When did marrying a cousin become socially unacceptable?

[LionBird]

I'm a big Agatha Christie fan and noticed there are quite a few references to cousins being in a relationship. I'm rereading Taken at the Flood currently, which is set in 1946, and the main character is engaged to her cousin and nobody seems to think it's strange! Obviously it was quite common in royal circles too in the 19th century but post-WW2 isn't that long ago so I'm not sure how and when it became unacceptable to have a relationship with a cousin - can anyone shed some light on this?

However, I reckon that balancing relationships with minority ethnic groups in the UK where cousin marriage is more common has probably something to do with why it hasn't already been outlawed. It certainly should be.

You could make it illegal in the UK, but that wouldn't prevent people marrying in another country where it is legal. What can you do about it?

Anyway, it's not about who marries who, but who has children with who. First cousins in their sixties getting married - no problem. Gay first cousins getting married - no problem. Young man and young woman who are the result of several generations of cousin marriage in a relationship and having children - problem, but what can you do about it?

I remember DP admitting that he'd had a bit of a crush on one of his cousins when they were younger. When I met her, I swear she was him in a dress😆

You normalise genetic testing, as many ethnic groups who routinely practice cousin marriage do.

Making marriage between first cousins might be a good idea but it will never be possible to prevent close blood relatives having children together. Outside certain religious groups it's become perfectly OK to have children when unmarried. Then there's infidelity. The only way to minimise it is education and making it socially unacceptable in the way that incest is.

@MissRoseDurward I remember watching a programme years ago, might have been BBC Horizon, about cousin marriage and how much it costs the NHS to deal with the birth defects. The programme focused on the Asian community, there was a couple who had 4 kids and there were all severely disabled and non verbal. I couldn't believe that they hadn't stop to think it was a bad idea after the second child!

I agree,my child is severely disabled and non verbal
But depending on how long ago it was certain conditions might not have been detectable then , my son has a rare chromosome micro deletion
Which was picked up on a micro array blood tests when he was three but it was fairly new technology then
Having said that ,once the second child was born it must have been apparent it was something genetic

Says who?
Sorry I thought this was Mumsnet not a University genetics forum.

Re the Catholic church keeping records of close relationships, are similar records kept of sperm donors, egg donors etc?

Presumably not by the Catholic Church, since it does not permit egg or sperm donation.

I read something online that actually the risks of marrying your cousin are largely overstated as a one of, but the problem comes from generations of cousin marriages. My husband is of Pakistani heritage and in certain pockets of the Pakistani community it is very very common to have a lot of consanguinity. In his family, until me, I’d have said 80% were married to a first cousin, and a lot of those their parents were cousins. Most of the children, luckily are ok. But it obviously becomes a problem if there are recessive genetic conditions in the family, those genes will be brought to the forefront.

we lived in an area with a large community from this area and it was something we were asked when we did our wedding banns, the person explained to us that you need to have 3 degrees of remove from your spouse, so you marrying your first cousin is ok IF your parents didn’t marry their cousins etc.

anecdotally my late nan was born in the 20s and her great aunt and uncle (cousins) loved each other, but knew they could never marry for both stayed single til they died and those must’ve been people born at the turn of the century, and they knew it wasn’t the done thing.

"This was introduced in the early Middle Ages, with the ban extending up to sixth cousins by the 11th century."

That was true - in theory. In reality it was often ignored.

For example, when Eleanor of Aquitaine (later wife of King Henry II) married King Louis VII of France in 1137 they were related within four degrees; they were third cousins once removed. The common ancestor was King Robert II of France.

There was no problem at all with them getting married until Louis decided he wanted a male heir. He then got a divorce from Eleanor on the grounds that the marriage shouldn't have been allowed in the first place.

Louis then married a second time and again there was no male heir, but a third marriage did produce a male heir.

So, there was no problem getting married, this was just used as an excuse to get an annulment to the marriage. In fact Louis first tried to get his marriage annulled in 1149 but the Pope turned him down. It was only in 1152 when he tried a second time that the annulment was granted.
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"The ban was ended in the early modern period."

This was all down to Henry VIII. First there was the Act of Succession 1533 which said that marriages that were prohibited in the bible (Leviticus) were illegal.

Then came the Marriage Act 1540 which said that any marriage that was allowed by the bible was lawful and that the church could not ban other marriages. So this is when the church stopped being allowed to ban cousin marriages in England.

I have a degree in genetics so whereas this isn't a genetics forum I can confirm that there is definitely a high risk to 1st cousin reproduction. It's biological fact. There is lots of evidence for it far more robust than an anecdotal story about one person

Well your comprehension powers are poor because my anecdotal example was not about first cousins.

And I offered it as a point of interest not a point of science.

Jeez - the fun police are out in force today

So what was the point of your comment exactly? Because on the subject of the risks of cousin marriage your comment was neither meaningful or interesting IMO

I find this really interesting. There are four cousins (of us) from our 1st cousin grandparents, and we all seem ...ok! Our dads were brothers, and they were all also physically fine. How high is the likelihood of genetic issues generally?

People are allowed to share their personal experiences as well as population stats on a thread like this. I found the post interesting and this poster wasn’t the only one to share her family experience.

ETA and the poster was very clear it was anecdote and not data.

It was interesting to me and and at least one other person on this thread.
Sorry it doesn’t meet your high standards but you might consider being a bit less judgmental ?

My paternal grandparents who married in 1922 were first cousins. Both from large Victorian families and they had several cousins who also married their cousins. It used to be quite common but my own children think the idea of marrying any of their cousins is disgusting.

The liklihood of having a genetic defect increases from about 3% to 6%. However if you've already had a child with genetic problems then the chances are much higher that a sibling will also have that defect because that defect is already within this reproducing couple iyswim

If something is a 3-4% risk, it probably won’t happen.

If something is a 6-8% risk, it probably won’t happen.

From the thread, I understand the former is the general risk of birth defects and the latter is the risk when the parents are first cousins.

So is it the stats you are disputing or the specific percentage that one uses when defining “probable”?

I am judgemental of people who deny high quality evidence in place of anecdotal evidence and produce ill informed viewpoints based on this. You're trying to backtrack and claim that you weren't doing this but it's exactly what you were doing. It's no different to the person swearing that smoking is ok because their 98 year old grandad has smoked since he was 20 or people denying the evidence about the benefits of breastfeeding because their kid was bottle fed and 'turned out fine'. It's all meaningless in the shadow of high quality evidence and trying to frame it as anything but is ill-informed and disingenuous IMO.

Rubbish. The PP was not doing that, she was giving an anecdote. And she is not backtracking and she never said “so it’s all fine if anyone marries their relatives”

It is your comprehension that is lacking.

Oh, and plenty of others have given similar anecdotes, some where things have been ok and some where they haven’t. Are you going to go through the thread and berate them all?

This is the problem in all communities (and there's many worldwide) that practice cousin marriage still - it's all about control and power, which you can't do if women move away. The female womb is just a tool to cement business, political, and strategic partnerships. It's always in communities and families where women have no real independence or power and are raised to think they exist to fulfil the needs of a family, not their own. I find it worse when women partake in and justify it even in 2024 and living in a democracy. But if we aren't making it illegal, what can anyone do - at some point these communities will become more insular and struggle to evolve, until someone has enough survival instinct to break away.

Ann Cryer, the great, former Labour MP for Keighley campaigned on this topic - attracting much vitriol at the time- as cousin marriage is so very prevalent in certain Asian communities and the results were plain to see in her constituency.

Re Queen Victoria's children , only one was a haemophiliac (Leopold) but a few of the others were carriers.

I'm saying that telling someone it 'probably won't happen' isn't helpful, because they might be the ones who land in the risk group. Even though it's a low risk every single cousin couple having a child is potentially in that group.