonous. The Sinhalese use of it in the chronicles is truly a continuation of the uses made of it in other legends and myths as one instrument for the solution of certain narrative problems. The use of the idea of incest in narratives of one kind or another for what may be termed its thematic and logical implications is quite common in the texts of many societies, if not indeed of all societies.
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