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Why does everyone marry their adoptive sisters and/or cousins?
I'm referring of course to Victorian novels (David Copperfield and Frankenstein being two examples) where the hero's love interest is his adoptive sister who he's grown up with and nobody finds this strange in any way.
It almost gets presented as though marrying one's adoptive sister is the ultimate Victorian fantasy.
Anyone got any idea why there was this filial fascination around this time?