[182] Per Murphy and Kasdan, the Arab system of parallel cousin marriage works against the creation of homogenous "bounded" and "corporate" kin groups and instead creates arrangements where every person is related by blood to a wide variety of people, with the degree of relationship falling off gradually as opposed to suddenly. [78], For example, the marriage of Louis XIV of France and Maria Theresa of Spain was a first-cousin marriage on both sides. By the 1930s, only one marriage in 6,000 was with a first cousin. Jack Goody claimed that early Christian marriage rules forced a marked change from earlier norms to deny heirs to the wealthy and thus to increase the chance that those with wealth would will their property to the Church. It defines the first-cousin relationship, both parallel and cross, as prohibited. [180], Texas did pass a ban on first-cousin marriage the same year as Amrhein and Andrews married, evidently in reaction to the presence of the polygamous Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS). First cousin marriage allowed. Endogamy is marrying within a group and in this case the group was a village. And some DNA variants cause diseases. famous historical figures married their cousins, Should The Law Be Kinder To 'Kissin' Cousins'? The report states that these children are 13 times more likely than the general population to produce children with genetic disorders, and one in ten children of first-cousin marriages in Birmingham either dies in infancy or develops a serious disability. Specifically, it increases the chances of having a child with arecessivecondition. See Mason v. Mason, 775 N.E.2d 706, 2002 Ind. It gives the example of one mother, Mrs. Spring, whose daughter Kimberly Spring-Winters, 29, married her cousin Shane Winters, 37. You, your siblings, and your first, second,and third cousins are all of the same generation. Language links are at the top of the page across from the title. FindLaw.com Free, trusted legal information for consumers and legal professionals, SuperLawyers.com Directory of U.S. attorneys with the exclusive Super Lawyers rating, Abogado.com The #1 Spanish-language legal website for consumers, LawInfo.com Nationwide attorney directory and legal consumer resources. Due to this association, possibly reinforced by personal interaction with a specific cousin, he may become "fond" of her, rendering the relationship "sentimentally appropriate". The BBC also states that Pakistani-Britons, who account for some 3% of all births in the UK, produce "just under a third" of all British children with genetic illnesses. For example, many cultures encourage first cousin marriage to strengthen familial relationships. All Arab countries in the Persian Gulf currently require advance genetic screening for prospective married couples. It was estimated in 1960 that 0.2% of all marriages between Roman Catholics were between first or second cousins, but no more recent nationwide studies have been performed. [2] Cousin marriage is an important topic in anthropology and alliance theory. Marrying a first cousin is still legal throughout Europe; in fact, the only prohibitions against it are in some of the United States. And when it happens you have a bad result. They can provide a more accurate risk estimate based on your situation and can discuss if there is any testing available. Att'y Gen. 46. [56], Andrey Korotayev claimed that Islamization was a strong and significant predictor of parallel cousin (father's brother's daughter FBD) marriage, bint 'amm marriage. State Laws on Marriage - FindLaw Unlike other systems such as the levirate, the sororate, or uncle-niece marriage, cross-cousin marriage is preferential because for obvious reasons these others cannot constitute the exclusive or even preponderant rule of marriage in any group. [225][226][227] Long-term studies conducted on the Dalmatian islands in the Adriatic Sea have indicated a positive association between inbreeding and a very wide range of common adulthood disorders, including hypertension, coronary heart disease, stroke, cancer, uni/bipolar depression, asthma, gout, peptic ulcer, and osteoporosis. If the first cousins are at least 65 years old, they can marry; first cousins may marry if one or both are under 65 and they get court approval based on showing that one of them is sterile and incapable of reproducing. However, the degree of relationship between collateral (non-lineal) relatives equals the number of links in the family tree from one person, up to the common ancestor, and then back to the other person. Lvi-Strauss held that women were always exchanged for some "prestation" which could either be other women or labor and material goods. Consanguinity seems to affect many polygenic traits such as height, body mass index, intelligence and cardiovascular profile. Of the three types of institution of exogamy rules, dual organization, and cross-cousin marriage, the last was most significant, making the analysis of this form of marriage the crucial test for any theory of marriage prohibitions. [67], In Ethiopia, most of the population was historically rigidly opposed to cousin marriage, and could consider up to third cousins the equivalent of brother and sister, with marriage at least ostensibly prohibited out to sixth cousins. Marriage between close relatives increases the chance of certain genetic concerns. [26] Eventually, the mother's sister's children and cross cousins shared one set of terms, with only the father's brother's children retaining a separate set. And when it happens you have a bad result. [11] A study indicated that between 1800 and 1965 in Iceland, more children and grandchildren were produced from marriages between third or fourth cousins (people with common great-great- or great-great-great-grandparents) than from other degrees of separation. In some cultures, it can be looked down upon for cousins to marry cousins. Which countries do not allow cousins to marry? According to Korotayev, a systematic acceptance of parallel-cousin marriage took place when Islamization occurred together with Arabization. License Expiration: The license is valid for 30 days. [70] In contrast to the Nigerian situation, in Ethiopia, Islam cannot be identified with a particular ethnicity and is found across most of them, and conversions between religions are comparatively common. Another picture emerges from the large literature on congenital heart defects, which are conservatively estimated to have an incidence of 50/1,000 live births. Where it's legal to marry your cousin, in one map - indy100 Christopher Bayly, Townsmen and Bazaars: North Indian Society in the Age of British Expansion, 17701870, p. 49, arranged marriage in the Indian subcontinent, National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws, Marriage Law of the People's Republic of China, National Center for Biotechnology Information, Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, "When Did Cousin Marriage Become Unacceptable? The Genetics of Cousin Marriage - JSTOR Daily Can you marry a second cousin? But the situation gets hairy (read: birth defects) if you trace the pattern through a family's genealogy. Proactively, it is customary for parents to groom their children to know their immediate cousins and, when opportune, their distant cousins. In April 2002, the Journal of Genetic Counseling released a report which estimated the average risk of birth defects in a child born of first cousins at 1.12.0 percentage points above the average base risk for non-cousin couples of 3%, or about the same as that of any woman over age 40. Half siblings are even closer relatives they share one parent! Its likely that you know and have spent time with your first cousins. Marrying your first cousin, while illegal in many states, is not the worst thing you could do. App. [146], Cousin marriage is proscribed and seen as incest for Hindus in North India. What about a first cousin or half sibling?. Several states of the United States have bans on cousin marriage. It was estimated in 1960 that 0.2% of all marriages between Roman Catholics were between first or second cousins, but no more recent nationwide studies have been performed. In south India, by contrast, the rates are fairly constant, except for the South Indian Malabar Muslims of Kerala (9%) who claim descent from Arab traders who settled permanently in India in the eighth century. The Tech Interactive201 S. Market St.San Jose, CA 95113. Any couple worried about genetic risk to their children should meet with a genetic counselor. Despite being contradicted by other studies like those of George Darwin and Alan Huth in England and Robert Newman in New York, the report's conclusions were widely accepted. Though contemporaneous, the eugenics movement did not play much of a direct role in the bans. One source from the 1830s states that cousin marriage was less common in Cairo than in other areas. Some societies also report a high prevalence among land-owning families and the ruling elite: here the relevant consideration is thought to be keeping the family estate intact over generations. [198] The reasoning is that marriage between close relatives can lead to intrafamily strife. OFFENSES AGAINST THE FAMILY", "State Laws Regarding Marriages Between First Cousins", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Cousin_marriage_law_in_the_United_States&oldid=1152611347, States of the United States law-related lists, Articles with dead external links from November 2019, Articles with permanently dead external links, Short description with empty Wikidata description, Articles containing potentially dated statements from February 2014, All articles containing potentially dated statements, Articles with unsourced statements from December 2010, Wikipedia articles needing clarification from April 2022, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 1 May 2023, at 08:15. When the marriage procession progressed with the bride toward the house of the bridegroom, the male cousin rushed forward, snatched away the girl, and forced her into his own house. Marriage License Laws", "Human Services Legislation and Legislative News from NCSL", "Michigan Marriage License Laws > MI Wedding Officiants", "TPT St. Paul. At the dawn of Christianity in Roman times, marriages between first cousins were allowed. code or county). Increased focus on genetic disease in developing countries may eventually result from progress in eliminating environmental diseases there as well. "[2] Some news sources then only mentioned the polygamy and child abuse provisions and ignored the cousin marriage portion of the bill, as did some more recent sources. Estate of Levie (1975, Cal App 1st Dist) was a California case on a purported first-cousin marriage contracted in Nevada. [137] A report by the Dubai-based Centre for Arab Genomic Studies (CAGS) in September 2009 found that Arabs have one of the world's highest rates of genetic disorders, nearly two-thirds of which are linked to consanguinity. Green. A marginal increase in time to first birth, from 1.6 years generally to 1.9 years in first cousins, may occur due to the younger age at marriage of consanguineous mothers and resultant adolescent subfertility or delayed consummation. And in societies with both types of descent, where a person belongs to the group of his mother's mother and father's father but not mother's father or father's mother, only cross-cousin marriages would successfully build alliances. [48], According to anthropologist Ladislav Hol, cousin marriage is not an independent phenomenon, but rather one expression of a wider Middle Eastern preference for agnatic solidarity, or solidarity with one's father's lineage. [83] First-cousin marriage in England in 1875 was estimated by George Darwin to be 3.5% for the middle classes and 4.5% for the nobility, though this had declined to under 1% during the 20th century. District registrars must be notified and sent the relevant forms and documents. "[234] Genetic effects from cousin marriage in Britain are more obvious than in a developing country like Pakistan because the number of confounding environmental diseases is lower. Whether its acceptable or not can also depend on personal or cultural beliefs. Both however, also carry a biological risk. Some famous historical figures married their cousins. The proposed policy is explicitly aimed at preventing "import marriages" from certain nations like Morocco with a high rate of cousin marriage. 1987 Op. In much of the world, consanguineous marriage between cousins is very common. Groups like the Kachin exhibiting matrilateral cross-cousin marriage do not exchange women in circular structures; where such structures do exist they are unstable. That's why it may be a good idea to consult an experienced local family lawyer for advice on whether it's legal to marry your cousin where you live. First-cousin marriage can be allowed in seven states. Cousin marriage were legal in ancient Rome from the Second Punic War (218201 BC), until it was banned by the Christian emperor Theodosius I in 381 in the West, and until after the death of Justinian (565) in the East,[92][93] but the proportion of such marriages is not clear.
