Should it be illegal for 1st cousins to marry?

[brasty]

My DP's parents are 1st cousins, and DP has a genetic illness. Marrying your 1st cousin increases the chances of genetic illness. So I wonder if we should simply make it illegal for 1st cousins to marry? Obviously anyone married would stay so, it would only apply to new marriages.
AIBU?

My partner works in pediatric community care for and 75% of the kids he looks after come from families where the parents are cousins. Are we just meant to ignore facts because people want to shout "racism"?!
One of the families has 7 children, 5 of whom have the same serious condition. That is just insane - those kids don't deserve it, and the NHS cant manage!!

To be fair, seven children is a huge burden on the NHS, the environment and local resources which ever way you look at it.

Well not "whichever way you look at it" really. There's a HUGE difference between 5 healthy children and 5 severely disabled children.

Still a huge amount. They won't stay children, after all.

But what would you say if the couple weren't related but each were contributing to their children's disabilities?

Re statistics:

"First-cousin marriage in England in 1875 was estimated by George Darwin to be 3.5% for the middle classes and 4.5% for the nobility, though this had declined to under 1% during the 20th century"

(source: Wikipedia)

Basically, it was illegal in England and the rest of Europe in the Middle Ages (though papal dispensations could be had), then became legal after the Reformation and moderately popular, but much less so in the 20th century, no doubt to do with a wider circle of potential partners due to increased class mobility and physical mobility.

Otoh some Asian communities in Europe have shown increased levels of cousin marriage compared to the same communities in their home countries, no doubt because the potential marriage pool decreases when you live in a small immigrant community.

If you ban cousins from marrying due to the increased risk of genetic disorder (which will only be increased if both partners are carrying the same gene for a disorder), what do you do about other people ^known to carry a dominant gene" marrying somebody else?

Surely it's about making people aware. It's not racism to say it.

Caly - if there was any other couples who had been told there is a high chance of their children being severely disabled and they went on to continue doing so, I would think exactly the same - that they're selfish idiots.

Where I live there is a large proportion of inter-family marriage.

Which coincidentally means there is a large amount of diseases such as sickle cell anemia. They actually have pre marital screening to show any genetic predispositions. However I'm unsure if that stops anyone

sargeant, yes it is very confusing! Probably deliberately so.

Add in the fact that there was no divorce in Ireland until the late 90s and it will confuse you even further

In a lot of cultures you are expected to expected to marry a cousin, watched a documentary not long ago, about India, the Dr was trying to warn them, because there was so much intermarrying, they had a huge amount of birth defects, but he was getting no-where, these traditions are very deeply ingrained.

"Surely it's about making people aware. It's not racism to say it."

Of course that's the case. After all, most of Norfolk has been white British for centuries.

Charles Darwin married his first cousin. He was educated, well travelled, and good at genetics.

I work woth and teach medical genetics in the urban NW, at a national genetics centre. Assuming the OP is addressing the child issue and not the marriage issue, this subject is pretty much the topic of every ethics talk we see Some thoughts...

Some of the family pedigrees (relationship trees) I have seen have taken days to untangle. And illegal or not, uncle/niece (less frequently aunt/nephew) don't even raise eyebrows any more.

We see some families who are very engaged in the whole process, from whom we assume complete disclosure about familial relationships in a clinical setting. However, we also see families who refuse to engage, who have to be visited at home, who evoke gods/demons/curses/etc as explanations. Regardless, the expectation is that making first cousin marriage illegal in the U.K. would do nothing but create lies about true familial relationships, in order to evade bans.

For first cousins having children, the risk of congenital defects are relatively higher than for non-consanguineous parents, but not really absolutely high. The stats are heavily skewed so that the British Pakistani population creates a vastly disproportionate burden on the NHS in medical genetics.

Having said that, there is a suspicion in the genetics community that the figures for genetic birth defects from first cousin marriages are artificially low. When we consider:

1. The most common congenital issues include 'generic' developmental delay.
2. A culture that promotes first cousin marriage can often promote secrecy/hiding problems.
3. A culture that promotes first cousin marriage is often doing so to protect family interests ('money') and they often have the means and motivation to minimise issues like developmental delay (paying for good schooling etc).

It's more straightforward to identify a child delayed from average to 'problematic', near impossible to identify a child delayed from brilliant to average. The latter is unlikely to represent a clinical burden, of course, but that doesn't mean the parental genetic relationship has had no effect (so interesting from an academic POV).

The stats are heavily skewed so that the British Pakistani population creates a vastly disproportionate burden on the NHS in medical genetics
Poor wording on my part here. I made it sound like the stats have been massaged to unfairly target a particular group. This is not true.

it absolutely should be illegal. You only have to look at the number of birth defects amongst the Pakistani community to see what constant cousin marrying causes.

People don't listen to the medical professionals telling them over and over again that it's causing birth defects so I do think the only option now is a legal one.

I have some distant first cousins who are married and have 5 children who are all perfectly healthy.

I really don't have an opinion in whether it should be illegal or not, but if we make it illegal on the grounds if passing on genetic illnesses then surely that net should reach wider then just first cousins? I know of an unrelated couple who having had two children with the same genetic abnormality passed on by one or both of them went on and had 2 more children who were sadly affected the same.

The problem with using 'increased risk of genetic illnesses being passed down as an argument against incestuous marriage/relationships, is that it follows that disabled people who have illnesses/disabilities that can be hereditary should also not be allowed to marry or have kids... for the same reason, and people would rightly call that 'disablist'. It's a bit 'eugenics' and is a slippery slope based on that argument alone.

Even increased risk of mental health problems can be genetic... so do we ban people with bipolar from marrying too, just in case they have children?

Just in terms of the racism being alluded to on the thread; I have a genuine question.

If the stats being discussed are factual and not in any way exaggerated or even commented on outside of "these are the figures in X Community" then how is it racist?

Or should it not be discussed at all because it happens to be about a particular culture/country of origin?

it absolutely should be illegal. You only have to look at the number of birth defects amongst the Pakistani community to see what constant cousin marrying causes.

I don't see how it could be enforced. What's to stop people marrying in Pakistan? Would people have to prove that they were not related in order to bring their spouses into the UK?

I do agree that it's a problem, but I don't know what the answer is. I suspect education of women, over several generations, is the key.

The problem seems to be, as MaidOfStairs' post makes clear, that the severe issues around cousin marriage are specifically related to one distinct ethnic community: British Pakistanis. In this group certain genetic disorders are prevalent and so highly likely to spread by inter-relative marriage.

Otoh other ethnic groups could probably go on marrying their cousins with no harm done.

So do we legislate for the whole country to save one ethnic group? There is an argument for it. And there are arguments against it.

And, as Restless Traveller says, where does this leave other people with genetic disorders? If the risk of two cousins passing on a recessive gene through marrying each other is the same as one person passing on a dominant gene by marrying a non-carrier, does this have implications for how we think?

And above all, as MoS also points out, how do we police this? Does everyone have to carry a family tree like some kind of ID before they marry? How does this work in a global community where people move around? How do you stop people lying?

No

I suspect education of women, over several generations, is the key

It is, alas, the case that many women, in various communities, do not have a choice over whom they marry.

Banning 1st cousin marriage wouldn't really make any difference. Lots of people have sex/children outside of marriage, and what's to stop people who DO want to marry going overseas to do so? What's the government going to do - give everyone genetic testing before they're allowed back into the country after marrying overseas?

The people on here who are married to cousins/the result of a 1st cousin marriage are likely not going to experience any issues because if it only happens once, the likelihood of serious problems being passed on is miniscule. But if their children marry THEIR first cousins, then problems are likely to start, and when it carries on generation after generation, those issues become increasingly likely.

Whilst you can't really make it illegal (well, you could, but it wouldn't stop them having sex/reproducing anyway), you can educate people about the dangers and discourage it as an option. Educate people on the consequences - the illnesses you can pass down to your children and grandchildren. There is still a stigma around consanguineous marriages, and for good reason.