To think first-degree cousins should not marry?

[Onestonetogo]

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And of course we are related, we are married!

OneStoneToGo that was uncalled for.

It is clear from teh literature that this only becomes a real problem after many generations of consanguineous marriages. Now whilst that is somehing which could conceivable happen it is actually very unlikely (and jusging by JARMs circumstances practically impossible).

I think it is one thing to debate the issues raised by successive marriage of cousins...and another to discuss "one off events" like this.

Thanks SMS

No worries...perhaps I should point out that I am a part time geneticist

My uncle (my mum's brother) married his first cousin. They were born in the 1920s, married in 1953 and had a son in 1964. My cousin (their son) seems fine. Also, I have been researching my family tree, and found two first cousins who married each other (in the 1890s).

I think it is more likely to be a problem if there is a lot of marrying of close relations in a family, but if it is a one-off, then I shouldn't think the risks are that great.

I should add that my uncle had a great many (non-related) girlfriends before he settled down with his cousin!

"but any genetic "problems" are now part of your children's genetic make-up and will be passed on to your grandchildren. "

But that's true of anything that's carried on, say, the Y chromosome. Should haemophiliacs be banned from having children, then?

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She did absolutely nothing wrong by having children.....the risks of her children having genetic abnormalities is lower than the risk of a 40yo woman having a child with dons syndrome...Are you going to ban women over the age of (for example) 35 having chilren?

"You did nothing wrong by falling in love with him; it's the children bit that imo carries the risk. " Bet JARM's relieved to have your blessing on the love bit. FFS.

You really are heading down a slippy slope to eugenics.

Onestonetogo, you're really not listening are you? A one-off cousin marriage is highly, highly unlikely to cause problems.

Surely education of at risk groups would be better than blanket legislation?

Isn't there something about people being attracted to people who are "genetically compatible" by smell or something?

By which token if people have met as adults and they have the right smell it's probably going to be OK...

And it's maybe when people are forced to marry close relatives they don't actually find attractive which is genetically more dangerous.

I'm not a genetecist BTW so feel free to come and pooh pooh my exciting theory!

yabu. I'd be inclined to mind my own business about who people legally marry.

Do you know what, I havent the inclination to debate my marriage with someone so small minded.

I came here and gave my story. As far as Im concerned, I have done nothing wrong and have not put my children at any risk.

I am not up enough to debate whether sucessive cousin marriages cause birth defects or disabilities, therefore I will leave this thread with the grace in which I entered it.

Thank you and good night!

I sometimes visit the Bradford Royal Infirmary and the last time I was there noticed an in hospital magazine debating the higher than normal rates of infant mortality and disabilities in children born to Asian parents I've just googled this now and found this link here
Whilst it doesn't exactly state this is because there are more parents who are related, the in hospital magazine article did say this was an issue particularly prevalent in Bradford and explained this as being due to the number of close relatives (particularly cousins) marrying.

The problem here is recessive genes that are carried by an individual usually inherited from one parent.
In the case of inherited diseases like CF an individual needs two copies of each recessive gene, one from each parent.
The chances of a child picking up 2 copies of a recessive gene are much higher if the gene pool of the parents is smaller i.e if they share grandparents.
Recessive genes that may have been hidden as the child had just one copy would be more likely to be exposed in families that result from close family members having children. DanJAR mouse the fact that your children have no disabilities simply means that both you and your husbands (highly shared)gene pools probably did not contain any genes for specific inherited conditions.
I'm not attacking cousins marrying, after all you can't help who you fall for but denying the fact that there is a greater risk than non related people marrying is like saying older women aren't at greater risk of having children with disabilites when clearly they are.
Just because a woman in her 40's gives birth to a 'normal' child does not mean that her chances of having a child born with say Down's syndrome were the same as a woman in her 20's (they would be much higher).
Ps I say this as a woman who plans to have her first child in her mid thirties, if I'm indeed able to have a child at all!

salvadory, I don't think anyone's saying there's no increased risk, just that for couples with no known particular family issue that risk is small and not worth banning cousin marriage over, which is what the op suggested.

(just as I don't think women should be banned from having babies after the age of 35, which as you point out also carries increased risk of problems)

do you know that i took so bloody long typing my two pence worth i forgot the op (self absorbed moi??), just had a quick reread and it appears that you're right shona, i knew i should've just stuck to lurking!!

Oh I do that all the time

Yes I know that caucasians can be muslins, I have a bf who is infact just that, caucasian and a muslim, as sometimes caucasians can be muslim aswell It was the fact that this started very much as a genetic type thread and that was why I was clear on the description and for no other reason at all, it was pure factual information.

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"Well, nobody should be allowed to stop someone who carries a disease from having babies on the basis that they, too may inherit the disease... whether they decide to expose their kids to the risk it's up to them." - but you're saying that people who may not have any genetic disorder should be stopped from the basis of some hypothetical but very small risk than something may or may not be genetically transmitted.

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The children who had grown up in children's houses together on kibbutz thought of each other as siblings. The thought of marriage between two youngsters who had grown up in the same children's house was tantamount to incest in the mind of kibbutz children. On rare occasion, marriage did take place among couples who were not in the same children's house at the same time and whose ages were a few years apart. More common was the phenomenon of those born on kibbutz marrying people born on other kibbutzim.

In the same way in reverse putting a brother and sister together who have never met and have no idea that they are related they will be very very strongly attracted to each other - therefore putting cousins together would possibly have the same effect, I am not sure though, I beleive it is called genetic sexual atraction and there was a documentry about this last year after the twins that had married had there marrieage unaulled in court.