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.

Any threat of an accusation of racism trumps everything.

It was never common in England, this is untrue. First cousin marriage was forbidden to Christians, both Catholic and Protestant and since they were the vast majority of English (and Irish) people, it simply didn't take place. The English upper classes did have some cousin marriages, but they were mostly in the second or third degree or cousinage, with no multi-generational marriages.
I think it's important to point out that the problems of consanguinous marriage we see today in some minority communities is not just caused by a one-off cousin marriage. These families have been marrying each other closely for generations, so the genetic problems are actually getting more frequent and severe.
First cousin marriages should be illegal as it is widely regarded by most advanced societies as a form of incest.

Agree with all of this

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m002gqyc?partner=uk.co.bbc&origin=share-mobile

Matthew Syed is very good in this. It’s a brief but civilised debate that puts forward arguments from both sides

RosaMundi27
First cousin marriage was forbidden to Christians, both Catholic and Protestant

How remiss of the Church of England not to mention this prohibition in their Table of Kindred and Affinity.

One of the reasons why Henry VIii wanted his first marriage annulled was that he said she had consummated her marriage to his older brother and therefore was his “sister” in law. He viewed it as incestuous and his lack of a son was a punishment from God .
So the prohibition against consanguinity was widespread ( even if wilfully misinterpreted or manipulated for personal reasons)

Henry VIII was still (just!) a Roman Catholic at the time of his divorce from Catherine of Aragon (I think it was technically an annulment) and the CofE did not yet exist; it was later in his reign, and in a fit of temper about the pope not doing what Henry told him, that Henry set that up. So yes, the prohibition certainly existed in the Roman Catholic Church, and he was a Roman Catholic at the time of his marriage to his deceased brother's wife. For which marriage I think he got special permission from the then-pope anyway, but hey, she was unable to carry the son he was obsessive about so any old excuse would do.

I don't think Protestants did forbid it? But that didn't make it common again, thankfully..

Yes, Catherine's parents Isabella and Ferdinand were some kind of cousins (more distant than first) so had to wangle it by getting a papal dispensation to marry. Catherine got one herself but Henry later argued the Pope couldn't just dispense allowances like that
.

Could you provide any links on this?
I can't find any confirmation of a ban on Google.

You would imagine this would be a major news story given the cultural switch.

If true, it would certainly make it easier to ban first cousin marriages in the UK.

No this is incorrect
“Pakistan’s rate of consanguinity (the proportion of couples who are blood relatives) is unparalleled globally, with nearly two-thirds of marriages involving cousin”
https://popcouncil.org/insight/the-prevalence-and-persistence-of-cousin-marriage-in-pakistan/#:~:text=Pakistan's%20rate%20of%20consanguinity%20(the,thirds%20of%20marriages%20involving%20cousins.

I’m Jewish and genetic testing is v common. A friend’s sister married their third cousin and they had very extensive testing done before getting engaged.

Incidentally women with Jewish heritage can get tested for the BRCA gene through the NHS/JNetics as there’s an increased likelihood of having it. All my female relatives get tested as soon as eligible and that’s common across the community. I think it’s a learning from previous experiences with Tay Sachs etc.

This mumsnet thread was about ritual sexual abuse and included a lot about incest generally and how it is more widespread than we think including fathers and brothers. It happens in the U.K. too.

www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5398714-horrifying-testimonies-seek-to-lift-shroud-of-silence-around-ritual-sex-abuse-claims?page=2

The only reason I can see for cousin marriage to exist at all, outside of small populations living in remote isolated areas, is to give men power at the expense of women and children and their own future progeny.

It's the ultimate short-term thinking and a form of genetic suicide.

Talking about the cost of new immigrants, asylum seekers and refugees is completely besides the point.
the people doing this are 2nd and 3rd generation immigrants, their own parents have never been to Pakistan, the closest they get to Pakistan is their first cousin who they breed with, knowing the risk that causes, they know the risks.
The dowry is more important.

And now new research shows that children are dying as a result of this

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2026/feb/12/one-in-14-children-who-die-in-england-have-closely-related-parents-study-finds

It’s crazy that this is such a serious ‘public’ health issue yet the government would rather we didn’t talk about it and the thousands of kids born severely disabled, not to mention the deaths are just swept under the carpet.

I would be interested to understand the motivation if the NHS department who wrote about the benefits of cousin marriage - are they well meaning but hopelessly woke, or people with a personal interest in continuing these practices?

If the Islamophobia definition gets adopted, it will be very difficult to discuss this issue openly.

Whst the headline doesn't say is that in some areas where first cousin marriage is common its actually 1 in 6.

I am white british and one set of my grandparents were first cousins. They would have been married around 1910. Their 3 children had no medical issues. I think it is repeatedly doing this within families across generations that causes problems rather than as a one off. More education is needed particularly in communities where this is seen as normal.

They’re disgusting.

Second cousin marriage is fine once. It's when it gets repeated down the generations you get all sorts of problems. The problem with banning second generation is it would be quite hard to enforce. When family members researched our own family tree it was amazing how wide it gets at 2nd generation. And lots of people don't know who their second cousins are- and if they do know how do you prove they knew before marrying?

Genetic screening pre marriage would work better than banning 2nd cousin marriage for that reason. It would pick up where the actual problems were much better. However, you can't force everyone to have it, and especially can't force people in specific communities to have it (think of the implications). So it would be a matter of encouraging people to do screenings through education and there have been places where that's worked really well. Most people don't want to have severely disabled children/children that die young. So you can get a high take-up on screenings if it's pushed in the right way.

A few years back wasn't there a movement that rather than banning forst cousin marriages they were encouraging genetic testing and counselling before marriage so people could make informed decisions

There's a line of thinking that it's better for the women because they are marrying into a family they already have ties with rather than strangers.
In reality, I don't think it necessarily is a good hedge against abuse. (Plus it causes all the genetic issues already mentioned). But I think understanding why people might go for first cousin marriage is important if you are going to put strategies in place to prevent it. Often the in community argument is its safer for women/parents prefer to send their daughter to the household of someone they know well (a sibling).
Id trust my sister to be a good mother in law to my child (if you ignore the fact it's freaking weird for your MiL to be your aunt.) but you can see how someone worrying about their daughter being treated well would feel that was safer.

I think that it is Ashkenazi Jews who have been found to come from just 400 common ancestors**. That is partly the effects of very heavy waves of persecution over time than just deliberate cousin marriages. But it's a known issue that there are certain conditions that are very common in Ashkenazi Jews and I think testing/screening for certain conditions is recommended as a result today.

**I know biblically if you go really far back it's like one. But more recently than that I mean.

I had a role in the community and the number of people approaching me for help with their children was extremely troubling. The children had significant physical and mental disabilities all as a result of intermarriage. Frankly, I find the rejection of science and the continuation of cousin marriage at the expense of the children, barbaric. Also, what is the point? Why are people so obsessed with the idea of marriage within the family.