To think first-degree cousins should not marry?

[Onestonetogo]

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Not quite OneStop.

There is a risk of genetic disease with any birth
There is a very slight increase in risk if the child is conceived between related individuals (we are talking estimates of 2% - so JARM could probably have another 46 babies which are completely healthy!). This risk is very low; and as I pointed out lower than the risk of a woman over 40 having a down syndrom conception. I think that this level of risk is more than acceptable to the parents, and certainly more than acceptable to society.
The risks start to increase - probably exponentially with successive generations - and this is where the potential problems lie - and this is why the problems are associated with religeons and cultures which promote consanguous marriages.

So I did not sa there were zero risks for JARM...just that those risks had been distorted out of proportion.

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I read an interesting aricle on female promiscuity (New Scientist I think) and its prevalence which is at odds with the popular perception that it is only men that are 'programmed' to sow their oats far and wide, as it were. Apaprently women do so for the same reasons - casting their reproductive nets for sperm of superior quality.

Have also read that the sperm of 'the other man' is more likely to succeed in its' quest to fertlise an egg than the sperm of the regular bed partner.

Anyway, because of this, many sink estates have a limited gene pool (as do certain rural communities with little influx but not enough sheep) and fathers fathering children that are not theirs. Thus, when Sally shags Jimmy who she thinks is her mate from Flat no.20, little does she know he is her half brother and so when they make a baby the genes are a bit skewey.

That's the dunce's version of what I read, anyhow.

Well actually onestone to go, this is already happening.

Until recently my mum taught in an area with a large population of 1st/2nd generation immigrants.

Local community leaders had already managed to change majority opinion to the extent that the marriage customs which favoured marrying from a certain "family" village were being seen as undesirable. The health message was getting through.

But the potential is higher if you know you have the disease and x% risk of passing it on. There just doesn't seem to be any logic in your argument.

I went to the wedding of two first cousins in January.

All the jokes had already been made and the bride made a few herself.

It was all a little odd at times I have to confess.

"Honestly, I don't know. Maybe one thing is having an illness and knowing that there's a possibility to pass it on regardless of who our partner will be; quite another is being a healthy individual who decides to have babies with a blood-relative, thus creating the potential for genetic diseases for future generations. "

But they are are not really "creating" diseases for successive generations unless there is sucessive "inbreeding" (cos i clearly can't spell consanguineous!).

There is practically zero chance of "creatibg" a new disease with a one off marriage between related individuals as this recessive "potential" new disease will have been outbred again by the 2nd or 3rd generation.

That statement is also factually inaccurate - as someone who knows they have a genetic illness is at a much greater risk of passing it on (may even be 50% if it is a dominant disorder), than someone who might be carrying a recessive gene that might bump into someon else with teh same recessive gene - after all even their cousin might not carry that recessive gene.

Going back to a post much earlier in the thread, the recessive chin has everything and nothing to do with monarchy ... the Hapsburgs, in particular.

Neolitic man developed a heavy jawbone in order to chew tough meat.

As the human race progesses, and we have vegetarians, and soup-sippers, and people who no longer eat fat or gristle, the average chin gets smaller with every successive generation.

The very reason monarchy has been perceived to have had weak jaws/chins, is because they were eating catered food that didn't require much 'jawing.'

If modern man sticks to current diets of blended, soft foods, we shall all be chinless wonders within a couple of hundred years!

Inclusivity would promote genetic diversity if that's what the OP is worried about. Don't see much of that in the OP, tbh. It isn't an ethnicity issue ,it is a social and and anthropolgical one.

Sheep and horses have big jaws, Desi. And they're vegetarian.

But if a horse marries its cousin, will its offspring have a recessive chin?

Eh?

I have only read thet OP but i have a very close friend who married her first cousin. They have 4 kids. None have any medical problems and one is on the g and t register and is quite the most intellingent child I have ever come across as well as being absolutely beautiful ( tall with legs taht go on forever and long tousled hair and honey eyes - child is 12 ).

so not sure how true any of that is.

My cousins are strangers to me...there would certainly be no auomatic 'eww' factor. In fact, had I stayed in South Wales, it may have been difficult to avoid marrying an second cousin, such was the productivity of a caddish great uncle .

When I was being booked in with DD1 the blood relative question immediately followed the midwife asking whether my partner was the father of my baby, so I answer yes very firmly, thinking that she was just pressing for further confirmation that my partner was a blood relative of the baby . Oh well, it made sense to me....

It appears that the issue remains controversial among experts: www.guardian.co.uk/science/2008/may/11/genetics.medicalresearch. There was a much more indepth, recent article that I can't find .... has probably been linked to already.

You should visit Norfolk more SMS...

I don't think horses believe in the institution of marriage - they think it belittles the mare. Except in Norfolk, obv.

desdi - we wouldn't all be chinless wonders because if we only ate purees those of us with jimmy hill chins wouldn't die out before we reproduced thus our big wagglers would be passed on

Yes - there's no evolutionary disadvantage to a big chin in humans now anyway, is there - isn't human evolution all mucked up by human technological development anyway?

But there would no longer be selection pressure to keep teh big chin....and there might even be a selective advantage not to have a big chin in terms of a mate finding you less attractive with a big chin...making you less likely to reproduce!

I doubt the chinless would win out - would you shag Gail Tilsley (sp)?

Shall we start a thread on the optimum size of chin in a prospective mate?