Obviously this is anecdote not data but Pakistani friends of mine, and numerous colleagues over the years, would not entertain the idea of marrying a relative. One close friend who is a first generation immigrant here and whose parents are very traditional and still living in Pakistan had no expectations imposed on him in this regard. I am sure his parents would have been very dissatisfied if he’s married a white British woman (so they do have racist views), but he met a lovely unrelated Pakistani woman who also lives and works in the UK, and they had a fabulous wedding in Pakistan so that all of their family could attend. I think a PP is correct, from my limited experience, that the difference in attitudes seems to be not about how many generations a family has been in the UK but rather that those who come from more educated and affluent families are far less likely to buy into these kinds of inbreeding practices. I have observed a similar pattern with other friends and several colleagues who are first generation immigrants from Pakistan, all of whom were well-educated in Pakistan at private schools so while their parents are extremely religious and very old-fashioned, inbreeding within families is not something any of them have ever mentioned being an expectation or even a suggestion or a matter discussed as a possibility. Difficult though, to establish causality because obviously those families that haven’t been inbreeding over generations will inevitably have higher average IQs than those that have been doing so, and therefore generally become wealthier, and therefore not live in remote rural areas with backwards ideas and are likely to earn far more money and travel internationally more etc, and more likely to have received decent education in science!
It seems actually that perhaps those whose families have lived in the UK for several generations are more inclined to try to cling to old beliefs passed down from grandparents/ great-grandparents because they believe this is “pakistani culture”, not realising that Pakistani society has moved on and developed over the last 50-70 years, as society tends to do generally. They’d probably find that far fewer people in Pakistan than they would expect now hold the beliefs that they have been indoctrinated to believe are their “culture”, if they actually visited (many don’t) unless of course their distant family live in some rural, parochial remote areas as a PP noted because backwards beliefs tend to be more “normalised” in areas with such characteristics, like in most other countries.
I don’t think education will work to significant change the behaviour of the people in the UK who are the ones who are resistant to scientific knowledge and medical advances. My impression (from very limited data, just personal relationships!) is that perhaps the positive changes to marriage practices in more affluent circles of Pakistanis are likely hiding the extent to which awful practices like marrying cousins are not just common but effectively mandatory within sub-sets of the community (and almost non-existent in others).
Education has been tried in the UK as a remedy for this inbreeding within certain communities for well over 20 years in the areas of the UK where it is common, which seem to be very concentrated in specific areas. The various campaigns to educate people about this have not been effective because the rates of inbreeding have not decreased and the levels of genetic disease have therefore continued to grow exponentially. Public health campaigns have repeatedly been met with hostility, threats, abuse at worst and, at best, ignored by the vast majority of those to whom they were targeted. Everyone living in the UK learns the most basic things about genetics as part of the national curriculum, yet still certain communities have stubbornly ignored all scientific data and research despite receiving this education and instead continued with what they were doing, even continuing to have multiple further children once a genetic disease caused by cousin marriage was identified in one child. It’s really quite shocking that some people would knowingly inflict such enormous and unnecessary risks on subsequent children.
Some have even blamed the doctors for their children’s genetic conditions (!), claiming that the medication provided to alleviate some of the symptoms and keep their children alive for longer was the cause of the disease, despite receiving “genetic counselling” explaining it all to them and showing them the scientific data and evidence. Again, it’s hard to untangle whether such absurd imperviousness to research data even when it’s presented to them very clearly is caused by the lowering of IQs across previous generations who engaged in the practice of marrying cousins, or whether having already married cousins they are simply determined not to admit the truth of the implications, particularly if it has already resulted in severely disabled children being born completely avoidably. Some would rather pretend that data has been fabricated than admit that they actions have directly caused their child(ren)’s suffering/ death.
It’s clear that people with such attitudes have absolutely no intention to “integrate” in our society. I mean, they’re threatening their own children in many cases just for not wanting to marry a close blood relative. Can you imagine the reaction if the child or such parents (if lucky enough to be born sufficiently healthy to have the opportunity to marry at all) announced to their parents that they intended to marry someone of a different ethinicity and religion? It has nothing to do with them being Pakistani or muslim because many Pakistanis and muslims or Pakistani muslims do integrate far more, but these are generally (it appears to me) the more intelligent, well-educated people with professional jobs. It appears that the insular subsets of people marrying their cousins largely refuse to be educated about genetics or revise their views based on evidence provided to them; sadly, usually, the people who are most in need of it are the ones who have no interest in evidence or facts at all.
The suggested approach of education being the way to reduce significantly the number of marriages of cousins in these communities in the UK quite clearly has not worked despite significant efforts over many years, therefore, legislation is necessary and quite frankly there’s no discernible reason why we wouldn’t legislate against something so harmful not just to the individuals engaging in it but to wider society including innocent minors, particularly when there is no counterbalancing benefit whatsoever in favour of cousin marriage. Ultimately the evidence on this matter is so strong that it’s extremely negligent of our UK Governments not to have legislated against it many years ago: they need to grow a backbone.