Ann, 79, and Bryan, 82, have also fostered about 12 children throughout their marriage.

The Watts still live in the four-bedroom home they moved into after their wedding day.

Bryan said he never imagined having such a large family.

"When we were starry-eyed teenagers we aimed to have about six children," he said.

"We had our first two children, and then there was a three-year break, so we decided to foster some children, and we relaxed a bit and had more children of our own."

The foster children included a set of twins who lived with the Watt family for about seven years. They still keep in contact and visit, Bryan said.

The most up-to-date census records there are three families with up to 14 children.

The number of families with 15 or more children is randomly rounded to protect privacy. However, an analyst believes that the number is below three.

"My parents are very giving and, for any families that for a number of reasons couldn't care for their own kids, Mum and Dad took them into their care," said Gerard, the ninth Watt child.

"It was always a very busy household, and one of the benefits of being part of such a large family was you pick up all sorts of skills such as how to socialise and being able to negotiate things like bathroom time.

"You also had to be well organised as we only had one bathroom and one toilet and there was a slot of time in the morning to get ready. You couldn't miss it."

Source

• pressreader.com
• www.stuff.co.nz
• Image: stuff.co.nz

In part, this is a result of a misunderstanding.

We often think that the primary reason to ban incest is to prevent genetic abnormalities or other harm to children who might be conceived.

When there are so many options available by which to prevent such harm, this reasoning seems less and less intelligible.

Incestuous couples could simply refrain from having children, for example, or use assisted reproduction technology to conceive healthy ones.

The lack of intelligibility does not mean that there is a wave of defenders of incest attempting to break the taboo, although there are some.

But it does offer an opportunity to reconsider why incest is a bad thing for a society to tolerate.

And in doing so we might recognize that the problem to which incest gives rise has infiltrated our society by other means, posing a major threat to the health and stability of our families.

The Philosophical Case Against Incest

In the Supplement to his Summa, Thomas Aquinas discusses questions of consanguinity.

After asking whether consanguinity is an impediment to marriage by virtue of the natural law, he gives three reasons that it is.

Interestingly, none of these reasons makes reference to difficulties with offspring.

Rather, Aquinas holds that incest is contrary, first, to the order of relations that should exist between parents and their children.

A daughter cannot relate in the appropriate ways to her father both as father and as spouse, for example.

Aquinas's third reason is that incest is contrary to an "accidental" end of marriage: the binding together of humankind and the extending of friendship. Continue reading

Sources

• Public Discourse
• Image: Fair Observer