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?

It's illegal for siblings to marry and we manage to uphold that law, so why not cousins? - does any person here see any legal impediment etc. etc. It's generally seen as taboo within most communities in the Uk so we should be making it so within the asian community also- after all it's causing unnecessary suffering to individuals and a cost to society as a whole.

I don't have a problem with first cousin marriage as a one-off.

The genetic problems are when the people getting married have parents who are cousins, grandparents who are cousins, great grandparents who are cousins and so on as far back as anyone can trace. From a genetic point of view that's not great to put it mildly. And it's not really a thing in European culture.

Nice bit of casual racism there
Of course it's bloody racist. Talk about how awful and damaging 'first-cousin' marriage is (and health problems with the babies that ensue) by ALL means... But why the need to mention they are Asian?

No it isn’t. Not at all. First cousin marriage is very prevalent within these cultures. Perhaps you should read the facts. It has been in the news and there have even been TV programmes about it
Fortunately there are more educated posters on this thread.

Cousin marriages used to be common in England in the past. I have assumed this was due to the difficulties for young people to socialise with the opposite sex.

This was very prevalent among the royal families of Europe.

YABU
If it’s consensual, why should it be illegal ?



I will add to this thread that my ds has a genetic condition. It appears de novo as me and his dad and our parents etc do not have same symptoms. (But they can appear at 40/50/60 yo).

We are waiting for genetics as we know there is now a 50% chance he could pass it on. If the gene happens to be laying dormant within our families then obviously family marriage would increase those chances.

We are white British.

But the difference is that it isn't culturally the norm for us to marry within close family.

For many families, cousin marriages are a way of keeping property concentrated 'in the family'

Worked quite well for the English aristocracy ...

there is no way to outlaw this. Couples would just have av religious only marriage which would mean the mothers would have less legal rights

A valid point

FWIW I'm another who prefers the education route, but clearly even that isn't ideal - as we're seeing on here, even to mention the subject will be instantly damned as racist by some, and there'll certainly be influences among the communities themselves who'll prefer the issue to remain unquestioned

So you think that people shouldn't be allowed to follow their cultural norms?
YABVVVVU. I have four cousins who married cousins, between them they have half a dozen kids who are all fine.
It's not something I did, but each to their own.
Oh, and I'm white British, my family follow the caste system.

It's not racist and much more prevalent in Asian families. I do know a white couple who have wed and are cousins, luckily they don't plan on having kids together as have kids with previous partners

Yes they shouldn't be allowed to follow cultural norms if they are harmful. Abso fucking lutely.

This was very prevalent among the royal families of Europe

Yep. It’s thought that one of the major causes of the collapse of the Hapsburg Dynasty was inter-family marriages, and the resulting genetic illnesses/disabilities/infertility.
I think I read somewhere that there’s a woman on that family tree who appears something like 17 different times because of how inter-bred the family were

But if you repeat the pattern too often in a family then yes, it's a really big problem

My ds has a rare but inherited congenital syndrome. We got on to the subject of cousin marriages with our geneticist who did a lot of work in Leeds with first generation cousin parentage and genetic abnormalities. He said that that is a myth; the gene pool contrary to popular belief does not get more concentrated as cousins continue to marry. There is approx a 1% chance of a pregnancy having a foetal abnormality, this increases to about 2-3% in first cousins and does not increase down the generations.

If you want to ban cousin marriages due to increased numbers of potentially disabled children then you would have to ban anyone with an already disabled child from having more, or known carriers of genetic diseases be required to get testing prior to TTC.

So do you also believe that those who know they are at high risk of passing a disability or health condition on to their children should be stopped from breeding, or only 1st cousins?

BorgDrone
It is incest and very distasteful as well as dangerous
In the U.K. it's not incest,

So you think that people shouldn't be allowed to follow their cultural norms? YABVVVVU

Er, I'd be careful with that unqualified support for cultural "norms". Maybe stop and think for a second what it is you are saying ?

Of course it’s not racist to point out some people from certain backgrounds have a cultural practice of multiple first cousin marriages. There is a lot of education out there and testing is available. I am unsure if it continues to go on because people are genuinely ignorant or if there’s a lot of cultural pressure to marry first cousins regardless of the risks.

Cultural norms like FGM? No thanks.

The Queen and Prince Philip are cousins, I believe

But not first cousins. First cousins - which is what we are talking about - have parents who are siblings. Or a common set of grandparents, if you prefer to look at it that way.

The Queen and Prince Philip are second cousins once removed, both descended from Queen Victoria but she's the Queen's great great grandmother. And neither of the Queen's parents were siblings of Prince Philip's parents.

If you start looking at your wider relationships which you could determine "cousins" it would be thousands of people. First cousins is much more specific and narrow.

Whilst doing some genealogy research I can across a small village in the Chilterns where everyone in the marriage, baptism and death records had the same surname. From the mid 1500s until the mid 1800s. I've no idea about the health of these people but there was a high incidence of infant death which may be relevant. I've read that the spread of railways led to increased genetic diversity in Britain.

Of course it's a cultural issue - some cultures do it, some don't. Not a race issue - white and black cultures both practice it.

Eg 1 - European aristocracy, 19C: Haemophilia was discovered because royal families inbred so much it became traceable. Eg2 - Bangladeshi families 21C: East London hospitals report higher levels of severe birth defects.

Cousin marriage started as a way to keep money in the family, so you could argue it began, at any rate, as an economic issue.

I don't know why anyone is saying this thread is racist, this is something that is very common in Asian families and something which has been reported on in the news etc. I don't really understand how that is racist?

I believe this is why the royal family started to marry commoners due to some of the health issues through cousin marriage, I think the queen is 2nd cousins with philip or something to that effect. Is it Ok to mention them as they are all british and white?

Imagine they get a hefty Disability Allowance from the government.

WTF?

Yes I agree. I used to work in a school for deaf children, over 60 % were Asian. The school said the majority came from parents who are cousins. The gene pool is un diluted . It's a cultural issue that needs addressing.