Quilligan’s overarching thesis–that incest gives women agency to halt the traffic in women–seems to be only applicable to very particular forms of incest. Quilligan herself notes that greater agency is exercised by women already in positions of social power (for example, in her discussion on the frequency of women writers to be Tories) (20). I would question whether it is the incest that gives women social power, or rather the fact that they already hold social power that allows for the endogamous transgression. She gives the example of the queen Semiramis who had sex with her son. But Semiramis was already powerful before committing incest with her son–incest here may be a way for her to consolidate her power but it is not the cause of it. Additionally, Quilligan’s discussion seems to ignore the way patriarchal conventions can instead lead to incest and instead take away women’s agency. The control of a father, brother (as in the Duchess of Malfi) or other figure may be able to use his position of authority to subjugate a female member of the family, particularly if the woman does not have her own source of power in society. Incest then may halt the homosocial bonding of the traffic in women, but it will not necessarily grant women agency.