Is it wrong for two cousins to love each other?

[dave_c]

I was chatting to my dad one day during a dinner with just the usual random topics until conversation moved on to talking about some distant relatives of ours and to my amazement he revealed to us we are related to both of them and the married couple were actually first cousins.

After I picked up my jaw from the floor, we had a healthy discussion about the subject. It's clear to everyone that they're genuinely in love, their kids look perfectly normal in fact, very intelligent (apparently the chances of malformed children are just a little bit increase with cousin couples) although the couple look genetically different from each other. And apparently it's legal in the UK for cousins to wed. Throughout history and in some cultures this is the norm. But what do the good people of answerbank think on this subject? In an open minded free thinking society where anyone could out with who they feel, we're a bit taboo on this particular scenario.

(PS no hillbilly jokes please!)

[tradey]

i know you cant help who you fall in love with,but as far as it being in the family i dont agree with it at all,if your step family then ok but blood family ummm no,but like i said people cant help for who the fall for can they

[redcrx]

when I was pregnant and filling in my forms at a booking in appointment with midwife there is actually a question on there that asks if the parents are cousins. I think if a pregnancy arises they do all sorts of tests to ensure all is well.
My midwife had never had anyone reply yes to that question

[4getmenot]

Yes I think so. I have known cousins to marry (hey I come from Norfolk) but to me many of them have same grandparents so surely they have that blood in them. Eeeeeeghhh, wrong, wrong wrong.

[raysparx1]

Hi dave, marrying a first cousin is very unusual, in uk anyway, as a one off it is ok, but if it carried on going one after the other surely then problems could occur as the strain gets weaker, all families need new blood to keep it going.

[Goodsoulette]

my ex was adopted but in his adoptive family his grandparents were first cousins and thank god he was adopted, as they were really an advert as to why cousins shouldnt marry. There was something dramatically wrong with all the boys they had and it has extended into the grandchildren. Both sons had polycystic kidneys, brain tumours, various cancers and breathing problems, one son died in his 20s the other at 50 ish. One grandchild had childhood leukaemia (sp) and severe autism, another died of of some sort of brain tumour, another is an hermaphrodite and one has asthma so bad that he was in hospital most of his childhood.

You cant help who you fall for I suppose, personally it would never happen to me as my cousins are like brothers and sisters to me. I think its very important you dont have children with a family member, the law is there for a very good reason. You only have to come down here and have a look round Bridgwater to see that ( and that is not a mean joke either)

[Pippa68]

I don't have a problem with it. It is totally legal, as you say..and couples are recommended genetic counselling/tests if they decide to have children together.

Cousins are considered far enough removed for problems to be limited..and remember our royal family is based on cousins marrying...not sure how many first cousins, but certainly cousins somewhere down the line and they share the same great grandparents ;o)

I wouldn't ever have considered a relationship with any of my cousins though, as we were brought up too closely to be considered 'removed' from the immediate family.

tradey ~ I have read that step children cannot marry if they have been brought up together from a young age.

[Goodsoulette]

That is true Pippa.
Do you not think that by the fact that cousins have to have genetic counselling would suggest that it was wrong? Its natures way of saying no!

[Pippa68]

I don't think they have to have genetic counselling, it is just recommended. Especially in cases as ray has suggested..when first cousin marriage has been common in the family.

As he correctly says in his reply, the higher risk is in these births.

As for it being natures way of saying no, that is a bit of a grey area as there are many mainstream couples who cannot have children naturally and go for IVF treatment. There are many people who would consider this being natures way of saying no ;o)

[Goodsoulette]

I havent had the heartache of not being able to have children but I dont really believe in IVF either. I am a firm believer in letting nature take its course. I have often said that I think infertility is natures way of controlling the population and we toy with it, so we use up natural resources quicker than we should be doing.

Like I said regarding my exes family, all the boys have been effected and I know some of the grandaughters are very worried about having children themselves.

[Le Chat]

There is nothing wrong with cousins marrying and having children. There is also no acceptable or unacceptable risk of genetic malformation, unless the trend is repeated again and again and so on. This is a piece of ill information that people make up because they heard something somewhere once.

[Joe_the_Lion]

6 billion people in the world, and they have to choose a close family member??? Wrong diddly wrong.

I approve of it in Royal circles, it makes sense to keep a bloodline, like thoroughbred horses and pedigree dogs, but for mere workers, the whole thing is disgusting and should be made illegal.

[Goodsoulette]

Le chat are you being ignorant to the facts! have you not heard of recessive gene disorders.

compliments of the BBC as I cant explain it simply!

We all have two copies of every gene. If you inherit one variant gene you will not fall ill.

If, however, a child inherits a copy of the same variant gene from each of its parents it will develop one of these illnesses.

The variant genes that cause genetic illness tend to be very rare. In the general population the likelihood of a couple having the same variant gene is a hundred to one.

In cousin marriages, if one partner has a variant gene the risk that the other has it too is far higher - more like one in eight.

[4getmenot]

yer maybe widwives ask it because they 'heard it somewhere once' :-)

[Rubyrose]

I could never do it! I have grown up with my cousins, knowing they are my cousins and that they are family! Family are out of bounds even if you wanted to! But.... ewwwwww!

[Goodsoulette]

yup, hes a boy but with some girl bits too, it took them quite a whjile to decide whether he was male or female! He had to have hormone injections to make some bits grow and other bits drop etc etc

[Skreecheeboy]

I read in an islamic publication that something like 70% of autistic people born in Britain were the result of their parents being related. The article was warning muslims to look longer for suitable partners rather than marry their cousins which many had ended up doing because they were forced to by their families.

[Pippa68]

That is a very high figure, Skreechee. Is that just Islamic Autistic people born in Britain?

[Skreecheeboy]

I actually can't remember if the figure's correct pippa which is why I put something like 70%, but I was surprised myself and they were banding that percentage about in the article about something, unfortunately I couldn't find anything about it on the web. I think it was either 70% of all autistic kids or 70% of parents with kids who were autistic but don't quote me on it (might have been born that uear or something???). Sorry I can't be more accurate but it was a Scottish Islamic paper I read in a kebab shop that ran the article and half was in arabic and the other half was english so I know it wasn't complete nonsense that you'd read about in one of the red tops, though it would be a much better point if I could actually confirm the numbers!