6 ms·

A friend reported going to the wedding of German first cousins who married. The groom opened his speech with, "just in case you're still wondering, yes it's leg

A friend reported going to the wedding of German first cousins who married. The groom opened his speech with, "just in case you're still wondering, yes it's legal". No, they were not the British royal family. And apparently it was quite an uncomfortable moment. I relate the story as something which would have been quite normal once, whilst legal now, is fairly taboo. I'm not sure why, although obviously feel and appreciate the taboo.

JumpCrisscross 9y ago
> I'm not sure why Taboo because we discovered heredity. Legal because this isn’t prevalent enough to merit national attention.
- alphaalpha101 9y ago
  Having children with a sibling isn't anywhere near as dangerous as people think it is. People seem to think it nearly guarantees birth defects. It really doesn't. Cousins are even less dangerous.
- da_chicken 9y ago
  No, we've understood heredity for a very long time, and sex between siblings or between parents and children has always been a taboo. Cousin marriage, however, is not particularly harmful (https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/animals-and-us/201210/the-problem-incest https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/animals-and-us/201210/t...). The real reason we stopped marrying cousins is: 1. We started to live in large cities instead of on farms and ranches. (https://www.census.gov/population/censusdata/table-4.pdf https://www.census.gov/population/censusdata/table-4.pdf) 2. We could reasonably travel more than 10 miles from home in a day. In other words, we used to marry cousins because it was too difficult to find better prospects.
  - rflrob 9y ago
    I haven’t yet read the scientific article that it’s based on, but the OP points out that there’s about a 50 year lag between the move to cities and a decrease in cousin marriage, so there was probably some cultural component.
    - da_chicken 9y ago
      Oh, certainly. Any culture takes time to develop a taboo like that. It's especially hard to damn the behavior of your own parents when their union led to your own existence. Only when everybody who was married has died will there really be a change.
    - Parcissons 9y ago
      Im expecting a game of throne spike very soon in those statistics.
  - alva 9y ago
    "The real reason we stopped marrying cousins is:..." Perhaps in the majority groups in the West. Certain communities in the UK still widely practice cousin marriage and suffer hugely in genetic abnormalities. They are not constrained by transport, it is a cultural thing that has not yet been updated.
    - petercooper 9y ago
      Two of my great-grandparents were first cousins. We blame every bit of nuttiness in our family on this, whether or not it's fair :-D
      - blueblimp 9y ago
        Though close relatives marrying is bad for the children's health, it's actually a slight benefit for the grandchildren, great-grandchildren, etc. Why that's true: The reason inbreeding is bad is that the child is at risk of inheriting two copies of a nasty recessive mutation, in a region of their genome where both versions came from the same recent ancestor. However, if the child goes on to successfully reproduce, it's more likely that they had zero copies than two--and in that case the grandchildren have zero copies, which is good for them.
    - smellyindian 9y ago
      Based on the cultural sensitivity on display, I am going to guess you are Brit, and are referring to the Pakistani rat children? The practice is sometimes constrained by foiling kidnappers at airports, so yes, transport is certainly not a limiting factor at all.
      - 2trill2spill 9y ago
        > Pakistani rat children That seems rather harsh. Or is that a real term? Either way it seems like a rather harsh term to call a child.
        omarqureshi 9y ago
  - walrus01 9y ago
    extensive scientific evidence contracts your claim that it is "not particularly harmful": http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcthree/article/6af25e7b-0545-42ba-a6fa-82ac1023b4ed http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcthree/article/6af25e7b-0545-42ba-a6f... http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-leeds-23183102 http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-leeds-23183102 http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/health-why-cousins-can-be-just-too-close-the-pakistani-practice-of-marrying-relations-may-be-causing-1483250.html http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/... http://blogs.jpmsonline.com/2015/12/07/cousin-marriages-a-public-health-issue-in-pakistan/ http://blogs.jpmsonline.com/2015/12/07/cousin-marriages-a-pu... https://www.ua-magazine.com/first-cousin-marriage-doubles-risk-of-birth-defects/ https://www.ua-magazine.com/first-cousin-marriage-doubles-ri...
    - foldr 9y ago
      The issue there is probably with the practice being common and repeated through many generations. The risk of generic abnormalities is not particularly high for cousin marriage.
      - walrus01 9y ago
        yes, a single instance is not extremely risky from a statistical perspective, it's when the children of first-cousin marriages repeat the practice for several dozen generations... some really bad things can crop up.
        Retric 9y ago
        Even that's not enough, you need a small population, small number of children each generation, and for harmful mutations not to be weeded out. A wild Frog species that has 100 eggs could have regular 'first-cousin' marriages without significant issues beyond infectious diseases. Humans unfortunately tend to accumulate negative mutations more easily. Though the upside of lack of predation etc is not something I would want to pass up personally.
  - iguy 9y ago
    "2. We could reasonably travel more than 10 miles from home in a day." No, this is not the reason. Plenty of societies had very strong norms against cousin marriage centuries ago -- from memory below 1 percent in colonial new england? Others did not. Sometimes because they were just far from the enforcers of such norms. But often for deliberate reasons of keeping family and property together. Saddam Hussein wasn't short of private jets, but was very concerned about losing power, and blood relatives are more reliable. And about 50 percent of his countrymen feel the same way.
- kromem 9y ago
  It's not particularly harmful in terms of heredity (roughly the same "danger" as a woman having a kid at 40 in societies where it is not common). Interesting factoid: Freud was married to his first cousin. It's partly because of misunderstood heredity dangers, but mostly because of increased social pools. (Cousins used to be very socialized with each other, but strangers of opposite sex had minimal opportunities for meaningful interactions.)
gerdesj 9y ago
"No, they were not the British royal family." - LOL. It's not just Britain, royal families all over Europe often needed "reseeding" from abroad as need dictated and the family trees got quite intertwined as a result. During the "Great War" of 1914-1918 King George V, Kaiser Wilhelm II and Tsar Nicholas II were all cousins. To be fair, parts of my family tree get a little ahem complicated and resemble bushes. Nowadays, our royals are branching out and diluting the blood in a very healthy move. Gawd bless em all.
walrus01 9y ago
unfortunately for the larger-than-normal percentage of children born with birth defects and genetic abnormalities, first cousin marriage is extremely common in pakistan: https://www.google.com/search?client=ubuntu&channel=fs&q=first+cousin+marriage+pakistan&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8 https://www.google.com/search?client=ubuntu&channel=fs&q=fir... another example of what happens when you have a relatively small population group that marries and reproduces only within their own community, repeatedly for 1000+ years, there's a large number of genetic disorders which disproportionately affect ashkenazi jews: https://www.google.com/search?client=ubuntu&channel=fs&q=ashkenazi+jews+genetic+disorders&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8 https://www.google.com/search?client=ubuntu&channel=fs&q=ash... to the extent that ashkenazi are strongly encouraged by their family doctors to go for special genetic screening, as a routine part of family planning.
- smellyindian 9y ago
  Extremely common is a bit of an understatement ... it's practically enforced... to the point that women from the UK are kidnapped and forced to marry cousins and uncles back 'home'. Due to cultural sensitivities, the authorities often turn a blind eye on the widely prevalent practice.
- chapill 9y ago
  Defect rates have long been overstated. https://mobile.nytimes.com/2002/04/04/us/few-risks-seen-to-the-children-of-1st-cousins.html https://mobile.nytimes.com/2002/04/04/us/few-risks-seen-to-t...
  - walrus01 9y ago
    google "endogamous population genetic disorders" - I could easily paste a dozen more citations here... https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1110863017300174 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S111086301... "Conclusion The present study revealed a higher incidence of certain diseases in consanguineous population with a high significant increase in the prevalence of common adult diseases such as diabetes mellitus, cancer, blood disorders, mental disorders, heart diseases, asthma, gastro-intestinal disorders, hypertension, hearing deficit, G6PD and common eye diseases. This confirms the role of genetic factors across the full spectrum of disease and not only for Mendelian disorders." https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3666836/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3666836/ A positive correlation between inbreeding and numerous health outcomes has been reported in several studies. Indeed, unions between relatives are generally associated with an increased risk of abortions, stillbirths (Al-Awadi et al. 1986; Hussain 1998, 1999; Hussain et al. 2001), perinatal mortality (Stoltenberg et al. 1999), and congenital malformations (Abdulrazzaq et al. 1997; Chéhab et al. 2006; Yunis et al. 2006). Consanguineous marriages are also recognized as being associated with higher risk for autosomal recessive diseases than in the general population (Taillemite et al. 1985; Alwan and Modell 1997; Kumaramanickavel et al. 2002) by favoring the expression of recessive deleterious alleles. Many reports have highlighted a positive association between inbreeding and a number of recessive single gene disorders like achromatopsia (Tchen et al. 1977), Leber's congenital amaurosis, xeroderma pigmentosum (Mokhtar et al. 1998), and metabolic defects like aminoacidopathies and mucopolysaccharidoses (Jaouad et al. 2009). However, some authors believe that a long practice of inbreeding over several generations leads to the elimination of deleterious recessive mutations from the population gene pool (Khoury et al. 1987).
Gibbon1 9y ago
Mexican American friend said in his culture marrying your cousin, you might as well sleep with your sister.

JumpCrisscross 9y ago

> I'm not sure why Taboo because we discovered heredity. Legal because this isn’t prevalent enough to merit national attention.

alphaalpha101 9y ago
Having children with a sibling isn't anywhere near as dangerous as people think it is. People seem to think it nearly guarantees birth defects. It really doesn't. Cousins are even less dangerous.
da_chicken 9y ago
No, we've understood heredity for a very long time, and sex between siblings or between parents and children has always been a taboo. Cousin marriage, however, is not particularly harmful (https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/animals-and-us/201210/the-problem-incest https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/animals-and-us/201210/t...). The real reason we stopped marrying cousins is: 1. We started to live in large cities instead of on farms and ranches. (https://www.census.gov/population/censusdata/table-4.pdf https://www.census.gov/population/censusdata/table-4.pdf) 2. We could reasonably travel more than 10 miles from home in a day. In other words, we used to marry cousins because it was too difficult to find better prospects.
- rflrob 9y ago
  I haven’t yet read the scientific article that it’s based on, but the OP points out that there’s about a 50 year lag between the move to cities and a decrease in cousin marriage, so there was probably some cultural component.
  - da_chicken 9y ago
    Oh, certainly. Any culture takes time to develop a taboo like that. It's especially hard to damn the behavior of your own parents when their union led to your own existence. Only when everybody who was married has died will there really be a change.
  - Parcissons 9y ago
    Im expecting a game of throne spike very soon in those statistics.
- alva 9y ago
  "The real reason we stopped marrying cousins is:..." Perhaps in the majority groups in the West. Certain communities in the UK still widely practice cousin marriage and suffer hugely in genetic abnormalities. They are not constrained by transport, it is a cultural thing that has not yet been updated.
  - petercooper 9y ago
    Two of my great-grandparents were first cousins. We blame every bit of nuttiness in our family on this, whether or not it's fair :-D
    - blueblimp 9y ago
      Though close relatives marrying is bad for the children's health, it's actually a slight benefit for the grandchildren, great-grandchildren, etc. Why that's true: The reason inbreeding is bad is that the child is at risk of inheriting two copies of a nasty recessive mutation, in a region of their genome where both versions came from the same recent ancestor. However, if the child goes on to successfully reproduce, it's more likely that they had zero copies than two--and in that case the grandchildren have zero copies, which is good for them.
  - smellyindian 9y ago
    Based on the cultural sensitivity on display, I am going to guess you are Brit, and are referring to the Pakistani rat children? The practice is sometimes constrained by foiling kidnappers at airports, so yes, transport is certainly not a limiting factor at all.
    - 2trill2spill 9y ago
      > Pakistani rat children That seems rather harsh. Or is that a real term? Either way it seems like a rather harsh term to call a child.
      - omarqureshi 9y ago
- walrus01 9y ago
  extensive scientific evidence contracts your claim that it is "not particularly harmful": http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcthree/article/6af25e7b-0545-42ba-a6fa-82ac1023b4ed http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcthree/article/6af25e7b-0545-42ba-a6f... http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-leeds-23183102 http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-leeds-23183102 http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/health-why-cousins-can-be-just-too-close-the-pakistani-practice-of-marrying-relations-may-be-causing-1483250.html http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/... http://blogs.jpmsonline.com/2015/12/07/cousin-marriages-a-public-health-issue-in-pakistan/ http://blogs.jpmsonline.com/2015/12/07/cousin-marriages-a-pu... https://www.ua-magazine.com/first-cousin-marriage-doubles-risk-of-birth-defects/ https://www.ua-magazine.com/first-cousin-marriage-doubles-ri...
  - foldr 9y ago
    The issue there is probably with the practice being common and repeated through many generations. The risk of generic abnormalities is not particularly high for cousin marriage.
    - walrus01 9y ago
      yes, a single instance is not extremely risky from a statistical perspective, it's when the children of first-cousin marriages repeat the practice for several dozen generations... some really bad things can crop up.
      - Retric 9y ago
        Even that's not enough, you need a small population, small number of children each generation, and for harmful mutations not to be weeded out. A wild Frog species that has 100 eggs could have regular 'first-cousin' marriages without significant issues beyond infectious diseases. Humans unfortunately tend to accumulate negative mutations more easily. Though the upside of lack of predation etc is not something I would want to pass up personally.
- iguy 9y ago
  "2. We could reasonably travel more than 10 miles from home in a day." No, this is not the reason. Plenty of societies had very strong norms against cousin marriage centuries ago -- from memory below 1 percent in colonial new england? Others did not. Sometimes because they were just far from the enforcers of such norms. But often for deliberate reasons of keeping family and property together. Saddam Hussein wasn't short of private jets, but was very concerned about losing power, and blood relatives are more reliable. And about 50 percent of his countrymen feel the same way.
kromem 9y ago
It's not particularly harmful in terms of heredity (roughly the same "danger" as a woman having a kid at 40 in societies where it is not common). Interesting factoid: Freud was married to his first cousin. It's partly because of misunderstood heredity dangers, but mostly because of increased social pools. (Cousins used to be very socialized with each other, but strangers of opposite sex had minimal opportunities for meaningful interactions.)

gerdesj 9y ago

"No, they were not the British royal family." - LOL. It's not just Britain, royal families all over Europe often needed "reseeding" from abroad as need dictated and the family trees got quite intertwined as a result. During the "Great War" of 1914-1918 King George V, Kaiser Wilhelm II and Tsar Nicholas II were all cousins. To be fair, parts of my family tree get a little ahem complicated and resemble bushes. Nowadays, our royals are branching out and diluting the blood in a very healthy move. Gawd bless em all.

walrus01 9y ago

unfortunately for the larger-than-normal percentage of children born with birth defects and genetic abnormalities, first cousin marriage is extremely common in pakistan: https://www.google.com/search?client=ubuntu&channel=fs&q=first+cousin+marriage+pakistan&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8 https://www.google.com/search?client=ubuntu&channel=fs&q=fir... another example of what happens when you have a relatively small population group that marries and reproduces only within their own community, repeatedly for 1000+ years, there's a large number of genetic disorders which disproportionately affect ashkenazi jews: https://www.google.com/search?client=ubuntu&channel=fs&q=ashkenazi+jews+genetic+disorders&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8 https://www.google.com/search?client=ubuntu&channel=fs&q=ash... to the extent that ashkenazi are strongly encouraged by their family doctors to go for special genetic screening, as a routine part of family planning.

smellyindian 9y ago
Extremely common is a bit of an understatement ... it's practically enforced... to the point that women from the UK are kidnapped and forced to marry cousins and uncles back 'home'. Due to cultural sensitivities, the authorities often turn a blind eye on the widely prevalent practice.
chapill 9y ago
Defect rates have long been overstated. https://mobile.nytimes.com/2002/04/04/us/few-risks-seen-to-the-children-of-1st-cousins.html https://mobile.nytimes.com/2002/04/04/us/few-risks-seen-to-t...
- walrus01 9y ago
  google "endogamous population genetic disorders" - I could easily paste a dozen more citations here... https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1110863017300174 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S111086301... "Conclusion The present study revealed a higher incidence of certain diseases in consanguineous population with a high significant increase in the prevalence of common adult diseases such as diabetes mellitus, cancer, blood disorders, mental disorders, heart diseases, asthma, gastro-intestinal disorders, hypertension, hearing deficit, G6PD and common eye diseases. This confirms the role of genetic factors across the full spectrum of disease and not only for Mendelian disorders." https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3666836/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3666836/ A positive correlation between inbreeding and numerous health outcomes has been reported in several studies. Indeed, unions between relatives are generally associated with an increased risk of abortions, stillbirths (Al-Awadi et al. 1986; Hussain 1998, 1999; Hussain et al. 2001), perinatal mortality (Stoltenberg et al. 1999), and congenital malformations (Abdulrazzaq et al. 1997; Chéhab et al. 2006; Yunis et al. 2006). Consanguineous marriages are also recognized as being associated with higher risk for autosomal recessive diseases than in the general population (Taillemite et al. 1985; Alwan and Modell 1997; Kumaramanickavel et al. 2002) by favoring the expression of recessive deleterious alleles. Many reports have highlighted a positive association between inbreeding and a number of recessive single gene disorders like achromatopsia (Tchen et al. 1977), Leber's congenital amaurosis, xeroderma pigmentosum (Mokhtar et al. 1998), and metabolic defects like aminoacidopathies and mucopolysaccharidoses (Jaouad et al. 2009). However, some authors believe that a long practice of inbreeding over several generations leads to the elimination of deleterious recessive mutations from the population gene pool (Khoury et al. 1987).

Gibbon1 9y ago

Mexican American friend said in his culture marrying your cousin, you might as well sleep with your sister.