Meanings
- humorousA supposed motto describing the dynamics of incest.
The family that sleeps together keeps together! In short: A bold but academically challenged German undresses an unconscious Valkyrie, and finds it a whole lot scarier than killing a singing dragon.
2001, Robert Thicknesse, Simon Key, The Times Opera Notes: An Accessible Yet Scholarly Guide to Over 90 Major Operas, page 1532 more examples
In such families incest serves to protect its members against separation anxiety (Eist and Mandel 1968; Gutheil and Avery 1977; Woodbury and Schwartz 1971). Their motto would probably be "The family that sleeps together keeps together."
1984, Amnon Carmi, Hanita Zimrin, Child abuse, page 135Family Theatre's maxim "The family that prays together stays together," could apply to Falcon Crest if "prays" were changed to "preys." “The family that sleeps together keeps together” is another possibility. At least the intermarrying is not as bizarre as it is in Wagner's The Ring of the Nibelungs, in which Siegmund commits both incest and adultery with his married sister, Sieglinde, and their son Siegfried takes his aunt Brünhilde as his wife.
2014, Bernard F. Dick, The President’s Ladies: Jane Wyman and Nancy Davis, page 236
Origin
Parody of the family that prays together stays together. Originally coined by Hugh Hefner in the 1960s to refer to the way sexual intimacy creates bonds between a married couple, the phrase was adopted by others who reinterpreted it to refer to incest.
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
the family that sleeps together keeps together. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/the%20family%20that%20sleeps%20together%20keeps%20together
“the family that sleeps together keeps together.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/the%20family%20that%20sleeps%20together%20keeps%20together. Accessed November 5, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “the family that sleeps together keeps together,” accessed November 5, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/the%20family%20that%20sleeps%20together%20keeps%20together.
Source: the family that sleeps together keeps together on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.