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?

The same could be said for other harmful and frowned upon things, like smoking and heavy drinking... As with smoking, laws can change...

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.

I meant that although a single marriage between cousins does increase the risk, the risk is pretty low to start with of unrelated couples having a child with a genetic disorder. But when you repeat that pattern of marrying close kin through the generations the risk multiplies with every marriage.

Re ‘unknown’ cousins meeting unexpectedly, a DSis living in the US got chatting to some ‘random’ man who turned out to share the one pair of GGparents she knew of - the GGF had lived well into his 90s and had been known to her as a child. The man had also met him and was familiar with the London house where he’d lived.

I wouldn't know my second or third cousins if I fell over them I would that more acceptable than first cousin marriage

Sorry, are you saying it's OKAY to marry your cousin? Ick

The risks are significantly increased.

OP, I think it became socially unacceptable in the 1970s or so which was before I was born. I understand people didn’t know better before then but as they say when you know better you do better. It’s really not a good idea!

It has been linked to higher than normal rates of genetic disorders and child deaths in some communities in the Uk. I think I watched a bbc documentary about it once and some families kind of shrugged about it but others were now against this aspect of their culture.

At least there's no risk of genetic defects in this case!

Slightly less risk, still risk, still not ideal.

Well except for the fact that there's no record of hæmophilia in the descendents of her two sons (Victoria's half brothers).

When the risks to the children of closely related parents became better understood

When marriages stopped being about keeping wealth in the family.

When people stopped growing up, living and dying in the same place and were able to travel further afield and meet new people.

My children’s 5 1st cousins are all the result of a 1st cousin marriage. Ex MIL is the Aunt, and also the MIL of ex SIL. Children are healthy, they are still happy after 27yrs marriage, but family ended up falling out over arguments which meant a big bust up

With the "cousins being close as siblings" thing... was that really the case when families were a lot bigger? My grandfather was one of ten, grandmother one of 13... my dad has more cousins than he can count. He barely knows any of them... when we went to his village when I was a child, he was always bumping into cousins he knew by name but nothing actually about them.

I think the Habsburgs gave that idea a thorough testing and disproved it!

For a lot of people that's not the case though. Some of my first cousins I've only met a couple of times in my life. And when you get beyond first cousins - most of my second cousins I've never met (as far as I know).

& that was why haemophilia was spread through the royal courts of Europe

My auntie is married to her first cousin (so my uncle is also my mums cousin!). They didn’t grow up close, he lived in Ireland and we live in England but they did see each other a few times a year growing up. He came to life in England 34 years ago. I’m not sure how it came about but they got together, got married and had 5 kids! One child did have a significant disability and she died not long after birth, they’ll never know whether this was due to genetics or they were unlucky, they’re other 4 children are now grown up with their own children and healthy.

Not that many people know as his siblings live in Ireland still and his parents have sadly both died (his mum is my nans sister) so family are geographically close and they’ve been together so long everyone else kind of forgets

Yes, I think perhaps even before people knew the scientific causes, they could see the results and put 2 and 2 together!

There was a girl in my class at school who married her full cousin. This was only around 15 years ago. They have children together. As far as I know the children are all well. But the marriage caused a massive fall out in their family. The bride’s mother refused to attend wedding and never spoke to her daughter again. The mother is dead now.

The historical context is relevant. In the past people lived and stayed in much smaller communities. Travel wasn’t something most people could do and populations lived in rural areas. There was also advantage in consolidating family wealth (land), power and influence which can get distributed if people marry into other families.

In modern and progressive times it is viewed differently. Firstly because people no longer marry for the sake of their family. Pressure to do so would be seen as coercive and abusive. Additionally we now understand the psychology of familial kinship, why it could distort our feelings and relationships and be to manipulate and abuse. Finally there is a known genetic risk associated with children borne from two people with close familial relationships.

There is a growing call for it to be outlawed for first cousins. Whilst it has more or less died out in many cultures it is still prevalent in some.

No not ideal but in my case I have known all my first cousins all my life the thouht of being attracted to one of them feel pretty gross to me but
If I had ever randomly met a second/ third cousin they would be a stranger to me.

😜 Yes, we know what it means!

it’s really interesting to me that it’s legal in the UK but not elsewhere in Europe.

Indeed. I wasn’t presenting the information as peer- reviewed research. Just a statistical sample of 1.

You need to Google the stats on congenital disorders in children in areas where there are large populations that practice cousin marriages. Apart from it being an absolute tragedy for the children born, it's costing the health and social care services a fortune so I can understand why so many people are against it.

Generically they're not a stranger though.