To be disturbed by wilfull ignorance around genetic inbreeding?

[M9009]

I've come from a country were cousin marriage and indeed marriage to any close relative if illegal.
I've recently started working in a dialysis unit and I'm so disturbed by how many parents are young children born of first cousin marriage. Usually from South Asian backgrounds.
Today I was speaking to one parents who has 9 children, all in need of kidney transplants. The eldest 2 have already had theirs. Parents are first degree cousins and each have various medical problems of their own.
Why, as a society, do we allow these marriages? It seems so cruel to the children who are born with medical and genetic problems.
Maybe I'm easily shocked, I don't know.

Good points

If it's made a criminal offence to marry a 1st cousin then it's dealt with by the courts, the same way that bigamy,for example is dealt with appropriately. When we marry in the UK each party makes a statement to say that they know of no just cause or impediment to the marriage. Think about what that actually means, they aren't meaningless words. The official asking the couple prior to marriage if they are cousins means they are aware of the law. Then it's up to them to consider whether they will abide by the law. That applies to every law we have we choose to be compliant or to ignore it, with consequences if we ignore.

Good point @loislovesstewie.

There are lots of things that are illegal but not necessarily in plain sight. Doesn’t often take a lot to investigate them though.

I’m completely against the concept of cousins marrying so I’m just asking questions to understand.

What would you propose the sentence be? Jail time? A fine?

What about sex with your cousin? I don’t know much about Muslim marriages in the UK so excuse my ignorance. Where I live traditional marriages are often consummated long before any actual legal or customary marriage takes place because there is a financial exchange from the groom to the brides family which is not easily affordable.

There are already laws stating who we can't have sex with. Adding 1st cousins to the list wouldn't be difficult. The penalty would be fixed by law, bigamy for example can be a custodial sentence. We change /modify laws all the time, this would be just another modification.

I don't think the main purpose of the law would be punishment. The main purpose would be to send a signal to the young women involved that UK law is on their side if they refuse. It may not help many, but it will help some. I also like the strong signal that it is culturally inappropriate behaviour in the UK, just as FGM is. And I think all cultures, Travellers too, should be being sent that message.

I agree with you 100%.

We can also add gender reassignment for children to be made illegal and I’d even stretch to say parents who pierce their children’s ears under the age of 13 (I don’t know what is a good consensual age for this is) should be fined.

I’ve just been considering how strangely different cultures are. My cousins are my first childhood friends and even as we moved into being teenagers with wild hormones it just would never ever cross our minds. I can’t imagine growing up ever thinking it would be ok.

I feel really bad for young women who grow up at the mercy of their families decisions.

This makes me wonder how many women are silenced into letting their daughters go this way? Is it just quiet acceptance? A cycle of control. Are there unspoken whispers between mothers and daughters about rebellion or do mothers themselves become cold to the reality that they once faced.

Lots of people don't grow up with cousins, especially within immigrant populations

My parents siblings are spread out in several countries because the done thing is that when "successful" kids hit adulthood, they move to get employment in either bigger cities, but also predominantly other countries. Some of whom I think i met before I can remember because theres a high proportion of people of my generation working as cleaners, nannies etc in places like uae, where you often get flights home in the package but dont earn enough to fly elsewhere or get to chose when to have a reunion.

I spoke earlier about my white scottish wife aunt and uncle being cousin married. The aunt was one of 6 or 7, the uncle was one of about 4. The grand father and grandmother were also both of large families so I recon they easily have close to 50 cousins.

Growing up close to your all your cousins is very much a if you all stay in the same area, no one moves and have a compact family

Lots of the cases of Asian families I'm aware of its a cousin from this country, marrying a cousin in the motherland as part of finding a traditional marriage

I don't think the problem is 1st cousin marriahes, if it only happens in one generation.
What the problem is that this continues down the generations, and causes terrible problems.
But i don't know how you would enforce banning the latter situation.

Exactly. It's primarily an endogamy matter within a small community.

They could if they're aware of it. Roman Catholics are supposed to get a dispensation from the Papal office to marry a first cousin. To get this, marriage records of their family are supposed to be looked at to ensure there have been no other cousin marriages in the last few generations.

So stop at source then.

I don’t think it just ‘starts’ in the current generation given the mostly modern society we live in. This is a practice that has already been passed down so the risk is already there.

I believe consensual incest with a person over the age of 13 carries a max sentence of 7 years (under 13 it’s life). All that needs to happen is to broaden the range of people where having sex with them counts as incest to include first cousins - no marriage required.

I never knew travellers did it. And I researched and there is a huge portion of them that do marry their cousins. If they dont marry their cousin, they marry within the traveller community as its looked down upon. I wonder how many of their children have disabilities and health conditions.

Its interesting that many travellers dont allow their children to go to school. I wonder if that is also due to them being mentally behind/slow academically. And ive noticed that women dont work, instead theyre taught from young how to non stop clean the caravans/motor homes and men are taught from young to be scrap collectors etc.

Meant to say: its looked down upon if they marry out of the travellers community.

So was just looking at what marriages are legal in the UK. Interestingly it is not legal for ‘steps’ to marry if the younger person was raised as a child by the older person. No blood relation so why cousin marriage is not illegal is beyond me.

• Step-Relatives: For individuals who are step-relatives, they may marry if they are over 21, and the younger person was not treated as a child of the family by the older person before turning 18.

Elon Musks father married and fathered children with his step daughter.

Many years ago I knew children in a (white European) family from cousin marriage. One was deeply affected by autism and the other had a hair lip.

In my own ( white European) family three sets of cousins had affairs ( with no children luckily). In two cases the liaisons were secret and involved older teenagers. The other was based on a teen crush followed up in much later years.

I have the impression that cousins may feel quite strong attractions to each other because of having an affinity for each others looks, and a feeling of familiarity and closeness, at the same time as attraction. I do not agree with this but am observing.

The cousin marriage thing i only really learnt about through experience of meeting other Pakistani Muslim women. Every single one is married to their cousin.

The young lady I was quite close to on the playground, very friendly, very kind and down to earth said to me that her aunty kept telling her soon you will be married, you will be married soon. She was 18 and then before ahe knew it, her cousin (the aunty's son) flew over from Southern England to Pakistan to do the nikah wedding there and then he brought her back here. Their eldest child is behind academically several years, and has other behavioural problems, but the other 2 seem to be ok on track. She then told me her father is also her mothers cousin and her husbands parents are also cousins. And behind them their parents and their grandparents are all cousins. When its done like this non stop, then there are so many complications and heslth issues ongoing passed down through all.
Then the other Muslim Pakistan ladies I have met, they also happily reveal their husband is their cousin, their brother is married to their cousin, their sister is married to their cousin and they see absolutely nothing wrong with it. It comes across as normal to them as buying milk in tesco.

We were also discussing family life one day, on the street before heading home after school run, when one of the sister all of a sudden piped up with why do people have problem with cousin marriage if Pakistan doctor say its ok. Then its ok. And they were all nodding in agreement. I wouldn't be surprised if they all start arranging their children to be married to one another 8 years or so down the line. I explained that cousin marriage was ok only when it was sporadic in small communities donkeys years ago when there were not enough people to marry.

I then remember a thread where a woman was told a lot by her aunty not to be around her male cousins alone in case something happened. She then found out the reason behind this was because they were infact her half brothers and her father turned out to be her uncle as well. It was all very odd and confusing and I wondered what was going on. They werent Pakistani Muslims but incest was evident throughout that family with no one really knowing who was their biological and maternal and paternal family members. It made me feel quite ill in the end.

And did Woody Allan ( adopted daughter)?

The issue here is not the genetic but one related to abuse I think.

Do Jews marry cousins, I wondered this as noticed a lot of children with face deformations on documentaries.

There was an earlier thread where a poster linked to clusters of evident incest in the U.K. that were based on much closer kinship than cousins. I’d have to try to find it to see if I have remembered accurately.

The strongest links with this sort of incest seemed to come from strictly structured patriarchal groups where all secrets are kept tightly guarded.

In the hospital dept I work in I had a family with children with devastating disabilities who were a cousin marriage However they, like many others, didn't have a nameable genetic disease, you'd have to do a full genome of each person considering cousin marriage to effectively rule out any small translocations which can have unpredictable results when doubled up. This isn't a case of a glut of haemophilia or cystic fibrosis. It's translocations on chromosome 14 or similar with very different outcomes.

Also had a family where they travelled abroad to access IVF as the mum was conceiving in her 50s and had multiple children with downs syndrome as a result. Multiple singleton pregnancies not multiple birth. As a parent of 1 child with SEN that gave me pause too because when I had my second I really didn't know the extent of issues with my first, to the point of not knowing there would be a diagnosis in his future, nor what genetic components may be at play. However I wouldn't knowingly have several children in that case.

I don’t know if cousin marriage is allowed by the Jewish religion, or by state laws in Israel.