1st cousin marriage

Education is working. 1st cousin marriages have dropped significantly in Pakistani communities in the UK and continue to do so.

Yes often the attitude is it’s down to punishment from god, or evil eye

nothing to do with choices made because it’s a cultural tradition

Incest between (truly) consenting adults is not prosecuted. We'd either have to completely change enforcement practices (which seems strange when we ignore it in cases that have a significantly higher chance of problems for any child conceived) or be relying on the chilling effect of having it defined as a crime, which may not be that impactful as these are practices in somewhat insular communities. Would probably add to feelings of religious persecution instead.

Education and changing hearts and minds is likely to be more effective and have fewer unintended side effects.

In Pakistan the children born with genetic defects due to their parents’ incest are treated appallingly. They are treated in many communities there as though they are “cursed” by “divine punishment” for some unspecified crime, hidden away and treated as a shame to the family even though their so-called family inflicted these conditions on them by inbreeding, often provide no education or medical treatment to these children, and many end up homeless/ begging on the streets when their families abandon them.

So no, it doesn’t work out any better for them there, far from it, and yet they still haven’t abandoned the abhorrent incestual “marriages” that have been proved beyond doubt to be the cause, so there’s absolutely no reason to think people with this same mentality will suddenly have an epiphany and start behaving sensibly here and marrying people who aren’t close relatives, when here they will instead receive thousands of pounds of taxpayer funding, social care and hundreds of thousands of pounds of NHS treatment for each disabled child that they produce through their incest.

Education has been tried. The facts couldn’t be clearer, yet a significant proportion of certain communities including Pakistanis (I referenced them here specifically because that it what your comment was about, but there are other communities in the UK also engaging in this abhorrent practice) refuse to cease this so the only way to deal with it appropriately is to criminalise it and put enforcement in place to reduce the numbers immensely in a way that decades of education have failed to do and will continue to fail to do if we continue, inexplicably, not to legislate against this and enforce the prohibition robustly to stamp this out to the greatest extent possible, like we do with all other similarly harmful activities to which we apply appropriate criminal charges and sentences.

We are utterly failing the children born into this miserable life and wider society by failing to do so and we should hold our politicians to account for this and demand that they amend the law given the undeniable scientific evidence that this is necessary. There is no excuse at all for allowing this to continue.

What type of "education" would persuade someone that having kids with your cousin is wrong?

Anyone with any level of intelligence knows cousin marriage is just weird.

Yes, agreed, and I resent having to pay for this as a taxpayer. These cultural practices are causing children to be born with severe disabilities which is terrible for them and a drain on the public purse.

And precisely why we need to legislate against it, to stamp this out. Education on the objective scientific facts has failed to be absorbed by those still engaging in this harmful behaviour and there need to be criminal penalties to make it clear that deliberately causing such harm to others is socially unacceptable and will be penalised with criminal charges and prison sentences. There will always be some people who won’t comply with socially acceptable behaviour standards until they are forced to do so, unfortunately, otherwise we wouldn’t need prisons.

Perhaps. But those who perpetuate first cousin marriage will be those disabled people’s siblings/cousins/aunts/uncles (genetically all of those simultaneously in some cases). Seeing the suffering it can cause is clearly not all that much of a deterrent.

Then they are not married, so the issue of marriage isn’t relevant to them. Religious ceremonies are private, personal matters and have nothing to do with the law/ legal rights. They’d just be two cousins having sex, which is why you also add “cousin” to “aunt”, “uncle”, “sibling”, “parent”, “niece”, “nephew”, “parent” and “grandparent” within the definition of incest in the UK law, so that there is a proper deterrent of criminal charges/ imprisonment if reported and while this would not eradicate the criminal activity (just as with any other crime) it would significantly reduce its incidence and therefore the level of harm to victims and wider society.

Exactly. It was heartbreaking to watch that documentary and see the distress, trauma and pain caused to the children of the people engage in this incest, knowing that it was all completely avoidable and unnecessary.

If you could give the pitifully disabled DC a vote, I think they’d be up for a ban.

I think very few of these marriages involve being in love. Stop being obtuse

Again, I’ve read all of your posts. You haven’t answered the question.

You could simply type out an answer to my question now. Doing so would have taken you far less time that you’ve spent trying to deflect it or make excuses for why you can’t/ won’t do so.

Or you could filter by your own username and repost the post you claim to have made that answers the question. Or copy and paste it. This would take you 30 seconds.

Or you could tell us when you think you made the post.

You can’t, because it doesn’t exist. I know this because I’ve read every single post you’ve made on this thread and none of them answer the question, which is why I’ve asked you it repeatedly.

Your responses have been to try to discredit scientists, personal attacks, hypocritically stating that “anybody can post what they want” then claiming that people are trying to stop you posting on the thread or are “harangueing” you because they’ve asked you a question about your comments on a discussion which you chose to engage in, repeated insinuations that discussion of scientific facts is racist, whataboutery and deflection, ridiculous comments accusing people of being AIs, ludicrous claims that people are suggesting babies should be aborted, but conspicuously, absolutely no answer to the question. Then endless repeated claims that you’ve answered the question when you haven’t.

So, again:

Why - given the immense and unnecessary harm that we know is caused by cousins having babies - would we not criminalise it by adding it to the legal definition of incest and prohibiting marriages between cousins?

Where is your answer?

I haven’t written several posts out of choice. You jumped on me as soon as I posted to someone else today and it’s been whack a mole since.

I’m not trawling through nearly 800 posts for you. Read my posts and report back if you like.

I’m not repeating myself again.

Where?

I’ve read all of your posts. You’ve not answered the question anywhere.

You’ve written several posts claiming you’ve provided a rationale for your position, yet nobody’s been able to find one.

Presumably you can tell us where it is? Which page of the thread is it on? What time did you post it?

Exactly, because we know that the incidence of any activity reduces considerably when it is made illegal due to the harm it causes. This is why the existing categories of sex with close relatives are categorised as the crime of incest (sex with aunts, uncles, siblings, parents, grandparents) and marriages between these close relatives are illegal. And guess what? We don’t see many people doing that and if they do and it’s reported and prosecuted they face 7 years in prison, which obviously acts as a significant deterrent.

Likewise, obviously, refusing marriage licences to anybody until they prove they are not cousins (as we do already if they cannot prove they are not siblings, parents/ children, grandparents/ grandchildren, aunts/ uncles/ neices/ nephews) will obviously reduce the rate of marriages between cousins to zero from now on; and the UK not recognising such incestuous “marriages” that take place abroad will also mean that we see far less of this and the horrific effects of it on children in the UK because the lack of a legal prohibition here is used to to circumvent the immigration system and coerce women into this for the purpose of moving their “husband” (cousin) and other extended family to the UK/ for financial gain, and this will no longer be possible once we have put appropriate laws in place not to recognise such “marriages”.

We know that criminalising things reduces how many people are prepared to engage in this activity, hence why we do this when something is harmful to society and the benefit of stamping it out far outweighs the restriction on the individual. This is undeniably the case in this instance since nobody is prevented from marrying/ having children etc, they just can’t marry their family members (!) and thereby condemn many innocent children to immense unnecessary sufferinfg. Boo hoo.

When drink driving was criminalised the rate of it decreased immensely. The same happens when harmful drugs are made illegal. The same reduction in people not wearing seatbelts was seen very soon after this was made illegal. Yes, of course we could have just hoped that people would apply scientific fact and do the sensible thing themselves over time, but it is an undeniable fact that criminalising behaviour that is harmful to innocent victims and wider society decreases the incidence of those harmful behaviours far faster than just hoping “educating people” will make them stop it on their own. Some people are not educatable and are impervious to scientific facts and evidence, as that documentary demonstrated with families blaming the doctors for making their children with genetic defects get sick! And the fact that after decades of education, there are still people doing this and deliberately harming children because they refuse to accept reality.

If we legalised rape and murder, do these posters genuinely think that we could rely on “education” to stop people doing these things of their own accord? And that the rates of these crimes would not change if they were not illegal and there were no penalties for this behaviour?

There will always be reprobates who will engage in behaviour that is proved to be harmful to others because they do not care about the impact on their victims or society as a whole. That is why the law and criminal justice system is necessary and this is precisely the type of situation in which it needs to step in and criminalise harmful behaviour to vastly reduce its incidence.

That’s why we have the rule of law: this is literally its purpose, so that we can maintain a functioning society and prevent behaviours that harm innocent victims and the wider community, particularly in situations like this where there is no “balance of rights” argument because there is no significant curtailment of individual freedoms involved at all in criminalising this appalling practice. I don’t think I’ve ever seen in my lifetime a more obvious case of a matter where there are no valid competing arguments at all and the case for legislation is so crystal clear with no negative potential impacts at all.

I suppose that is why Nomas has been unable to provide a single rational argument to justify her position that we should allow these abhorrent practices to continue in the UK: there simply aren’t any rational justifications for her position.

It has been. You should have gone to Specsavers.

Others being who? You and who else?

You want me to trawl through nearly 800 posts for you? 🤣

Dude, just search my name and read my posts.

https://borninbradford.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/10-Key-Findings-for-policy-and-practice-2019.pdf

All she’s said is she doesn’t think a law is required as education is reducing it. Which doesn’t come close to answering the question, of why not also make it illegal.

Thank you.

It hasn’t been answered, and I’m pretty sure that it won’t be.

Unfortunately when it comes to the communities that practice cousin marriage for "cultural" reasons its common for there to have been multiple generations of cousin marriage and after 3 generations you are genetically speaking basically marrying your sibling.
You may not be aware of those facts or that they actively and intentionally choose to have multiple children especially when 1 or more are born with the genetic consequences of so much inbreeding over multiple generations.
Really you haven't got a clue about what you're talking about, may I suggest that you watch some of the documentaries linked on this thread and/or do some research before you make such ridiculous assumptions

You haven’t answered it. I have read all your posts and you’ve provided no answer. Others have confirmed they’ve looked too and also found no answer.

You’re saying you’ve answered it so why can’t you tell us the time and date of the post with the answer in it, or repost it/ copy and paste it?

We know why: it’s because it doesn’t exist and you don’t have an answer.

Yes, it does. Also Ashkenazi and some other culturally strict Jewish groups, Amish and Mormon groups in the US, island populations and several other groups where partner choice is limited by culture or geography.

Geography's been a limiting force for centuries, of course. Academics theorised that the invention of the bicycle massively reduced the occurrence of 'village idiots' within a generation!

I sometimes wonder if ancient humans were healthier and more intelligent than modern people, having fewer consanguineous generations behind them.

Do you seriously believe that all these repeated first cousin marriages happen because they just fell in love with each other? Had a choice?

Families often work out who is to marry whom when they're still children. Keeps the girls under supervision, money and land within the clan,and a route for other relatives from "back home" to come to the UK legally.

I live in an area with a very high Pakistani heritage population (approx 80%) and seeing severely disabled children being pushed in wheelchairs by exhausted looking mothers makes me think it can,and should,be avoided.
Having a law prohibiting first cousin marriage would be a step towards liberation,just as the recent English law banning marriage under the age of 18 already is.