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Abstract
Lévi-Strauss: misunderstood kinship.
An analysis of «The Elementary Structures of Kinship» reveals that the theory of the incest taboo, understood by Lévi-Strauss as a break between nature and culture, is obsolete and requires some criticism: 1) of the theory of exchange and the principle of reciprocity underlying kinship and marriage through the concept of symmetry; 2) the universality of the incest taboo through the concept of prescribed exception, which shows that incest is not always condemned. On the other hand, Lévi-Strauss’s criticism of Freud on the phylogenetic hypothesis of the primitive horde is not relevant, nor is his criticism of the identity of the subject, which refers to a Lacanian concept, the «clivage» of the subject, as if it were from freudian psychoanalysis. The appendix criticizes the prudish attitude of much anthropology, which discusses the issue of incest as if it concerned kinship (Lévi-Strauss) or procreation (Malinowski), rather than the legitimization of sexual enjoyment.