Summary: A father-daughter pair plans to move to New Jersey to continue their romantic relationship.
They say that girls typically marry their fathers, but one father-daughter pair is taking the old saying literally.
According to NJ.com, an 18-year-old from the Great Lakes area expressed her intent to move to New Jersey so that she could marry her father—apparently, incest is legal in the Garden State.
In the fall, a brother-sister pair were arrested for having sex in a church parking lot.
Robert Bianchi, a former Morris County prosecutor, explained that as long as certain requirements are met, a father-daughter sexual relationship might actually be legal in New Jersey. Neither party may be mentally incapacitated and no force or coercion may be used in the relationship. The sexual assault laws of the state do not bar sexual relations between blood relatives. Most states do bar some form of incest, but the prohibited relationships vary from state to state.
Rhode Island has decriminalized incestuous relationships, and last year, New York allowed an uncle and a niece to wed. According to Wikipedia, between 10 and 15 percent of the general population has suffered incestuous contact.
Incest was illegal in New Jersey until 1979. That year, the state created a new criminal code that accidentally left a section planned for incest laws blank. Under the former criminal code, incest could land a person in jail for up to fifteen years.
Mama June decided to stay with her boyfriend even though he allegedly molested her daughter.
New Jersey does forbid marriages between relatives, such as marrying one’s parent, sibling, niece, or uncle. These marriages are considered void, but the father-daughter pair says that they just plan to live as a married couple.
In addition, adults in New Jersey are prohibited from having sexual relationships with 16- and 17-year-old children if the adult has supervisory power over the teenager. Otherwise, the age of consent in New Jersey is 16.
A parent who has sex with a child under the age of 18 may also be charged with endangering the welfare of a child.
According to a New York magazine interview with the daughter, she was conceived on her parents’ prom night. As she grew up, her mother would not let her communicate with her father. She last saw him when she was a five-year-old child.
The Daily Mail adds that the girl’s father reached out to her when she was in high school through Facebook, and, when she visited him for a week soon after, they had sex for the first time.
Even after he died, child molestation accusations were made against Michael Jackson.
When the pair reunited, they apparently developed romantic feelings for each other. Their sexual relationship has been ongoing for the past two years. The daughter said that she wants her own children “to be in a happy and stable household with two people who love them.”
Jezebel.com’s Tracy Moore commented, “Yes, at 18, the law declares her fit to consent, but (what) is this dude thinking?”
Dr. Jay Von Ornsteiner is the project director for the Mental Health Court Advocacy Program of Brooklyn’s Arraignment Court. Dr. Ornsteiner explained that the daughter could not have had an emotionally stable childhood, and did not have normal relationships as she grew up. He said, “This did, I believe, skew her perception, and possibly makes her feel that she has an equal relationship with this man who is actually her biological father. She’s too young to understand that he’s really behaving inappropriately, and certainly not behaving as a father would.”
Thomas Zampino, an attorney with Snyder & Sarno, said that most incest cases he has seen are the result of abuse or neglect of a child. Usually, a defendant is charged with child neglect, child endangerment, or sexual assault. He said, “A father or grandfather would be abusing an underage child.”
Interestingly, humans are not the only beings who are turned off by the thought of a relationship with one’s parent. Even cockroaches will not mate with close relatives. Professor Hal Herzog explained to Psychology Today that the instinct has deeper biological roots: the risk for defects is significant for the children of first-degree relatives.
Herzog explained, “Forty percent of the children were born with either autosomal recessive disorders, congenital physical malformations, or severe intellectual deficits. And another 14 percent of them had mild mental disabilities. In short, the odds that a newborn child who is the product of brother-sister or father-daughter incest will suffer an early death, a severe birth defect or some mental deficiency approaches 50 percent.”
Photo credit: Wikipedia