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?

Hecateh my friend is an Arab and told me that before marriage it is strongly encouraged and standard practice for the spouses to get genetic testing.

I don’t think it’s a belief system or religious thing - more societal - keeping land, business and money in the family, as I said before, gaining passports, family controlling daughters... the health risks are real.

A dingle cousin marriage doesn't cause a problem, the problem is a small genepool and this occurs in certain populations,in the UK Pakistani communities and in the US Amish communities.

I don't think it should be banned but I do think you should have genetic screening in the same way Jewish communities do for Tay Sachs.

I think as genetic testing becomes cheaper and can detect more it should be used more.

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.

That surely depends on the genetic make up of those cousins. If you have a genetic condition like hemophilia which has a 50% chance of being passed on as either hemophilia or as a carrier then that is going to increase in cousins.

Until recently adult haemophiliacs were rare (Queen Victoria's son Leopold was a rarity in that he lived into adulthood and had a child.)

If Leopold's daughter who was a carrier had married one of her cousins who had haemophilia the chance of their offspring having hemophilia would increase to 100% of girls having haemophilia or carrying the gene and 50% of boys having hemophilia.

You can not make other cultures belief system illegal

Of course you can. Being a part of "culture" doesn't stop something being harmful. Some of the "coming of age" traditions carried out in some tribes for instance would definitely be illegal in the UK, and they should be.

Even now in some British farming families marriage is often strategic with inheritance in mind. Not to say cousins or inter family marriage, but marrying within certain parts of the community.

I think more education on the matter rather than making it illegal would help.
As I understand it one instance of first cousin marriage isn't an issue, it's when generation after generation do it that it becomes an issue.

“A dingle cousin marriage doesn't cause a problem”

I thought this was a slight on a small Irish fishing village for a second. A dingle cousin 🤣🤣🤣🤣

You can not make other cultures belief system illegal

You'd still be saying that if the belief system included cannibalism, underage sex and sacred prostitution ?

There really are some dimwits around these days.

I would hope it's because it needs no answer

So would I ... but the original question was asked in the context of a PP suggesting that cultural norms shouldn't be interfered with in any way

Which is why I was a bit surprised that they'd expressed no views about a "norm" which most certainly has been challenged

YANBU

Aren’t the Dingles in the Archers? Or is that Emmerdale?

I think more education on the matter rather than making it illegal would help.

You could say that about a lot of things in society. The problem is it requires hard work, patience and understanding, as well as a willingness to engage. Which as can be seen from this thread isn't really very popular.

Far better the quick fix of banning it, and then pretending it's all been fixed. It's why we have politicians who love banning things. It makes it look like something has been done.

Its not Asian per se, its more culture/religion.
I am Asian. Cousin marriage is unheard of in both my culture and my religion, to the extent where even sharing the same or similar surname (even if there is zero evidence that there is a very very far off relation) is seen as a no go.

I dont know if there should be a ban. I think its heartbreaking seeing the after effects.
I had a friend in school whose parents were the children of siblings. She was fine. Her sisters were absolutely not. She was constantly off school to help look after one sister while the other went to hospital with the parents.
I think there is a culture of ignorance within the communites where this is the norm.

underage sex

Oh but their age of consent laws are different. Cultural relativism folks.

Yes, it should not be permitted.

Dingle is also a small tourist town in south west Ireland. The typo has completely tickled me

It's a practice that would be better ending, and it's stupid to pretend we don't all know which communities it's (currently) most prevalent in. But a ban isn't the way you tackle that. People have children outside legal marriage, people lie on birth certificates and there isn't some big register of who everyone's first cousins are. You couldn't police it until after the fact, and even then that would essentially require DNA tests. I'm not actually up for that level of state intrusion into my privacy, nor for funding it either. Find better ways.

@hiphopchick I really recommend you read 'The Meaning of Race' by Kenan Malik. It talks a lot about how when we label things as 'racist' we sometimes disregard the other facts which may help us to better understand a situation. For example, when the police were looking for IRA suspects, they weren't looking at those in the Caribbean community (although they were obviously blaming them for a lot of other stuff.) They were looking for white, Catholic, Irish people. Was that racist?
Acting as if this isn't a cultural issue is to diminish the impact of any campaigns that are put out to highlight the problem. Same as if I was going to start a campaign telling people not to drink too much, I probably wouldn't aim it at the Somali community!

@BunsOfAnarchy many years ago a friend (a Patel) mentioned that Patel’s often have a second surname - often rarely used in this country and potentially not even party of a legal name - but partly for the purpose to protect against interbreeding as Patel is obviously such a common surname. Is that right?

@hiphopchick don't be ridiculous, it's well known that some cultures are more likely than others to have first cousins marrying. Trying to pretend that all cultures are at equal risk is counterproductive and will prevent education being targeted in the right areas. This IS a cultural thing.

It is still very common in a range of countries, stretching from India to Mauritania.

In India it affects 25% of Muslim marriages and 15% of Hindu marriages. It is significantly more common among low caste, low educated couples. North India is much more strict than South India.

In Pakistan, the rate is around 60% and there is an increased rate of blood disorders.

In the Middle East, it is yet higher. Saudi Arabia is believed to be around 70%, which is shocking. Qatar is 54%. This would explain why Arabs have one of the highest rates of genetic disorders in the world.

For comparison, the UK figure is somewhere closer to 0.005%. Among the British Pakistani community though, it is 55%. One in ten children born in such circumstances either dies in infancy or develops a serious disability.
www.bbc.co.uk/bbcthree/article/6af25e7b-0545-42ba-a6fa-82ac1023b4ed

Hundreds of innocent young lives are being lost every year, many more are suffering.

For example, when the police were looking for IRA suspects, they weren't looking at those in the Caribbean community...

Not that it stopped the Met from using emergency anti-terrorist powers to harrass the Afro-Carribbean community.

As Not The Nine O'Clock News had it at the time: IRA Bomb in Docklands, police raid a cafe in Brixton.

I don't think it should be illegal for people to marry (or have children) simply because there is an increased risk of them creating or passing on a genetic problem.

Whether such people ought to have children is another matter, but that is a question for morality not legality.

Charles Darwin married his first cousin, Emma Wedgwood. Probably if most people look at their family trees they will see this happening more than once. But yes, it should not be allowed, in my opinion.

@DdraigGoch thanks for an interesting post

@MockersthefeMANist I did say that in my post. Malik was talking more about how police use stop and search and how they begin to think about who to interrogate. It's all very problematic and it was a long time ago that I read the book (whilst studying race relations.)