The legality of marriage between cousins in the United States varies from state to state. The practice is illegal in 25 states. A first cousin is the child of a parent`s brother or sister. Alexander Graham Bell, known for inventing the telephone, also got involved in the debate. He proposed introducing laws to prohibit blood marriages in families with deaf-mute members so that the disease is not inherited from the children of these marriages. For example, the marriage of Louis XIV of France and Maria Theresa of Spain was a first-degree marriage on both sides. [78] It began to fall out of favor in the 19th century when women became socially mobile. Only Austria, Hungary and Spain banned marriage between cousins throughout the 19th century, with government exemptions available in the latter two countries. [79] Marriage to first cousins in England in 1875 was estimated by George Darwin at 3.5% for the middle class and 4.5% for the nobility, although this percentage fell to less than 1% in the 20th century. [80] Queen Victoria and Prince Albert are notable examples. [81] [82] In Pakistan, marriage between cousins is legal and customary. The reasons for inbreeding are economic, religious and cultural.
[141] Data collected in 2014 from Malakand district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province (KPK) in Pakistan showed that about 66.4 percent of marriages among rural couples were with a first cousin or a second cousin. [142] [143] [144] In some areas, it has been found that a higher proportion of first-degree marriages in Pakistan is the cause of an increased rate of blood disorders in the population. [144] Mona Chalabi: 6 to 8% is really not that high! And it`s certainly less risky than I expected. Depending on your situation, there are many reasons why you may want to marry your cousin. It`s fodder for a lot of jokes, but seriously, is it legal to marry your cousin? The answer depends on where you live and how related your cousin is. According to Goody, marriage between cousins was allowed in neo-Christian and pre-Christian Ireland, where an heiress was also obliged to marry a paternal cousin. From the seventh century onwards, the Irish Church recognized only four degrees of forbidden kinship and less civil law. This lasted until after the Norman conquests in the 11th century and the Synod of Cashel in 1101. [93] In contrast, contemporary English law was based on official Catholic policy, and the Anglo-Norman clergy were often disgusted by the Irish “law of fornication.” [94] Ironically, less than a hundred years after the Anglo-Norman invasion of Ireland at the Fourth Lateran Council, the Catholic Church reformed canon law on cousin marriage, with the effect of bringing the doctrine of the Catholic Church back into conformity with the Irish Church and the teachings of the original Christian Church.
The teachings of the Catholic churches had proved impractical in practice, as they required people to have all relations with their common great-great-great-great-great-grandparents (i.e., with their sixth-degree cousins) or to buy a dispensation from the Church. Finally, Edward Westermarck noted that marriage between ancient Germanic tribes was apparently prohibited only in ascending and descending lines and between siblings.[95] [96] Opinions on the appropriateness of this practice vary widely. Children of first-degree marriage have an increased risk of autosomal recessive genetic disorders, and this risk is higher in populations that are already very similar ethnically. [10] Children of more distant cousins have a lower risk of these conditions, although they are still higher than the average population. [10] One study showed that between 1800 and 1965, more children and grandchildren in Iceland were born to marriages between third or fourth degree cousins (people with common great-great-great-great-grandparents or great-great-great-grandparents) than other degrees of separation. [11] Ohio first cousins cannot marry, but they can legally have sex and live together. First cousins who have been abducted once are also not allowed to marry. Practices in the West Indies are generally closer to the north than to the south,[139] but again, there are differences. For example, 1956 studies in Mumbai showed that 7.7% of Hindus were married to a second cousin or closer. In contrast, in the northern city of New Delhi in the 1980s, only 0.1% of Hindus were married to a first cousin. On the other hand, studies have been conducted in the southern Indian state of Karnataka during this period, showing that a third of Hindus are married to a second cousin or closer. [140] Madhya Pradesh before 2000, from which Chhattisgarh has now seceded, and Maharashtra, to which Mumbai belongs, are states that are intermediaries in their kinship practices.
Unlike Lévi-Strauss, who viewed the exchange of women in the context of matrilateral marriage between crossed cousins as fundamentally egalitarian, anthropologist Edmund Leach believed that such systems inherently created groups of junior and senior status and were part of the political structure of society. According to Leach`s model, in systems in which this form of marriage separates groups of bloodlines into spouses and wives, the social status of the two categories cannot be determined by a priori arguments.
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