Prime Minister refused to ban 1st cousin marriage

[happydappy2]

Even though there is clear evidence of serious birth defects to babies born from 1st cousin marriages. It is deeply worrying that the bride and groom will have the same Grand Parents.....this is unsafe for women in a patriarchal family system.

Who takes on the bulk of the work caring for the disabled child-the woman...

Why is the British gov't promoting incest?

https://x.com/Basil_TGMD/status/1974371215629578344

I hope this is not true...but does anyone know any more about it?

No this is wrong - it is not illegal to marry a first cousin in Australia at all. And neither is there any requirement for a blood test to get married.

The tragic irony is that Jinnah was a moderate, tolerant Muslim. He is known to have not been especially religious - rarely went to the mosque, knew none of the Quran, drank alcohol & apparently loved ham sandwiches. He wanted Pakistan to be a liberal secular state with minority rights for Hindus, Christians etcWhy did it go wrong? He died one year in & his moderate ally Liaquat Ali Khan was assassinated. The fundamentalist allies he thought he could control now rushed in & betrayed his dream.

In Pakistan now Jinnah is whitewashed bc the real Jinnah would be devastated at how his ideals were betrayed. His loving marriage to a Parsi woman and close reliance on his formidable sister Fatima are also little spoken of.

I'm pretty sure he himself would have banned cousin marriage or at least severely discouraged it.

(Sorry for the long spiel- I'm a history student & fascinated with subcontinent history!)

Exactly, it's patronising as if black & brown people only fight bc of the machinations of evil white overlords.

Very much agree with this.
First cousin marriage does no harm unless it's done generation upon generation.
Yes there's sometimes a cultural element to that but you tackle that with education. You can't make a blanket law against something that has been legal here forever. And as this poster says, basing it on potential birth defects is very shaky ground as there's more chance of birth defects in the children of many other people.. and it would be a massive violation of human rights to prevent these people from marrying on the off chance they might pass disabilities on to their children.
This also assumes that people get married in order to have kids. Many people marrying may not want children.
I just think it's really sketchy to prevent people marrying each other legally with these flimsy ideas. It infringes on people's freedom.
And let's be honest a lot of concern about this issue does stem from racism.. and yes there is some cultural impact however in cases where that is the issue banning the marriages legally is unlikely to have any effect as those are often arranged marriages on very religious families.. they will not stop even if they aren't able to be done legally. The only avenue that actually works is outreach and education regarding the potential issues.

Laws infringe on people's freedoms, that's exactly what they are intended to do. To formally forbid, punish and discourage those behaviours that our elected Government has chosen to outlaw because they are too damaging to yourself or to others or to both.

Cousin marriage is one of these damaging behaviours. Another is religious marriages without a civil (legal) union.

Both can, and should, be forbidden using new legislation.

It is regrettable that these measure will largely affect communities - Muslims and Travellers - who already feel singled out and unfairly targeted.

But these legislative measures will also see the largest benefits for these communities. Resulting in greater protections for women when their 'marriage' breaks down, and far fewer babies being born with severe life-limiting disabilities.

If I were part of the Muslim or Traveller communities, I would be very angry that it has taken so long for Government to act.

I agree 100%

I don’t care if some cultures agree that close family members can have sex. It should be banned. Sounds like you’re married to your cousin.

I agree that repeated inter-cousin marriage isn't ideal. But don't you run the risk if you ban it outright that the women in some of the communities where it is most common will be pushed into religious marriages without the protection of a state marriage? That would seem to me to reduce protections for women rather than raise them.

Surely, increased investment in education is the way to go.

Yes, it’s strange how people argue so hard to continue a practice that is detrimental to women and children.

But many are anyway. And given the backing of the law and a good public advice campaign, it could empower more women to assert their best interests within the communities.

Yes, it is not currently legal. The social stigma attached seems to have been sufficient so far. The difficulty is, we have growing numbers of a certain group in this country for whom it is a priority and, based on current figures, approx 7500 children are being born each year with lifelong serious but avoidable disabilities.

That is not sustainable with the current demands on the medical and social care system.

Discussion on this topic has been suppressed until very recently for *reasons - see the article from Matthew Syed upthread where he talks to the academic who was very clearly warned off from studying the issue.

This is a public health issue that affects us all - we need honesty from our politicians and open conversation and about to solve it.

I think it's weird to blame the British Empire for 1st cousins marriages happening because it wasn't banned and because the British nobility often, at that time, did it. Therefore the colonised locals, gritted their teeth and married their first cousins to be...fashionable? While conspicuously failing in many instances to become Christian, drinkers and, in some societies, monogamous.

The parallel trying to be drawn between older mothers (👋 was faintly concerned the BMA would come round and break my windows!) and repeated generations of cousin marriage. I was fortunate to have two, apparently, healthy sprogs, if I'd wanted more I'd left it too late. My pregnancies were screened for common abnormalities. There was a BBC story from early in the thread of a woman who was still years younger than me when i had my kids who'd had five (iirc) live births, starting when she was only 17 yo (a child herself) and at least as many miscarriages. All her babies died. She may still be having children, like me, as a relative geriatric. She will therefore have the increased risks of an older mum in addition to the problems caused by inbreeding.

Dismissing a ban, because it will drive it underground, seems ridiculous because the same could be said for sibling relationships, parent/child or even paedophilia. Bans, even those hard to enforce, send a strong message.

I agree it is time for an honest and informed discussion. Clearly this situation cannot continue, it is not remotely racist to want to address this.

It would be helpful if gov't made it clear what they intend to do in order to safeguard women and future children, within communities where 1st cousin marriage leading to children being born, is deemed acceptable. Perhaps Kier could put out a statement of what they intend doing....

The US experience of cousin marriage is really interesting. Obviously it began life as a collection of British colonies and maintained many British traditions, cousin marriage was accepted but far from the norm. Yet in its early history cousin marriage starts to become more common, as does sibling set marriage - one group of siblings marrying another - and even polygamy in Mormon communities.

This re emergence is also happening in Europe but on a far more limited scale, the USA is literal breeding ground for cousin marriage due to several factors. Firstly land is up for grabs and thus there is an incentive to keep it in the family. Secondly, some areas are a long way from government of any kind - kinship matters, being part of powerful family is valuable for protection. Thirdly, although cousin marriage is legal in every state in the union, some have laws banning mixed race marriage. Cousin marriage had always been a tribal custom and slavery in America is turning races into tribes.

The situation only begins to change after the American Civil War. Not only do many states ban cousin marriage but the social climate gradually begins to change. In the next hundred years, cousin marriage goes from being relatively commonplace and accepted to be scorned on as habit only fit for backward hillbillies.

Why? To save votes they would otherwise lose,obviously

I read a post up thread about a woman in Bradford who had 8 severely disabled children and was pregnant again. Is this not child abuse? To knowingly continue to create severely disabled children?

Agree its terribly complicated and any law could have awful unintended consequences

I don’t really understand the point about a law driving the practice underground. Many women are already not legally married, but in polygamous marriages. They are already “single mothers” in the eyes of the law, although they have a “husband” according to their community.

As far as I know plenty of things are against the law. Do we not bother legislating against, say, paedophlia because “oh, it would drive it underground; let’s not bother”?

This is the key point and why we shouldn't ban them

The fact is that it won't stop the CHILDREN of first cousins. And that's really what you want to achieve, not the banning of 1st Cousin Marriage.

Since we know these marriages are more common in certain religious communities who have their own marriage ceremonies which are outside legal parameters in the UK that's a problem.

In theory what we should perhaps do is recognise these religious marriages in UK law and then hold those carrying out ceremonies responsible. How this still leaves the problem of how you prove it's going on when we are talking about many people marrying who weren't born in the UK and perhaps don't have the necessary paperwork. So that option doesn't really work either.

It's one of those issues where you need to look at what you want to achieve and whether the proposal will achieve that, and if it would have unintended consequences.

Ultimately this comes down to education within these communities being the better option.

There's the right to marry and have children. You can't stop that. Ultimately you can't decide that having disabled children is morally unacceptable either, because that's discriminatory.

In these cases we should be advocating birth control and easily accessible screening fertility treatment (and getting these religious communities to encourage this as IVF is often frowned on)

Since we know these marriages are more common in certain religious communities who have their own marriage ceremonies which are outside legal parameters in the UK that's a problem.

I'm posting this again. While the law doesn't recognise religious marriages without a civil ceremony it does not mean the criminal law doesn't apply if we want it to.

The Marriage and Civil Partnership (Minimum Age) Act 2022 . This Act applies to marriages performed under any circumstances, including religious ceremonies like nikah, making it a criminal offence to arrange such a marriage for a minor. The Act came into force on February 27, 2023, and those found guilty of arranging a child marriage face up to seven years in prison.

This Act was introduced to close the loophole of parental consent for 16 year olds and protect girls from forced marriages.

An Imam is currently being prosecuted.

Not the but it's discrimination! argument again.

Excluding trans identifying men from women-only spaces is discrimination. Only buying free-range eggs, refusing to date someone you aren't attracted to, or not buying the latest Taylor Swift album, it's all discrimination. VERY BAD US!

Education will make very little difference. We can't reason someone out of a position they didn't use reason to get themselves into.

But! Devout women are very unlikely to choose to have a child outside of a marriage. So formal legislation will be very effective. These devout women will gain the exact same rights as other married British women. They will also be much less likely to suffer the desperate heartbreak of giving birth to a child with severe disabilities.

Legislation IS the answer here. Ban Cousin Marriage and require all Religious Marriages to include a Civil Union.

I am opposed to cousin marriage but my preferred option would be for the Government to launch an investigation to discover exactly how serious the problem is. It should also sponsor studies into the history of cousin marriage and how bans have been implemented in other countries particularly the USA due to shared history and legal traditions. No cards should be off the table, we should neither be pussyfooting around not to offend minorities but not should we go gung ho into a ban when there could be other options. At the very least, we need a public debate about cousin marriage as if these things are discussed more openly we could win arguments. The situation in Maine where cousins who wish to marry have to have guidance counselling is interesting and I would like to know more about that one. Even states that do ban these marriages do it in different ways, some simply do not perform them others criminalize couples who manage to get around it.

This is the speech moving the Private members' bill It’s well worth reading in full.
During the last Parliament I worked with campaigners to end virginity testing and hymenoplasty. In doing so I stood on the shoulders of giants: brave women from many organisations who support young women trapped in oppressive familial and extended family tribal systems. I pushed for a private Member’s Bill, and then via amendments to the Health and Care Act 2022, with Baroness Sugg in the House of Lords helping as well; the Government accepted the argument by tabling their own amendments. What was the reason behind women being forced to undergo procedures that are at best pseudo-scientific, and at worst deeply harmful? It was unscientific concepts of virginity linked to gender-oppressive ideas of purity in an oppressive patriarchal culture. Often those were linked to forced marriages. Some of their stories will never leave me: young women who had had their education and ambitions cut short being sent to marry men they had never met—men chosen not for compatibility or affection, but to preserve family alliances, assets or bastardised notions of honour.Such arrangements are not just about culture; they are also about control. The system is upheld by pressure and enforced through silence, and people attempt to justify it through tradition. When marriage is confined within families, the cost of refusal rises astronomically: it is not simply turning down a partner, but rejecting grandparents, parents, uncles, aunts and the entire network of family and friends—and that has a price. Choice under those circumstances is no choice at all. That is why I see the legislation that I put forward in my private Member’s Bill, the Marriage (Prohibited Degrees of Relationship) Bill, and the debate we are having today as an extension of the work I did in the last Parliament.

View the Hansard contribution by Mr Richard Holden (Basildon and Billericay) (Con) on Wednesday 18 June 2025 hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2025-06-18/debates/D7DF8C0B-0896-4325-B8D2-DD9A777166D7/MarriageBetweenFirstCousins#contribution-2E69B699-9BA6-45DD-BF5E-BF71BD0F3213

Well, we've already had posters suggesting that Low IQ needs to be bred out, that humans should be treated the same as their dogs and further downpage, there's one saying that everybody should have mandatory genetic testing to ensure there aren't children born with disabilities that would need to be cared for useless eaters. So it's not the argument of Eugenics, it is Eugenics - with a particular wish on the OP's part to make it a political point about the current Prime Minister that he isn't prepared to enforce a policy that is eugenicist at its core - and is further targeted at particular ethnic groups.

Posters asserting they're not being racist or that anybody who identifies the argument as exactly what it is - Eugenics - has an ulterior motive (aside from not sleepwalking or throwing the country headfirst into a brave new shitshow that has historically led to atrocities beyond the obvious one, also leading to girls and women from particular groups being forcibly sterilised, having IUDs inserted without consent and in some places, forced abortions) are missing, wilfully or through ignorance/naivety, the true nature of what they are advocating.

Do you think we should allow siblings to marry and procreate?