1st cousin marriage

Yes of course it should be banned! Why would you knowingly put a childs,
life at risk through genetic abnormality.
How incredibly ignorant and selfish of those families that perpetuate cousin marriage order to keep chattels within the family.
So family wealth is more important than the health of any progeny. It’s a disgusting medieval practice.

Consanguineous parents, such as first cousins, face roughly double the risk of having a baby with serious birth defects or recessive genetic disorders compared to unrelated parents.

The "Born in Bradford Study": Research published in The Lancet tracked thousands of babies and showed that consanguinity (marriage between blood relatives) accounted for nearly 31% of all birth defects in children of Pakistani origin.

What on gods green earth has LGBT marriage got to do with incest????

That must have been quite the wedding!

As an American, my state is bigger than your Island so I understand the dating pool is small. But I also can pick out a Brit before they speak because of the bulging eyes. Even worse, the remnants of the Habsburg Chin. Inbreeding stands out.

I'm not sure why Brits would have Habsburg jaws, given they don't all descend from the royal family? (And the Habsburgs were Austrian anyway, and only very distantly related to the English royal family) 🤔

Bulging eyes I don't get either. Such nonsense.

Haven’t RTFT, but in some American states, it’s legal to marry your first cousin if you undergo genetic counseling first, or if the wife is past a particular age and therefore can’t get pregnant anymore. (Other states allow first-cousin marriage without restrictions, and yet a third group of states bans it outright.) What are people’s thoughts on that?

l have mixed feelings on the topic. I understand the genetic risks to any children the couple might have, but I don’t think it’s necessarily emotionally unhealthy to be in love with your first cousin.

My DC’s cousins on their dad’s side are children of a 1st cousin marriage. Their parents grew up in different countries, so hadn’t grown up together or really seen a lot of each other. It was an arranged marriage in the respect the parents planned it. They are very happy 30yrs on, and luckily have 5 healthy children. I do think anyone going into a 1st cousin marriage should have genetic testing prior.

I'm not entirely sure that is right.

If you take two random people getting married then they will typically have eight grandparents between them (four each).

When first cousins marry they will have six grandparents between them. The two grandparents via the siblings who are the parents and then two other grandparents each via the people the siblings married, for a total of six grandparents between them.

In the case of two siblings from family A marrying two siblings from family B then if their children (who are first cousins) were to marry then they would only have four grandparents between them.

So, what happens when each of those couples in these different situations then have children?

I would suggest that any gene carried by one of those four grandparents is much more likely to be inherited in the situation where that grandparent is one of four rather than when that grandparent is one of eight or one of six.

I don't think that @IsAStart was asking a daft question.

I'm not just thinking about this in terms of the current UK debate but also historically. This was historically a large issue in certain communities such as French Canadians, Acadians (now Cajuns) and Ashkenazi Jews. The results of this can still be seen in DNA testing today.

The same can be seen in places like the Isles of Scilly and also among the Huguenot refugees in London. The results can still be seen in DNA testing among descendants today.

The change in law will target some groups but applies to all

and the issue is what exactly? the education so far has not done enough as we are still taking about thousands of children and thousands of marriages why because for some keeping to a cultural norm is more important within the community than doing something that is considered for some a western influence

how many more children have to suffer unnecessarily there is simply no reason why it is necessary at all

Thanks. When I thought it out, I did think it was a daft question - but can see the bigger links through generations.

I have this situation in my extended family, no suggestion of any disorders in the children, but very awkward now that one of the couples have divorced! 😉

I didn’t say it was daft did you see my follow up post ? I can’t make head nor tail of yours sorry

"If we were to ban it, it would have the added advantage of maybe getting rid of the royal family - two birds with one stone."

I'm only aware of two first-cousin marriages in modern times. Are there more?

Queen Victoria and Prince Albert were first cousins, they married in 1840. Before them there was George IV who married his first cousin Princess Caroline in 1795.

Before that, I can only think of King Stephen who married his first cousin Matilda in 1125.

I agree it should be strongly discouraged due to risks. Banning it will make it difficult to police.
Education and highlighting risks is important and perhaps the way forward.
However, we need to target those at highest risk. Like you said, the focus always tends to focus on Asians (perhaps an easy target)
Within the UK Pakistani Asians the practice of first cousin marriages has drastically reduced. More and more youngsters in the UK are choosing their own spouses who are not first cousins.

Therefore, the education needs to be more universal. It needs to focus also on other communities, namely the Irish Travellers and Jewish community. No statistics on it reducing there is available to my knowledge.

The practice has reduced among the UK Pakistani group.
Research has proved this. It is continually reducing rapidly as many young people bought up in the UK are making their own choices and choosing their own spouses.
However, I don't know if research has been done in other communities who adopt the practice of first cousin marriages.
Namely, Irish Travellers and Jewish.

"1st, 2nd and 3rd cousin marriage should be outlawed and classed as insest"

3rd cousins are related through their great great grandparents.

Having a keen interest in genealogy, I know who all my 16 great great grandparents are - they were born at various dates between 1828 and 1869.

Between them, my great great grandparents had a total of 69 children - my great grandparents and their siblings. Most of these then went on to marry and have children of their own.

It may be a bit of a push requiring people to identify all of their great great grandparents before they are allowed to marry.

But, yes, I totally agree with you about first cousin marriage.

No, the problem is continuing cousin marriage, through generations.

Not even under torture would I admit to fancying my cousin.

"It's so much more far-fetched as a scenario to randomly meet and be attracted to a full sibling than a first cousin that I really have no idea how I'd feel."

But this has happened - well, not with full siblings but half siblings.

Back in the 1970s and 1980s a fertility doctor in Indiana USA secretly used his own sperm to inseminate dozens of his patients without their knowledge or consent. DNA testing has shown that he fathered at least 94 children. There may be many others out there who have not done a DNA test.

Most of the women he inseminated lived within a 25 mile radius of his practice.

Of those who have been DNA tested, I don't believe that any of them ended up marrying their half sibling. For those who have not been DNA tested nobody knows.

But there is also concern that the children of these people may unknowingly marry and they would be half first cousins.

Netflix did a documentary on this back in 2022 called "Our Father".

It's incest. Needs banning. Religious institutions that marry first cousins should be expected to make large donations to assist with the care of local disabled children. There may have been a time & a place when this cultural practice made sense, but that's not here & now.

No they haven't.
Smokers pay extra tax to cover the inevitable cost of the extra care they will need for the smoking related illnesses that their choices cause.
Cousin marriages do not pay any extra tax for the inevitable consequences of their inbreeding for their children.
So yes make them by pay extra tax or the entire cost to the NHS of their children's genetic abnormalities from inbreeding.
Oh and what would I do it people break the law and marry or have incestuous relationships that would be exactly the same for cousin marriage as already happens with incestuous relationships ie jail for the adults and care for the children with zero family contact and also jail for anyone who inabiled the incestuous relationships or marriage even if its just a religious ceremony. The point would soon be made and tge practice would due out asap.

"Your DMiL is also your aunty 🤣"

This reminds me of a very old song sung here by WIllie Nelson 'I'm my own Grandpa'

Lyrics

[Verse 1]
Now, many, many years ago when I was twenty-three
I was married to a widow who was pretty as could be
This widow had a grown-up daughter, had hair of red
My father fell in love with her and soon the two were wed
This made my dad my son-in-law and changed my very life
My daughter was my mother 'cause she was my father's wife
To complicate the matter, even though it brought me joy
I soon became the father of a bouncing baby boy
My little baby then became the brother-in-law to Dad
And so became my uncle though it made me very sad
For if he was my uncle, that also made him the brother
Of the widow's grown-up daughter who of course was my step-mother

[Verse 2]
My father's wife then had a son that kept him on the run
And he became my grandchild for he was my daughter's son
My wife is now my mother's mother and it makes me blue
Because she is my wife, she's my grandmother too

[Verse 3]
Now, if my wife is my grandmother, then I'm her grandchild
And every time I think of it, it nearly drives me wild
For now I have become the strangest case you ever saw
As husband of my grandmother, I am my own grandpa

As an American, you could probably sit this one out, given how infamous a number of states are for interfamily relationships.