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?

They are already able to do this but most mosques don't There has to be an element of compulsion, no opt outs.If it's left as it is now nothing will change unless something special is being offered in the wedding bill.

Exactly. It should be a legal requirement that anything purporting to constitute a “wedding” must include a civil ceremony, and that civil ceremonies cannot be between cousins as I said above, while simultaneously banning marriage between cousins. People already have to prove their identity in order to marry so it would not require a huge change, merely providing further details of parents and grandparents (this is required anyway in many countries for things as simple as registering a birth certificate or applying for a passport so is not unusual information for people to be expected to provide for administrative purposes). There should also be a public information campaign making it very clear that no “wedding” has any validity if it doesn’t include a civil ceremony/ registration, to hammer home the point that anybody having children after a Nikah only is having children while unmarried, which Muslims consider to be haram. I doubt many of them would want to do it when this is made crystal clear.

But that is the current situation?

Church of England,Jewish and Quaker marriages were recognised under The Marriage Act 1753, and they don’t also need to be civil marriages .

Yes. We can’t have a growing section of the population that are not fully subject to British law.

Allowing residents in this country to pick and choose which laws or important social norms they follow and to run their own ‘laws’ is not acceptable or conducive to a good society.

I agree with you, BUT I cant see how it will be enforced & I think that attempting to do so will result in religious communities closing ranks.

People said similar about girls being abused in Rotherham.

I think we are agreeing?

Currently the large majority of Jewish and all Quaker and Church of England religious marriages are legal marriages. No separate civil ceremony is needed as all the requirements for a legal marriage can form part of their agreed religious marriage procedures.

We should extend this approach to Islamic, and all other religious marriages, too.

To close a loophole, we would need to mandate that all religious marriages must now include the civil elements to make the marriage legal under UK law. No exceptions. It would no longer be possible to have a religious marriage in the UK that isn't also a legal marriage.

We agree that virtually all Muslims will not want to have children outside of marriage. Legislative changes will mean the only way they can marry under Sharia law is to have a ceremony that includes all the requirements for a legal marriage under UK Law.

And additional changes to UK Law would add a requirement that the bride and groom must not be first or second cousins. (In the same way as it currently forbids marriage between other close relatives such as siblings).

This would be effective, I think?

Muslims are not going to change Sharia law to make it conditional on UK law.

I've just checked to find out the situation in Scotland. It seems that Imams here are already holding full marriage ceremonies including the civil element:

"The Imam of Edinburgh Central Mosque is a registered celebrant with National Records of Scotland (NRS) and therefore can conduct Islamic Marriages which will be registered with NRS.

If you have already have the civil marriage conducted at a registry office, please provide this when submitting the marriage booking form.
We are unable to perform the religious marriage only without registration with NRS."

Link to very informative web page.

edmosque.org/marriage-service/

There's less clarity on the web page for our local mosque:

"Family life is a building block of a successful society, and marriage is an occasion of great joy. We can perform religious marriages, which are recognised by the law."

https://kirkcaldycentralmosque.org.uk/kirkcaldy-central-mosque-and-community-centre/

Muslims are not going to change Sharia law to make it conditional on UK law.
Sharia law does not trump UK law. UK law takes precedence.

It is not a question if UK law taking precedence; ONLY UK law is relevant when it comes to marriage. Parliament can only change UK law and there must not be parallel systems you can pick and choose.

In Scotland the minister/priest/imam/celebrant must be registered but can then perform legal religious marriage anywhere - on a mountain top, in a mosque, in your garden, where-ever. Civil weddings can only be performed in a registrars office (though some councils have extended the designation of their registrars office to include fancy civic buildings people can rent out). Humanist weddings count as religious weddings so a humanist celebrant can also perform weddings anywhere.

In my opinion that’s what we pay the government and a rather large civil service to sort out. There are various examples of laws brought in to modify harmful behaviour and combined with a good education campaign, I’d say are pretty successful now.

Within the Muslim, Pakistani people of Bradford both marriage without children and children outside of marriage are very rare.

How is it any different to forced marriage or FGM in that respect?

I think this is what the wedding bill proposes for England.
However there does need to be a clear clause about marriages in religious settings requiring a civil process.
As I've said most mosques not all do not conduct legal weddings beside the Nikah ceremony, some probably the more liberal mosques already do this but it's optional.

https://brilliantmaps.com/consanguineous-marriage/

Not RTFT, but stumbled on this and it seemed relevant.

Interesting. Is there a map for birth defects?

@lcakethereforeIam , it's probably similar to the one in the link.
The UK one will probably be where the heritage is from the countries near the top of the % list. Bradford is usually mentioned.

If you've heard jokes about islanders being inbred, it's because for centuries, they'd be marrying fellow islanders.

Rural, isolated, communities tend to have inbred in the past too.

Islanders and isolated villagers became inbred because small populations lead to shallow gene pools. Apparently Pakistan is the fifth most populous country in the world, around 255million inhabitants. Although within that number there may be subpopulations that are genetically isolated because of geography.

The Critic has published an article about it

https://thecritic.co.uk/why-cousin-marriage-endures/

It's quite long, I've not had time to read it. I have googled a map that purports to show the geographical distribution of birth defects

https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/birth-defect-rates-by-country

In poorer counties there will be higher incidents of birth defects because of poor maternal nutrition, poor prenatal screening, poorer healthcare over all.

The Critic article is a bit weird. Appears to suggest the menopause is a cultural custom, rather than a physiological event. And the point about 'henpecked' husbands veers off into jovial anecdote at precisely the point I'd be looking for stats on dv.

Yes it lost me a bit going on about long fingernail is showing off that the wimmin folk don't need to toil in the field...possibly in ancient China. Bit of a curate's egg.