To ask any one of Pakistani descent (Urdu speakers) to please talk about this frankly with me?

[Mebeline]

hi there
I am genuinely trying to understand a conversation i just had with a woman which was loosely related to my professional role. Please don't flame me, I am trying to be actively non-racist after BLM and I am just trying to learn more about cultural norms and values that differ to my own.

She explained to me that her son has a genetic disorder due to 'cousin marriage' in her words, which means that the whole family have weak bones. she went on to tell me that she refused genetic testing , because she was scared about how her husband would react, as she was newly married and her son was young. so she refused genetic testing and so did her husband. I am not sure if relevant, but she has gone on to have another child and is pregnant with a third. She did not tell me if her second child had similar problems as her first.

i do not understand why she would refuse to have genetic testing, and i didn't want to ask further as what she had brought up is not relevant to my professional role, and i did not want to go outside of the boundaries of why she was speaking to me and encourage over disclosure, which she may have later regretted.

Was she afraid that her husband would leave her if her 'genetic material' wasn't good enough?

Surely this is misogynistic abuse? i do not want to collude with this and very much feel as a feminist woman that it is not fair that a woman of colour is experiencing this level of oppression.

Please, to allow this thread to run, can posters avoid racist stereotyping? I am very genuinely asking anyone of Pakistani descent what is going on here and if there is anything i can do to better understand this woman's circumstances and reasons for her actions, and then if there is anything i can do to help her.

TIA

@Spaghettibetty345 I had this discussion with different members of my family, who are different religions and practice to different extents as a teen.

One of the issues with testing is that even if you carry genes for a well-known abnormality it takes until you are over 12 weeks pregnant before you can get tested. Many women don't want an abortion after that regardless.

Bit confused why Urdu speaking is in the OP title.

Anyway . I recently had a conversation with DH around divorce (not ours, within the Asian community, specifically Muslim in the case of our conversation) and he made the point that should a couple get divorced, it's much MUCH harder for a woman in this scenario to find someone else who would accept her, even a man who is also divorced. She's seen as 'soiled goods' so to speak. I must point out that DH is Asian, though not Pakistani.
He has also known of couples being unable to conceive and it is almost always assumed to be a problem with the woman's reproductive system as opposed to the man's, no testing involved - she just gets the blame for being unable to provide her husband with children.

My first thought was that if she was to find out that the genetic issue was on her side, she would be seen as a 'failure' for being unable to produce healthy children. That said, it could potentially be something they both carry as they will have shared genetic traits

Cousin marriage is very common, my ILs are cousins, DH's grandparents on both sides were cousins, various aunts and uncles are also cousins. The practice within their family was halted when a baby was born with moderate physical deformities (additional learning needs found later down the line too) and they needed extensive surgery to be able to even stand up.

I am not of Pakistani descent, but... Some people of any ethnicity are suspicious of genetic testing. They might associate it with their fears of government or police surveillance; or be afraid that secrets will be revealed (e.g. that the husband isn't the actual father of the children); or that their genes are being labelled as 'inferior'. The wife might be afraid that her husband might leave her for someone who can produce genetically 'better' children. Etc.

A friend who works with seriously disabled children gets infuriated by the number of families of Pakistani origin who, having had one gravely affected child, go on to have several more despite medical advice. If they have one healthy and two disabled children they'll tell medical staff the healthy one proves there's nothing wrong with their genes and that it's just a coincidence.

Cousin marriage doesn't normally cause genetic problems but in that culture you get many generations of cousin marriage which eventually lead to widespread genetic issues. Nearly all the children in my friend's specialist unit are the offspring of such marriages. She finds it immensely frustrating and distressing that although some parents want advice most of them flatly refuse to accept that genetics play any part in their kid's problems.

I'd guess your patient knows what the issue is but she also knows her husband will flatly refuse to accept any unwelcome news.

I think opinions are changing in younger Pakistani Brits. The majority of my friends here in London are Pakistani heritage and they all think the idea of marrying their cousin is disturbing (more British mindset) even though some are the children of cousin marriage.

So I think the rates will decline.

Wow on Dispatches the couple seem to think that as their brothers children are normal the disabilities of their children are the doctors fault. Shocking.

Does anyone think making first cousin marriage illegal would work?

How would we enforce it?

The purpose of cousin marriage is to keep property within the family. If cousin marriages became illegal they would no longer be valid or serve their intended purpose so people would stop.

"but surely if a woman is in a marriage she is afraid of losing, with the deprivation and shame that will go with it, because of her genes this is simply wrong because of the level of damage she will experience because she is a woman, and not the imposition of my belief system?"

But you don't know this woman's reasons, you are hypothesising about them. And no one on this thread can say what her reasons are for certain.

@MorrisBonsson

It is racist to expect a person just because they look like her by ethnic descent that they would know about this and be the authority on it, like asking a white english on teen pregnancy. Not cool.

She was asking for more insight into cultural mindset. Not asking them to read her mind.

I could tell you a great deal about white British teen pregnancy cultural causes despite never being a pregnant teen because it's a culture I'm familiar with.

Don't be obtuse, she asked a question to enlighten herself more.

*Does anyone think making first cousin marriage illegal would work?

How would we enforce it?*

I don't think it's really enforceable. After all, almost half of children in the UK are born to unmarried couples, though it's admittedly probably fewer in very close communities where cousin marriage is likely to be commoner.

In any case, a single cousin marriage is not all that risky. What is really risky is multiple generations of cousin marriages.

DH has also known of couples being unable to conceive and it is almost always assumed to be a problem with the woman's reproductive system as opposed to the man's, no testing involved - she just gets the blame for being unable to provide her husband with children

TBF that's not exclusive to asian communities - there's at least one "old family" round here where the same's happened, even to the point of the man divorcing his wife (and he didn't produce children with his second one either)

I wonder if it's not more a misogyny thing; certainly the entire male side of this family sneered at the medics' "insolence" in suggesting that one of them might be the problem

@ZoeTurtle

I am trying to be actively non-racist after BLM

This is an attitude you have to try to have???

If you're white, it's an attitude you should try to have, too. If you think you're free of all racism and unconscious bias then you're almost definitely wrong. It's not good enough to pat yourself on the back and ignore the issue of racism; you have to actively work against ingrained prejudice.

Just to add, racism goes much deeper than name calling and discrimination. There are many things that seem innocuous on the surface but are actually offensive. There are things that might even seem complementary but actually reduce the black person to, say, a jester or a sex object. Racism is all around us and hidden in places many people would never think to look. We all need to try harder and continue trying, even when we think it is stamped out.

@stella1know interestingly some Buddhist communities have remained matriarchal and they tend to have a lower number of offspring, with more men taking monastic religious orders, so the population is more sustainable, land isn't divided into infinitesimally small parcels that cannot sustain a family and so on.

Also aboriginal society traditionally has incredibly strict rules regarding kinship that determine which people you should marry. I would not be surprised if this has a beneficial impact on preventing inbreeding.

One of the issues with testing is that even if you carry genes for a well-known abnormality it takes until you are over 12 weeks pregnant before you can get tested. Many women don't want an abortion after that regardless.

I think the genetic testing discussed here, I may be wrong, is more like that utilised by the Jewish community, that both are screened to see if they carry a gene before a marriage takes place and if you carry certain genes then the marriage doesn't take place.

Obviously there are more options these days with IVF but the simplest is not to marry someone with the same gene that will cause a disability.

@stella1know Also I have just read your excellent original post. Even if the woman the OP is talking about is British born and British educated, she is in a committed marriage. She may not want to get divorced. She may still hope for a healthy child (even if she only has a 25% chance). I know several women who have proceeded with pregnancies in the knowledge that there is a high chance of Downs Syndrome because they wanted the baby come what may.

There is a lot of help out there including screening for some genetic abnormalities before eggs are implanted. The Born in Bradford project is really impressive. It is non-judgemental and supportive of families in this situation, not all of whom are South Asian or Muslim, but many of whom are.

@MrsMichaelPalin

The Queen and Duke of Edinburgh are second cousins.

Just saying...

Yeah, but nobody thinks that's good either, do they? Royal Family inbreeding is not normally seen in a good light or we wouldn't laugh at the Hapsburgs.

" like asking a white english on teen pregnancy. Not cool."

I don't see the problem with that actually. If someone wanted to know why there were more teen pregnancies in England than in other countries, asking an English person might be a good idea. It doesn't mean they think all English people have teenaged parents.

Weirdly, it's like a family cult.

What one does here, in the UK, has repercussions across the whole 'unit', even as far back as the 'home' country.

A woman brings 'shame' onto her family by rejecting her family's choice of husband or choosing her own boyfriend, then the 'shame' is expunged by killing her. A so called 'honour killing' TRIGGER WARNING

The same applies for anything that may make an 'outsider' think less of the entire family as a whole.

Something like a genetic test that proves positive for any disease or condition, regardless of where it's done, or who it's done to, causes shame for the whole family and severely reduces chances of a good marriage match - even as far back as Pakistan, India or Bangladesh.

It's quite frankly Medieval in its logic and prevents those who need help from getting it.

@PrawnofthePatriarchy

Does anyone think making first cousin marriage illegal would work?

How would we enforce it?

The purpose of cousin marriage is to keep property within the family. If cousin marriages became illegal they would no longer be valid or serve their intended purpose so people would stop.

My point is - how we anyone know about it and what would we do about it? You'd either have to do a detailed background check on everyone who wants to get married or on will recipients - neither seems likely or practical. If I married my cousin and no-one "in authority" knew we were cousins things would carry on much the same.

I wonder how many posters are of Pakistan descent ( or caught up in a similar situation) and have commented from a place of knowledge.

There was a radio 4 programme about this a while back. It was very interesting - I will see if I can find it.

I seem to remember any problems with the child’s health was generally assumed to be the wife’s fault...

Queen Victoria is both Prince Philip's and Queen Elizabeth's great-great grandmother - so I believe that makes them third cousins, not second.

Anyhow - it is the amount of multi generational inter-family relationships that cause the problem genetic problems, rather than one or two sets of cousin marriages which isn't such a problem.

"Queen Victoria is both Prince Philip's and Queen Elizabeth's great-great grandmother - so I believe that makes them third cousins, not second."

Yes, but I think they might be related in more ways than one so might still share more DNA than two second cousins.

"Anyhow - it is the amount of multi generational inter-family relationships that cause the problem genetic problems, rather than one or two sets of cousin marriages which isn't such a problem."

Exactly.

In traditional cultures, faults with babies were presumed to be the mother's fault. This prejudice persists even when modern genetic testing showed the man had the same or in fact much worse faulty genes, the presumption is that any faults in the woman gives the man right to seek a different partner. That's why the gal didn't want testing. She didn't want any information that might threaten her marriage.