The Westermarck trap: A possible factor in the creation of Frankenstein

When children affected by the “Westermarck effect” are expected to marry each other, like those in Taiwan described by Wolf and Huang (1980), we may speak of the “Westermarck trap.” Students of the Westermarck effect may be interested to know that this trap is depicted in the novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, in which Victor Frankenstein is expected to marry a cousin reared with him. Instead, he creates a monster that persecutes him and murders his prospective bride before the marriage can be consummated. It is suggested that the plot owes something to Mary Shelley's own experience of the Westermarck effect, following a childhood in which she was reared with a stepbrother. Her own personal solution was not to create a monster but to elope with a married man (Percy Bysshe Shelley) at the age of 16.