marrying cousins

[ramalamadingdonk]

I do think it should be illegal to try and prevent birth defects etc. my grandparents were first cousins. it was well known in our family and the community. it wasn't a huge scandal. they were born in the 20s. was it so unheard of??

I agree 100% @ramalamadingdonk I can't believe it's ever been legal to marry your first cousin be honest.

I have 6 cousins - 3 female and 3 male, and I can't stand my 2 of male cousins.... (can just about tolerate the 3rd one.) The 2 are awful, neanderthal, misogynistic men (in their early to mid 60s now) who are ugly to me. The thought of getting with either of them makes me throw up. Even their own wives left them -15-20 years ago. How can anyone be attracted to their cousin? VOM! 😖

Ah no, I completely got your point that the ethics/morality completely muddies the water - and conceded that many parents to be do make that exact decision. There is a whole issue around how the news of high chance DS results gets broken and how hard it can be to get impartial information for parents to make a truly informed decision based on up to date facts and experiences but that's for another thread....

erm, I don't think you are agreeing with me 🤣

for the record, I think my cousins are all mint

The thing is chromosomal disorders can be inherited my son has a rare chromosome disorder,and whilst he's is very unlikely to have children due The nature of his disabilities,not everyone with the r same or similar disorde,s are impacted to such a degree and some people seem to have few if any issues and they have a 50% chance of passing it on to any child they might have and you wouldn't know how your child would be affected until they started developing
If this disorder was,passed on in a family where it was common for inter generational marriage ,you could see Why there might be a lot of children in that family with disabilities

Absolutely. But that issue can be addressed in large part by education and genetic testing. If your son's condition is hereditary, presumably you were counselled about what your options might be before/during any subsequent pregnancy. Depending on the inheritance pattern, your / your DHs siblings and their partners might have been offered genetic testing. When your children / neices / nephews grow up and are considering starting a family, they might want their partners to be tested.
The solution doesn't have to be banning marriages where the genetic risk is raised; the solution can be providing information so that people can make informed reproductive choices.

It is unusual, but clearly not unknown, for first cousins to marry in white British families. The genetic issues are not huge. However, I wonder if they are compounded if inter-marriage at that level continues in a community eg as it does in some Muslim communities- ie two first cousins marry, have children and one or more of them also marry a first cousin and so on. Is that an issue. That would be very unusual in white British families. I have no idea how common this is in other European countries or countries like Japan, Australia, Canada etc.

I have a first cousin in New Zealand and when we met as 19 year olds we were very attracted to each other. Nothing happened and he was on holiday here and returned to New Zealand. We hadn't known each other growing up as he was born in New Zealand. It wouldn't have been illegal and we were strangers really but I knew my parents would NOT have been happy and nor would his.

No my sons condition was De Novo in him ,both me and his Dad were tested we don't carry it ,and he was our second child so we were not going to have any more anyway i.

Ah, yes, I was going to include an "unless it was De Novo in him" caveat but didn't want to make my post anymore jumbled than it already was.
In families with a known, traceable inheritance, or if your DS ever did have children of his own, then genetic testing - rather than a marriage ban - would presumably be the preferred way to reduce the likelihood of the condition being passed down.

No different from saying people with ginger hair shouldn't marry because it's "repugnant", come on now, where do you draw the line....!

Totally off topic but where did you watch that? I used to have it on video but not seen it for years and it's a great series

I think the motives may be about money saving for the government

My best friend from school married her first cousin, and weirdly my sister's best friend from school also married her first cousin, neither of them met them until they were adults, both couples have dc with no issues, it seems weird to me though.

I don’t think you could make it separate for same sex couples or anything. Incest laws apply universally, there is no distinction for incest if for example someone is adopted. In my country a teenage boy was charged with incest for having sex with his foster sister. (Though there was more to it - his father also murdered her, and that was the only thing they could get him on )

I’d lean heavily towards the view that talk of blood and breeding is just flannel to cover marrying to keep land and money within the small and inflexible social circles of the landowning classes.

You’d probably say I had a horse face.

Err yes I am agreeing with you.

You said.

marrying cousins - Today 18:15

I do think it should be illegal to try and prevent birth defects etc. my grandparents were first cousins

And I agreed it should be illegal. How is that not agreeing?

@Chipshopninja Just YouTube - someone uploaded it years ago (when everything was in 10 minute segments still!). I was reminded of it when the guy who played Dallas announced his engagement on Twitter a few months back! The first episode was a bit rubbish, but it gets better- and the music's great! I remember loving the series when it came on back when I was at school!

So many unpleasant (or downright wrong) things are excused because they're 'cultural' (fgm, forced marriages, male circumcision - I know that's controversial - teen brides). Just because it's cultural doesn't mean it's not wrong. The world moves on 'culture' seems static.

It is unusual, but clearly not unknown, for first cousins to marry in white British families.

That was the reason behind the acronym allegedly used in medical notes - NFN - 'Normal for Norfolk', Norfolk being an area that people didn't move out of so much because of its geography,

The Isle of Sheppey off the Kent coast supposedly had similar issues. Not so long ago there were older people who had 'never been off the Island'. A retired midwife once said to me 'everything you've heard about the Isle of Sheppey is probably true'.

But generally speaking, people did move about enough that repeated first cousin marriages over generations wasn't an issue.

it's not true at all that the things you listed are excused because they are 'cultural'. in the UK you mean? no one excuses FGM, forced marriages, teen brides. where do you live?

Just posting this

Sadly probs some truth there : I don't see much store by Cairns News, highly unpleasant...but a stopped clock etc

^https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/cairns-news-bias-and-credibility/^

A random meeting and marriage of cousins is not the same as a cultural tradition repeated amongst families where this regularly happens so the genetic pool is small to start with.