First Cousins

[offtoseethewizard]

Is anyone married to /in a relationship with their first cousin, do you have children? did it cause a problem in your family or are you accepted?

some of you have been a bit unfair - live and let live I say.

if it was siblings then yes I'd understand but well you can't help who you fall for.

I think the likelihood of genetic problems is only a real issue in communities where there is repeated inter-marriage - rather than one relationship in one generation. Unless you happen to come from a family who are known carriers of a heritable condition, I imagine a one-off cousin marriage is not hugely problematic. Risk of genetic problems only increases by a tiny amount.

(I had a major crush on my second cousin as a child. Sadly he was a teenager, I was 12, he never noticed me... and his mother, my father's cousin, would have been a fab MIL. Sigh)

Not illegal.

The genetics only become more of a problem if the family is known to carry a genetic illness.

If there are repeated co-sanguenous marriages (as is common in parts of the Indian Subcontinent) then you can get problems in finding things like organ donors, as few people outside the family will match the MHC profile

A woman I used to know had married her cousin. Of their four children one was deaf, one had CP, one was very severely mentally disabled and one had no disabilities.

I think having a sexual relationship with someone you know you're related to is pretty weird regardless of what age you were when you met. I've met second cousins as an adult that I didn't even know existed until I met them and there are definite family traits in common. They don't feel like strangers at all.

If it's OK to marry your cousin why not your sibling? What if one or both of you is adopted? Then surely there is no objection on genetic grounds, which appears to some to be the only issue.

My cousin researched this very thoroughly and there was absolutely no reliable evidence to be found stating any likelihood of problems for any children. If that wasn't the case it would be illegal, simple as that. We are not talking brother and sister here, that would hold a risk.

I also grew up very close my cousins so couldn't imagine it for myself but most peope who get involved didn't know each other as children. No biggie.

Do you know whether the CP was a birth injury, though? And learning disabilities affect all sorts of children whose parents are not related.

edam I have no idea why the offspring had such health problems, but it was generally presumed by the people in that family that the close family relationship between their parents was the cause.

They could have been wrong, I have no idea. Perhaps it was not the first inbreeding that took place within that family and so the risks were higher.

Eyeballs Your cousins found no reliable evidence of risk? Really? who determined whether the evidence was reliable? them?

There's a pretty big social taboo about marrying your cousins just as there is one about marrying your brother or sister and presumably for the same reasons.

It makes no sense to think that there could be a risk with your brother but none at all with your cousin.

A first cousin is a close relative. I can't really see how it is much different to marrying a sibling.

If you never met a sibling until you were adults would you go for it if you fell for them? Or would you decide there were other people in the world you could marry?

Hello thank you for all your replies and opinions. My best mate today said cousins were as closely related genetically as half-siblings, do you think this is true? Because a relationship with a half-sibling would be incestuous wouldn't it?