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?

According to the MP who proposed this, cousin marriage is still as high as 20-40% among Irish Travellers, 22 years after that article.

Nobody benefits from that level...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/czend1y0xjko#:~:text=Holden%20said%20that%20while%20the,calculations%2C%22%20he%20told%20MPs.

Yes. The ban is utter nonsense cloaked in faux concern for children’s’ health.
It is entirely unenforceable, these babies will be born anyway, no one is going to go to prison for it. It’s basically being mooted to assuage a certain demographic that is xenophobic.

They should be giving all couples genetic counselling for free anyway.

Time for the law to step in. When a practice is explicitly banned, it sends a strong social signal that it is morally, ethically, and biologically unacceptable. Even if communities once tolerated first-cousin marriages, prohibition increases awareness and fear of social and legal repercussions.

Education explains why the ban exists—highlighting genetic risks, social harm, and the dangers of forced marriages. So together, law and awareness would eventually break the hold of harmful traditions and protect vulnerable women and children.

Yes, yes we get it, older mothers carry a higher risk but that doesn't negate that several generations of cousin marriages increase risks of abnormalities significantly. These are two separate issues. Why do you keep banging on about older mothers? Nobody is denying that that is also increasing risks.

Agree completely.

The only person I know married to their first cousin is very posh, white and English.

So I still didn’t see anything to back the original claim that white mothers over 35 are at the same risk of issues as repeated first cousin marriage.

So I’ll assume that’s a false claim.

Not sure that’s strictly the case. In Iceland they have a website where one can check prospective partners for exactly this type of connection due to the small gene pool.

agree that it is a cultural thing sometimes though and can cause issues if allowed to occur repeatedly. Interesting programme about this on the beeb - Hapsburgs anyone. I think it should be made illegal and resources put in to community education, and educating women at risk of this.

False equivalence: comparing cousin marriages to having children at an older age is misleading. The risks in each case are fundamentally different.

Children of first-cousin unions face a higher likelihood of recessive genetic disorders because cousins share significant DNA. This risk is inherent and cumulative, potentially affecting multiple generations.

By contrast, older mothers face risks like chromosomal abnormalities and pregnancy complications, which are age-related, limited in scope, and largely detectable through prenatal testing.

The crucial bit for older mothers; prenatal screening.

The decision to have children later in life is often an individual choice, whereas cousin marriage is a structural family practice that can perpetuate genetic risk over generations.

So do several generations of older mothers.

I keep banging on about it because if

A which causes x is banned, then B which also causes x just as often will possibly be banned too.

We cannot just knee jerk go eeeeew gross ban it.
Because a ban on marriage isn’t a ban on sex or having babies.
So a ban isn’t going to fix this issue any more than a ban on
Women over 40 completing a pregnancy

I agree yes it is a problem, but because a ban isn’t going to fix the problem then it rather becomes a question of why are certain politicians and posters avidly supporting a ban? It did not take long to see the faux concern slip and see the real reason was to tell these pesky immigrants that their risky practice is disgusting, while we laud and support the exact same level of risk amongst our own.

I wasn't even saying if I'm for or against a ban (I'm not sure I have an opinion about it at this point) I was responding to the denial that there is a problem with cousin marriage and as a biologist and geneticist I do have an opinion about that. You have subtly changed your tune in the last few posts and are trying to swerve to a more reasonable position on this.
I'm not sure who you mean with "our own" considering I'm a "pesky immigrant" myself.

The risks of specific birth defects are different, but the overall risk of any birth defect can be compared. I don’t think it is a false equivalence to say why are we picking on who people marry instead of how old people are before having a baby when both carry about the same risk of any birth defect.

We support and laud the second, we even support that choice with extra prenatal screening and care as you pointed out. But the first choice is what? Not worth any pre pregnancy screening (genetic testing and counselling) or prenatal testing? Why is that?

I would argue too that the majority of women have babies later in life isn’t what they would have preferred, it is just the earliest they could afford a baby. The later maternal age has been well studied, and it’s not been a totally free choice by most women. It has been driven by structural factors like employment rights, financial stability, housing crisis, and so on.

It’s not ‘faux’ concern, it’s actual concern that a growing group of people in this country are following practices that are known to cause serious but entirely preventable abnormalities or death and 7,500 babies per year are going to be born with lifelong high medical needs. Not to mention the practices of coercion on young people, making them marry people they don’t know just because they are related.

Inexplicably, some people argue to maintain a situation which knowingly causes harm to many and make up lies to shut down the conversation.

At a time then our NHS is struggling to provide basic care for many.

They should be giving all couples genetic counselling for free anyway. - so they are married, get the bad news that they would have disabled babies, then what - no kids?

I’m not sure where you think the money for all this free testing will come from.

You're talking nonsense. Where is your evidence cousin marriage was taboo before the British Empire?

Righto.
Well then my saying if x is a problem then why isn’t y a problem? Isn’t saying x or y aren’t a problem. It is pointing out the hypocrisy and lack of logic.

It is pointing out that as a society we tolerate certain problems as an acceptable risk. If the risk is acceptable for babies of older women, then why not for babies of cousin marriages?

It is pointing out that the majority of babies today are born out of wedlock, so how exactly is a ban on cousin marriages going to solve this problem? It isn’t.

So really this whole ban just appears to be a giant V towards a cultural practice that we used to have and certain marginalised demographics still practice.

Exactly, Muhammad married his first cousin & he is every Muslim's example according to Islam!

What is wrong with siblings marrying?Does the use of genetic testing make these viable as well.

It doesn’t have to have been taboo. Empire put the stamp of approval on it, which meant it was far more likely to persist.

The idea that cousin marriage and older maternal age carry “about the same risk” is false.

I’ve had healthy children as an older mother, and my grandmother had seven healthy children despite giving birth later in life. The risks associated with older maternal age are predictable, manageable, and confined to that pregnancy, and modern prenatal care can effectively reduce them.

Cousin marriage, by contrast, carries a systemic genetic risk that runs through families. Recessive disorders can appear across multiple generations, and even with genetic counselling, these risks cannot be fully eliminated.

Delayed childbirth is an individual decision with manageable consequences; cousin marriage is a cultural and familial practice that structurally propagates inheritable disorders.

That distinction makes the two not comparable.

Is honestly mind boggling. Should 100% be illegal .

So do several generations of older mothers.

Have you got any evidence for that? You’ve not provided it so far.

I was quite heartened that there have been few accusations of racism on this thread and mostly grown ups were talking but here you are.

First cousin marriage is generally regarded as socially unacceptable in this country for ALL people, resident or immigrant. The regular criticism of the Royal Family for old cousin marriages and the mocking of people in rural areas just goes to illustrate this. Your accusations are completely unfounded.

Where is all the money going to come from to police and prosecute those who defy a cousin marriage ban?

Don’t you think that families will deny the newlywed couple are 1st cousins and the CPS will have to do genetic testing to prove it anyway? (So a ban is going to be exponentially more expensive)

Don’t you think that couples will go ahead and have families without marrying? No crime to have babies while unmarried..

I’m concerned about birth defects too, but a ban in 1st cousin marriages isn’t going to do anything at all to reduce the incidence.

First cousin marriage is generally regarded as socially unacceptable in this country for ALL people, resident or immigrant.

Yes I know, my posts don’t say otherwise. The ban is about making a social expectation into a completely useless and unenforceable law that won’t actually prevent a single birth defect baby from being born, despite it being the advertised goal of the ban.

Really Really. All those brown people unable to think for themselves and could only be in awe of the great white colonialists.
And the example of Muhammed is insignificant, whose followers had been busy colonising before the British Empire arrived.

From what I recall studying history, and as an older mother probably about 130 years ago,, the British Empire never "endorsed" cousin marriage in India.

The practice long predates colonial rule and was deeply embedded in cultural, religious, and social norms—particularly among Muslim communities in North India, where it helped preserve property and strengthen family ties. Among Hindus, especially in the south, cross-cousin marriage existed in some regions but was far less common and often regulated by caste and local customs.

British colonial authorities were largely indifferent to these practices. Their primary concern was maintaining control and extracting resources, not regulating local customs unless they directly interfered with colonial interests. As historian William Dalrymple notes, the British often viewed Indian society through a lens of "benign neglect," allowing many indigenous practices to continue without interference unless they posed a threat to colonial rule.

The persistence of cousin marriage reflects deep-rooted local traditions, not imperial approval. The British did not actively promote or suppress such practices; they simply did not care enough to intervene unless it served their interests.