Time to outlaw cousin marriages?

[mrsruffallo]

Interesting article here
Would you support it being made illegal?

They'll just go and get married in other countries where it is still allowed, e.g. Pakistan, and then come back to the UK. Once they are married, their cousinship isn't going to be immediately obvious to anyone in authority in the UK so what can they do? And, even if they wanted to, surely there would be diplomatic issues with putting aside a marriage that is legal in other countries? Don't quite know how that would work.

I think educating people to the risks and allowing them to make informed decisions about themselves and their families is vastly preferable to authoritarian state intervention in people's private lives.

How and when do you educate people exactly?

It's illegal in America.

In my own family tree in the early 1900's in the UK I discovered several cousin marriages. Looking at the circumstances behind them they were evidently marriages of convenience - widowed man with young family married his spinster cousin, 2 people unmarried late in life married their cousins etc

In the UK it appears to have been something that arose before the safety net of the welfare state when families relied on other family members for support. It also tended to keep wealth within the family.

Some of the ethnic communities that marry first cousins will almost certainly be trying to do the same - keep wealth in the family. It is also the opportunity for them to import family memebers into the UK as brides / grooms, which improves the lot of a relative who is living in relative poverty abroad.

Looking at the statistics for birth defects among first cousin marriages I don't think they UK should permit it. You may get away with it once or twice but if it's repeated geberationally that's in-breeding and everyone knows that defects will arise from that. the problem then arises if parental / community pressure is put on a member of a particular comunity to marry 'in' to a cousin. How do they refuse that and fulfill their parents / communitie's wishes? They may not be strong enough to do so - so that's why I think we should adopt the American approach and make it illegal. But as another poster has already said if someone is determined then they would just amrry abroad.

So it has to be a matter of education - although that too may not work as in some communities the reaction to a child with birth defects as a result of first cousin marriage will be a religious response - that it's the will of Allah / God / whoever.

Difficult one

From what I was reading on Wikipedia, WetAugust, it's only illegal in some states in America - in others, it's legal. I'd have to read the whole page again, but I think it was illegal across the whole country and then some states repealed the law and others didn't.

Mrs Ruffalo - The same way you educate them about other health issues. Do you not remember that once upon a time, people thought smoking was relaxing and good for your health?

Or that they used to think you could catch AIDS from sharing cutlery?

Targeted health promotion aimed at the right cultural groups, ideally made with input from people within those groups, will have an impact.

Listen to what other people are saying. Banning would do nothing to solve this problem.

Catholic rules on consanguinity here I gather it extends to the 4th degree, i.e. beyond 4th cousins you can marry but anything closer you need a special dispensation.

It's really easy. There's nothing to figure out. Your cousin's child is your first cousin once removed. Your child and your cousin's child are second cousins.

My dd was born in Oman where it is very common for cousins to marry. There is an enormous problem with G6PD and sickle cell anaemia. I think that there are education programmes running to discourage co sanginous marriages, but, they seem to be failing. I don't know the exact statisics, but adult literacy is pretty low. If the recipient can't read the info it's not going to get through.

Personally I couldn't/wouldn't marry a fist cousin. To me it's just wrong!

I was quite upset with DS when the midwife asked if DH and I were related, I asked her what sort of freaks she thought we were!?

So then she said that where we lived a lot of people were marrying their 1st cousins and a lot of babies were being born with genetic defects so they were asking everyone now.

I would say the level of defects prove it's just not right, and if people can't see that for themselves they need laws to stop it.

But you are legally not allowed to marry your brother so what's the big difference about extending that a bit? It's just common sense not the Govt trying to dictate your lifestyle choices. They don't let you take heroin without punshment because it's not in societies best interests, marrying your close relatives is not in socities best interests either.

The level of deformaty is something the govt must address.

Riven, nobody's talking about compulsory abortion!! That's a serious leap.

I agree, you can't legally marry your brother for very good reasons. Nobody would challenge that (apart from that german pair separated as kids) but it should be extended a bit to include uncles/cousins. Common sense. Not scary eugenics.

StrictlyKatty, I misunderstood the question when the hv asked 'are you related to the dad?'. I thought she meant "are you related to your own dad?". I said 'urrr, I'm not adopted?". It was a bonkers question to me at the time.

Hhahahhaah Maggie that's the sort of thing I'd say! I didn't realise at the time everyone got asked, I was wondering why, after meeting me about 10 mins previously the midwife would ask such a question! I assumed at the time it was already illegal to marry your cousin tbh.

But Riven, the Govt tells you not to drive at 90mph down a single track road, it tells you not to perform brain surgery without a medical licence, it tells you that you may not kill someone.

All these things are done because some people would do them if they wouldn't face punishment and because it is in everyones intersts if these people are stopped from behaving in such a way.

Marrying your cousin is damaging for society as it produces a huge number of children with deformaties. The Govt doesn't say you can't marry your brother for a power trip, it does it because the children resulting would often be very disabled and a few people would do it anyway if they could.

Because you can't stop people doing it mrsruffallo not without signing up to the sort of police state that should terrify anyone who has ever lived with any sort of freedom.

How do you intend to police who people have sex with? You can police who they marry, but are you OK with homes being invaded by police etc to check on who is sleeping with who - really? What if the next government decides that you and your DH will not make suitably healthy children? You are OK with handing over that sort of control?

It isn't a serious leap from controlling who can have sex with who to deciding who may have babies and which babies can be born, it is the natural progression of legislating for control of people's sex lives. There are a few steps in between but as I said before, each one will seem logical and sensible and small. Better not to take the first one.

This is how it works, if people are dumb enough to breed with their close relatives then eventually they will be taken out of the gene pool.

Riven, that arguement doesn't make sense at all! The Govt does not regulate now against 2 CF carriers having a child but it does regulate against siblings having a child.

Just because they say cousins cannot marry does not at all end up with no children past 40

How are the incest laws enforced? Are you arrested if it turns out you are having sex with a close relative? Is there a jail term? A fine?

Not the not marrying bit, but the having sex bit? How do "they" (the police) know? Do they have the right to take children away etc?

Or are these laws not in fact enforced because they are unenforceable in any real sense?

Katty, your cousin isn't the same as your brother. By the time you get to cousins there has been a much bigger mix of genes. No two people (identical twins aside) get the same set of genes from their mother and father. Added to that, cousins have had inputs from two completely different families and their mix of genes.

And there are two issues here; marrying your cousin as a one off is not the same as generations of people marrying marrying into the same family over and over.

"I asked her what sort of freaks she thought we were!?"

That says a lot about where you are coming from on this; sensationalist without much to back it up. Listen to Riven, she talks sense.

Not sure how the incest thing works. One of my colleagues told me that her granny and grandad were brother and sister, but it didn't matter, they had the same surname so didn't need to get married. I don't know how they got around the birth registration for her mum though.