Why would siblings marry members of the same family?

[geneee]

I have four siblings in my family tree who each marry members of the same family. Two girls marry two brothers. Then the other two girls marry first cousins of those brothers. This is about 1800, lower middle class family.

Exactly the same in my family except Ireland not NI. Not uncommon at all!!

I have this in my family. My grandmother's brother married grandfather's sister, so brother and sister married another sister and brother. All were from large families in very small neighbouring villages in a rural area with poor transport links. Essentially, there was a very small pool of available partners in the area that they could meet.

My cousins married siblings from another family (so the their kids have the same grandparents on both sides). It's just what happened. It is funny trying to explain it to people.

My Dad has two aunties. When one got married her groom's brother was obviously invited.

At the wedding he met the bride's sister, they started talking and eventually they married.

My dad's sister married my mum's brother.

Dad met mum when he drove his sister to visit my uncle. My auntie and uncle were still "courting" at the time and my uncle had broken his leg so was unable to travel to visit her (they lived in different villages and there were no buses). When dad went to pick my auntie up at the end of the evening, my mum opened the door (my uncle and mum were still living with my Nana), invited dad to wait inside and the rest, as they say, is history.

ETA. My auntie and uncle divorced after 15 years, mum and dad were together for 60 years (married for 58), until they died in 2020 within a few weeks of each other.

Lived in a small village in the same area where some of the older villagers had never travelled to the nearest town 7 miles away/or anywhere else - must cut down the opportunities of meeting someone you're not related to

And that would have been even more common 200 years ago

Definitely not just a small village thing. The wealthy Edinburghers I'm researching (1550–1950) married each other's siblings and other close in-laws at an astonishing rate.

Sometimes it was a second marriage by an elderly widower... to the sister of his son's new wife...

Sarah Beeny and her brother are married to a brother and sister. I think it's quite sweet and they all seem to be very close.

Sounds like the village in Lancashire I moved to age 10. Almost the entire population had one of three surnames so incomers like me were very visible!

I have a mate from deep deep within the Irish midlands. When he’s describing a neighbour he says ‘Poor thing, his parents didn’t have the bus fare to go to the dance in the next village’

Once one couple is together, their siblings are naturally in contact if only as informal chaperones to pad out daytime meet-ups etc.

My Mom's sister married my Dad's brother, my parents met when they went to help paint their siblings' first house. This was in the '50s.

My uncle, unfortunately, died in the early '60s, but my parents were married until my mom died in 2014. My Dad died last year and, while clearing out his house, I found all kinds of old paperwork from when my great-grandparents (on both sides) came to the US along with a few handwritten accounts. I wish I knew about all that stuff before my Dad died, I would have loved to ask him a bunch of questions!

That was my take on it.
My grandma and her sister married 2 brothers.
They all lived close by and their children grew up more like siblings than cousins.
As one of 4 grandchildren ( me being the eldest ) - we are nothing alike.

It's happened in my family, in my grandparents generation. They came from small town Ireland, and wasn't unheard of at the time.

As an aside, my younger son is getting married next May. His elder sister is getting married the following summer. I've got used to saying 'my son and my daughter are getting married soon. Not to each other, we're not that rural.'

😁
That's reminded me, people are freaked out when I say my uncle is in a relationship with my cousin. It sounds like he's in an incestuous relationship with either his daughter or niece. In fact he's an uncle on my mums side, and she's a cousin on my dad's side, so in reality are only related by marriage. They've been together about 15 years now, and are very happy.

Traditionally, a bride was literally given away by her father, ie given to to groom to become part of his family. Easy to see why parents would have preferred giving their daughter to one of their own siblings or cousins, or to a family who had already trusted them enough to give their daughter to them.