First cousin marriage

[Sprinklewithsugar]

Trying to understand why this still happens in the UK between educated, intelligent people. Especially when the risks of genetic inbreeding are well known, not to mention the pressure it puts on the NHS.
Why do people opt to marry close cousins when there are surely other prospective spouses available?
Why do intelligent, educated people take part in such customs?
Genuinely curious.

Sorry you’ve lost me, what is the dog whistle they’re concerned about it?

It’s motivated by money (keep it in the family) and enabled by lots of religions, or religious phrases at any rate.

‘The Will of God’ comes up a lot. Bit rude to God, but there you are.

One offs are harmless, but look at the Hapsburgs and the Victorians to see what happens if families make a habit of it.

Cousin marriage disability does eventually kill off a lot of a family - the Hapsburg overbite grew too misshapen to eat & their LD became too bad to function. The children died.

The Romanovs were shot by Lenin but the tsar line had copped it with Victoria’s haemophilia genes anyway.

Excellent. If they could now change their ways to pay tax on their vast income we’d all be better off!

First cousin parents have around a 6% rate of genetic problems in their children compared to around 3% in non-related couples.
The major cause of first cousins having children is when they come from parents who were also cousins…and their parents were cousins…and so on and so on and so on.
There have been major studies in this in the Bradford area where first cousin marriages are more common.

This again? Mn seems weirdly obsessed with it. Having children with your first cousin when neither of you come from a line of previous cousin marriages involves a tiny increased risk, the same as if a woman has a child when she’s over 35.

It’s when there is endogamy within a small social group and hence a small genepool that more significant problems arise.

The British Pakistani community has the highest rate of cousin marriages in the UK. Although, I think I read recently that it is a practice which is on the decline. But the topic is plagued with accusations of racism.

that would realistically lead to isolated cases of first cousin marriages and not repeated first cousin marriages over generations.

the latter is the real issues. People from a long line of cousin marriages getting married to (yet again) their first cousin.
Whereas an isolated case of first cousin marriage most likely wouldn’t be particularly problematic (at least from a genetic pov).

Ah, okay, thanks for this, I genuinely didn’t know this. I guess this muddies the waters somewhat, but still think it should be banned for the safety of future children.

There’s a very interesting conversation in a podcast with Matthew Syed about this that talks about some the reasons behind it. open.spotify.com/episode/2OalXkFnq78wqX9J8wYiHy?si=a-ovcnWfQKSPFkoUNyKOfQ

we could write the law to stop them if we wanted

Inbreeding is such a horrible word.

It should be illegal, but I was assuming they were waiting for my intermarried royals to die off first. Maybe they are worried about upsetting certain cultures too. Needs to be banned though.

Yeah, but it's icky.

Is there a pretty word for shagging in the family?

I don’t understand why anyone would marry their first cousin.

But people have children all the time with increased risks of health issues. Older mothers for example have a much higher risk of having babies with certain conditions. No one suggests banning that.

My ex’s brother and SIL are 1st cousins. They have 5 children, fortunately all healthy. Ex never told me they are cousins, I found out from SIL, she was showing me photos and I realised. I think ex didn’t tell me as someone at work was married to their 1st cousin and I commented that it was odd. My kids are all quite close to their cousins / grown up together but for ex’s DB and SIL they were raised in different countries. SIL was sent to the UK to marry at 16. The relationship with his parents fell apart within 18 months which in turn caused a family rift. They didn’t speak for 10yrs. Still it’s not a great relationship, largely as ex MIL can get very nasty (she once told them she hopes they all die in a plane crash as they weren’t taking her with them to the US as she wanted to see her sister).

A lot of places are doing a lot of education around the health risks and the rate of 1st cousin marriages has declined in some places, which is good. I guess if you’re not going to have any kids then fine, but it’s selfish to risk if you do want kids. Thankfully so far none of their own DC have married a cousin.

Would stopping marriage stop people having children together? Would there just be secret weddings or unwed cousins having children?

It's a startling order of risk and severity when there are successive generations of children born within the same family pool. That's the nub.

It's a handy way of controlling women if they don't get much say over who they marry. I doubt they're all happy to marry their cousins. But land and money are important factors.

My Nan married her first cousin!! They fell in love, but they hadn’t known each other growing up. My mum is perfectly healthy but they did have lots of miscarriages.

@Zimunya , I’m unaware of British royals marrying first cousins in my lifetime (I’m 62) but of course everyone should abide by the same laws and it should not be legal to marry your first cousin.

The only 2 on the list that are first cousins are from the 1800s so I'd say they've changed, when it gets to 13th cousins it's not even a thing. I think the op is talking about in modern day society where science backed knowledge us available that it's wild people will still marry their first cousin knowing the risks

https://www.rd.com/list/royals-who-married-their-relatives/

"Love has reasons which reason cannot understand" - Blaise Pascal