Clinical reports suggest that mothers and fathers in incestuous families exhibit characteristic personality traits. Typically the father/perpetrator is described as powerful and domineering, the mother weak and submissive. At the individual level in this study, a minority of both mothers and offenders differed from norms on traits reflecting social inadequacy, but no personality deviations were prototypical in either group. At the dyadic level, no evidence for a pervasive dominant-submissive pairing was found. Results indicated that father/perpetrator traits tended to be similar to traits of nonoffending mothers. The authors discuss forensic, clinical, and research implications of their findings. Tables, references