To think that 1st Cousin Marriage should be illegal

[stucknoue]

Background: as part of my job I rent out halls, they are very popular for Asian parties and weddings and my clients are lovely, often bringing me food and inviting me to their celebrations.

Over the past couple of months I've unfortunately had to rent the hall for child funeral meals twice to the same family, the kids were cousins and had the same rare genetic condition. In talking to their grandad he revealed that he and his wife were cousins, then going on to tell me that the parents of the sadly deceased children were also cousins. I looked up that cousin marriage increases genetic conditions 3 fold, the more generations that have practiced it then the higher the probability. With our knowledge of science surely this practice should be outlawed?

I remember a family that had 3 children, one after the other who all died at around a year old. It was heartbreaking.

YANBU.

Inter-marrying has reached an extreme result in a Mormon sect in USA, and it’s made worse because not only do that lot trust that their god is making it all happen, they also go in for polygamy, which has massively multiplied the number of descendants marrying each other who have the recessive gene. www.bbc.com/future/story/20170726-the-polygamous-town-facing-genetic-disaster

FFS people, RTFT! One-off cousin marriages are unlikely to be a problem unless there is something really bad lurking in the genes. It's generation after generation of cousin marriages that results in severe problems. And genetic and congenital conditions arise and are passed on within the non-related general population despite the lower percentage of risk.

I often joke that my parents should never have had children because of our genetic inheritance, despite them coming from opposite ends of the UK. My brother eventually died from his condition and I was never supposed to have been born as a result; I had worked out that I was an accident long before I was told. I don't have my brother's condition but I do have at least two problematic inherited conditions, one from each side of the family, as well as the usual inherited susceptibility to eczema, asthma, etc.

A PP mentioned the Aboriginal way of deciding who was allowed to marry and how it kept close relations apart; in medieval times, the Roman Catholic Church banned marriages of - at varying times - those within four or seven degrees of consanguinity. If they kept to that, it would only have been in later Protestant communities that intermarriage started to cause problems.

Mate it is NOT traditional for Hindu's to marry 1st cousin's!!. It's even banned in India under the Hindu Marriage Act. Each to their own, but if scientifically we know it's going to be a problem why do it?!.

Sorry the above was for @ichangedmynameforaibu.
Can't edit my post!!

YANBU.

YANBU in the slightest. It is irrelevant as to your creed / race, it simply should be banned as it increases the chances of genetic abnormalities.

True story here. I was married off at a young age to a double cousin (parents are siblings married to siblings who are also related)

I was never happy with the situation but it was a forced marriage. I explained to my parents the risk of children being born with disabilities but as none of the other cousins had produced disabled children they decided the risk was minimal.

Anyway ended up divorcing him before we had children. Met my now husband who is not even remotely related. Went on to have several children. One of whom is disabled. My mum actually said, "you were concerned about disabilities with your first husband and you're not even related to your 2nd husband but you still have a child with a disability."

How good is genetic screening?

The suggestion that genetic screening could identify couples at risk of each passing on a recessive gene for a disorder and they could then either choose not to have children together or to undertake selective IVF is attractive. But there are so many known genetic disorders out there. Is it practical to screen couples for all of the known ones?

I get that you can test for specifically known risks (e.g. sickle cell or Tay Sachs) because they are community specific. But cousin marriages don't generally come with a single known genetic disorder unless the family really has maintained close cousin marriages for generations and already has other family members with the specific disorder.

Angelika321

What your mum said is hurtful.
Marrying a double cousin increases the risk greatly but doesn’t mean there is no risk in non related marriages

Furthermore, if it was a forced marriage, I’m glad you left him. There are other things your kids would’ve suffered from
Being brought up in an unhappy home.

Chin up.

Genetic screening is expensive and it's not a simple case of dropping a vial of blood into your nearest hospital. Not all hospitals can screen for all conditions anyway. When my ds was born mine, his and my husbands blood was sent off of to several UK screening hospitals and everything came back all clear. We then needed to give more blood to be sent off to centres in US. My son's condition is screened for in only one centre in the world which is in US.

@Gingernaut, I'm not being snarky, I'd genuinely be interested in knowing if there is any science backing up your assertion about a high rate of abnormalities in small towns. My DM's GPs all came from tiny towns and small villages in the same small area. I've gone back to at least 1800 up every line, and much further up some, and not come across a single cousin marriage despite some families moving around three or four adjoining villages for centuries.

"Userwhatevernumber

I haven’t rtft, but just wanted to say, it isn’t only Asian communities it is prevalent in the UK."
This makes no sense

Really? Where’s that then?

And just a boy I still don't see the relevance of what you're saying. Two unrelated people marry and have intelligent children. What has that got to do with consanguinity?
Is it me? Am I the thick one?

Stealth not just you - justaboy has posted a non sequitur.

It is racist not to talk about this.

Just like the grooming gangs issues can continue and children suffer because people are being scared of being called racist.

It is a higher statistical probability that a BAME child will be affected by this therefore racist not to seek to help this group of children.

There are 7 billion people on this planet, there is no reason whatsoever for anyone to shag their cousin. Disgusting thought!

I’m Asian, and have seen this. Cousin parents. Four children, all extremely disabled and died by their teens. Tragic. My parents (doctors) attributed this to cousin marriage. And this was 40 years ago.

I agree it should be made illegal, and that more education is needed in the Asian community.

@Verily1 totally agree, unfortunately some people are desperate to censor any discussion around these issues in their eagerness to appear "woke".

I've no idea whether it's common or not/whether it's a big issue, but would be inclined to agree that first cousin marriage has no place in the UK 2019.

i know/knew a british couple that were first cousins that married and first child died, and subsequent children have genetic conditions that caused deformity of hands and feet but are still alive. I find the whole thing repulsive because it is repulsive, and the reason that we have a taboo against it, is not only as societal protection against incestuous abuse, but also because these children are not healthy and its completely selfish and weird to do it. If it is more prevalent in certain cultures, then that doesnt mean that it should be recognised as a marriage here, or allowed.

Royals has married their cousins for hundreds of years. Shall we outlaw them doing it, too?

or outlaw royalty completely, that works too

People are producing anecdotal examples of where it is okay but it is only the science and facts that matter. I would not ban it but I would require those whose children are ill as a result to pay for all that care.

In some parts of areas near Leeds 25% of disabled babies are caused by the 3% orwhatever it is (much less tahn 25%) of people who are in cultures with first cousin marriage. This is not just an issue about one race. The British royal family suffered terribly and royal houses of Europe because they could only marry people of royal blood. I remember Princess Diana being such a break with the past. Prince Philip a generation before was for the Greek royal house but Prince Charles did not marry a princess - a huge break but genetically a good thing. The Russian royal family intermarried with the British and others and had that poor little boy with haemophilia.

Someone mentioned the US FLDS group above too who suffer from fumariase syndrome (some of the babies, by no means ) and people see a disabled child as an utter gift from God to test you ready for the next life. In fact that is one view point. If disability is fine then is it morally wrong to bring children into the world more likely to have it?

The royal family doing it in the past doesn’t mean it’s ok .