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?

Guess you don't actually want to have a respectful conversation, and that's ok :)

Respectfully, did you quote the wrong person because your response did not answer my one question?

Yes I meant to quote you

The issue with cousin marriage is that it is repeated over and over, with successive generations, in some cultures. Instead of an ever-widening family tree, its branches continually twist back in on each other as new generations of cousins get inter-married. And the gene pool for the potential offspring gets shallower. So, the resulting genetic risk of a child with a severe disability, from an ancestry of repeated cousin marriages, will far exceed the risk from being 'older parents'.

Moreover, older parents are likely to agree to test during the pregnancy, and consider termination if the results indicate a severe disability. Cultures that encourage repeated cousin marriage do not, typically, support either testing or terminations.

It's not the same situation and it's not the same level of risk. For one thing, marrying your cousin is one familial step away from marrying a sibling. There is a very natural sense of disgust. Who wants to share the same grandparents with their spouse! Unsurprisingly these are typically arranged marriages, with love only coming later, if at all. A mother in her late thirties or early forties is NOT comparable.

We should be protecting young British women from being bullied into marrying a close relative. And we should be preventing the large number of British children being born with severe disabilities due to their parents (and grandparents and great-grandparents and so on) being cousins. It MUST be outlawed urgently in the UK.

I think the calculation should rest on the marriage that causes the problems then, to make it more scientific perhaps? Because if not they would be banning marriages based on who the offspring might marry. If there was a calculation that said cousin marriages raise the risk by 10%, then they could more easily ban them and anything that raised the risk by the same percentage or over the allowed percentage. It might very well not be children by older parents but there might be other risks that are being allowed today. I'm just thinking a scientific approach would make it very clear for people to understand when they're breaking the law. I do accept it's maybe not a simple solution though.

Te the natural sense of disgust, that certainly makes sense for people outside the culture. There will be things we do as British people that certainly disgust others. The problem is when we expect what is disgusting to us to be disgusting to others and we realise that isn't a very realistic expectation.

Science can maybe help cut through that

Unsurprisingly these are typically arranged marriages, with love only coming later, if at all.

I wonder if a higher proportion of arranged marriages will remain loveless compared to a normal ‘love match’ and whether that makes more men happy to tolerate the extremist Islamic rules that almost exclusively curtail women’s behaviour? More men don’t love their wives so actually don’t care if they lose their human rights and therefore won’t push back?

I already addressed this concern in my first post.

Banning first cousin marriages isn't comparable to putting a parental age limit on pregnancies, nor is it comparable to eugenics.

Banning first cousin marriages isn't racist because the ban would apply to all races equally. Everyone would be told "no, you can't marry your first cousin" the same. It disproportionately benefits South Asian women by reducing their risk of raising a severely-disabled child, increasing their chance of marrying someone who isn't a literal relative, and enabling her to leave an abusive husband without losing her whole family because they are his family too and take his side. It would benefit other women who are under pressure to marry first cousins as well, but that's rarer in wider society. It's also enforceable in law, in the same way that the ban on sibling marriage is already enforced.

A ban on cousin marriages is already based on science, because we know what the effects of inbreeding on a population are.

By contrast, all measures that rely on case-by-case assessments are discriminatory against classes of people and against cultures: they discriminate against disabled people because we will be told "no" to children more often than non-disabled people, and they discriminate against the cultures that different groups of disabled people create, such as Deaf culture and autistic culture. Measures that rely on case-by-case assessment will be unenforceable without violating the human rights of would-be parents. How do you prevent an autistic woman from having a baby, or a Deaf man from fathering a baby, without grossly infringing on their human rights? Forced sterilisation? Forced abortion? Forced contraception? A ban on marrying anyone ever? A ban on ever having sex? Forced chastity devices?

Banning someone from marrying a handful more people than they are currently banned from marrying, based on a simple criterion of having grandparents in common, is not a human rights violation.

I didn't say it was racist and I'm not advocating for a case by case approach. I'm saying it should be made clear why cousin marriages are being banned i.e. a confirmed risk analysis with figures and a comparison that proves that any other scenarios with a similar risk profile are banned as well. This will help show that it is not in fact racism and they're not focusing on a specific culture. I'm just saying they should make the "why " clearer as that will help people comply. If all the talk is because it's racist, they'll probably get less adherence, I would think.

The human rights question, I don't know enough to say. I don't know if we can add a "but/except" to it. So you can marry who you want "except ABC"?

And re the rest, that's exactly what I think it's not a simple solution and science can go further. Cos who decides what disabilities are acceptable? Surely all people have the same value? It's tricky.

Hence me thinking, let the reasons be made clearer and more precise

Banning marriage to a cousin IS legal under international human rights laws. In Norway, marrying your cousin became illegal last year; in Sweden, a ban will come into effect next year. These are not countries that flout human rights!

Their cited concerns were not just genetic inbreeding, but also evidence of an association with forced marriages and so-called 'honour' violence.

Marriages with siblings, and other close relatives, were banned in the UK under the Marriage Act 1949. The Act includes a list of prohibited unions (marriages). For example, with your Father, Mother, Sister, Brother, Father's Father and so on.

It would be straightforward to add definitions for a first and second cousin to the Marriage Act's list of prohibited unions. This could be done as part of a proposed update to UK Marriage Regulations, consultation planned for next year!

If mothers over 35 had the same huge risk of serious congenital abnormalities in their babies, there would be a public education programme which would sort it.

But that risk isn’t the same, it’s a lie.

I think if/ when they ban it, making things like this clear will help. E.g. risk from cousin marriages is 40% while risks from abc is only 5%. That might help remove any lingering doubts that the ban targets specific cultures. It's maybe easier in Norway / other countries where there's a more homogenous population. Additional measures might be needed for a diverse country

I wonder if it's possible to treat that as separate things. For example, if forced marriages aren't banned (I don't know enough about this I'm afraid), maybe that could be a first step? Not arranged marriages but forced marriages. So people should be able to opt out of an arranged marriage.

The risks of cousin marriages are clear from the Born In Bradford study and decadea of observation of inbreeding depression across species.

any other scenarios with a similar risk profile are banned as well.

They already are. We don't let uncles marry nieces.

they'll probably get less adherence

How do you not adhere to a marriage ban? What do you think happens if a brother and sister try to register a marriage? Or two men, prior to 2014?

Forced marriage is illegal already. However, it is very difficult to prove that a marriage is forced.

It can be difficult to refuse an arranged marriage, especially if the groom is Daddy's sister's son. Who will have the bride's back if her family want the union?

Definitely not an easy problem to fix. I do think education always helps though agree it will have a slower impact than possibly desired. I just think separating issues makes it clearer to identify the actual problem. I think if I were from that culture and were on Mumsnet, I could very easily see this as an attack on my entire culture rather than people specifying what could be improved. For example, many people don't like arranged marriages as that is a foreign concept to them. But people need to able to separate what they don't like from what is actually wrong like forced marriages, rather than arranged marriages as a whole. Hence my banging on about specifics. Because unfortunately for some people , it is xenophobia even when they don't recognise it. But a calm and clear review and identifying what Ithe actual problems are, along with the numbers and any other comparable risks from within and outside the culture will make it easier to see it's not an attack on a foreign culture but actually and genuinely a route to reducing lifelong illnesses in children from all cultures

Is that the risk of one cousin marriage of the risk of several? Cos a few posters have responded saying it's not necessarily the first cousin marriages that is the problem if if happens subsequently? Is it harmful for the 1st or 2nd or maybe 5th generation? Now I'm not saying it should or shouldn't be banned, just hoping the numbers go into that level of detail. All that info will help people understand why it's being married.
Also look at other responses, won't a ban just push people underground and then be married culturally instead? I think more education has to be part of the solution at the very least, with very very clear numbers and going into as much detail as possible

Cousin marriages are very bad for women. The cultures where these occur are highly patriarchal.
This means:

• Young women have great difficulty refusing a marriage to a cousin. Her family are his family. Great pressure will be applied to ensure she does her 'duty'
• She'll be far more likely to have children with a severe disability than if she married a non-relative. This will cause her huge grief seeing her child suffer on a daily basis, compounded by her own guilt
• If the marriage is violent/abusive she'll struggle to leave. Divorce is seen as very shameful, and her parents are less likely to support her if it also means a family rift

Yes, banning cousin marriages will disproportionately impact Muslim and some traveller communities in the UK. It will also disproportionately benefit young women and children in the same communities. We shouldn't continue to tiptoe around cultural behaviours that are so very damaging to British women and British children.

Anyone who is still unsure of the wisdom of banning Cousin Marriages should watch "When Cousins Marry" by the Channel 4 Dispatches Team. It is still available on YouTube. The documentary is very clear both on the terrible human suffering it causes, and that education and offering genetic testing won't work. A mother who had several children with severe disabilities blames the doctors. Saying they did something wrong during the births to cause all these problems. Anything rather than accept the blame which would be unbearable for her to carry.

Lots of things can be very bad for women. Marriage, having children. Having children in or outside marriage. The list is endless. You've mentioned quite a lot of harms, which is great. But individually, these harms can occur from lots of other things we're not banning. There are many parents who have several kids born with disabilities, and the parents aren't related. In those situations, regardless parents always feel blame.

My point, which I'll stop belabouring, is that a precise reason (with numbers) would make a more logical argument and maybe a stronger reason.

While of course we shouldn't shy away from the emotional aspect, we need to realise there are lots of things we allow that are empirically bad for women and children and needs to reduce any ill feelings this might cause.

In my view, one way to do this is to be very clear about why this is banned, with the figures to back it up.

There are I'm sure a few things that increase the risk of disabilities, we're not banning each one. Probably because this has a higher risk.

What people might not realise, or in fact care about, is that cousin marriages are part of people's culture as much as having the freedom to have children outside marriage is a part of ours.

When asking someone to give up a culture that's important to them, I think you do better by telling them why and proving that it's not actually about persecuting a minority culture.

All this will reduce the feelings of resentment and oppression they will likely feel, this won't be the first time England is telling them what to do and maybe even how to feel.

However, I suspect most people have made up their minds one way or another for one reason or another

Anyone would think, from your posting, that Born In Bradford didn't have any numbers in it...

The evidence is already clear and has been published upthread-there is no ambiguity about this-1st cousin marriage is extremely risky if a child is born, due to the risks of severe disability. This is not just a mild learning disability it is severe physical and mental disability. Just because something is acceptable within a certain culture, doesn't mean we can't make it illegal.

Response to: "What people might not realise, or in fact care about, is that cousin marriages are part of people's culture as much as having the freedom to have children outside marriage is a part of ours."

I agree the consultation to ban cousin marriage (and require all religious marriages to be legal marriages) MUST set out in detail the scientific evidence justifying the need for change. But, we know, for many opposing these changes, no amount of compelling evidence underpinned by genuinely good intentions, will be enough to change their minds.

But, we should be much more robust and confident in defending British 'Values'. Our cultural norms aren't, of course, uniquely British. They are largely enlightenment values shared with most of the Western world, and have been informed by a new reliance on science, democracy, and respect for human rights. We may find it hard to define our cultural norms in detail, but we know much more easily what they definitely are not.

21st Century British values do not include:

• Polygamy
• Forced Marriages. (Arranged marriages that involve bullying and threats of being disowned are difficult to prosecute, but still clearly wrong)
• Religious (non-legal) marriages that leave women and children vulnerable, and denies them their legal rights
• Cousin Marriage (European Royals stopped this nonsense over a century ago)
• Removing girls from school early because their job is to be a wife and mother
• Requiring women to cover up most of their body to preserve their honour
• Forbidding marriages between people of different religions
• Punishing those who leave a religion
• Death Penalty
• Criminalising being Gay or Lesbian
• Considering men are superior to women, and are the natural leaders
• Loyalty to your family/community is more important than obeying the Law

I like the idea of 'muscular liberalism'. We should be more confident about defending what is good about our country.

Policing it is going to be problematic. The authorities are already turning a blind eye to polygamy here.

I have an English friend whose husband took a second wife on a visit back to Pakistan. She divorced him, in spite of the protestations of his family. (Apparently, he needed to be married to her in order to have residence? They had several adult children here.)

Had it not been for the robust response of his English wife and children, he'd have been back.

On the other hand, when I was working we had pupils who would suddenly acquire 'cousins' and an 'aunty' living with them. ISTR that the school always had to see the passport of arrivals from abroad, but I'm not certain that the passport always gave the father's details.

It was fairly obvious that the 'cousins' were actually half-siblings, but nothing was ever done.

Having said all that, I think that it's important to ban cousin marriage - it sends out a signal that it's unacceptable.

I am understanding why after having read a bit more about this. SA and Uzbekistan have got such a problem with it that it is impossible to ignore.

Just because something is acceptable within a certain culture, doesn't mean we can't make it illegal.

Exactly. The thing that will stop us is the fact that our government seems beholden to the people who want to continue doing this. We are giving away our power and democracy to these people.