A poll...

[a_t_rain]

Sorry, no ticky boxes as I don't have a paid account.

What do you think about people marrying their cousins?

a) EW EW EW!!! TOTALLY DISGUSTING AND IMMORAL!!!

b) Kinda gross if it's your first cousin. Fourth or fifth cousin, who's keeping track?

c) It's a bit weird, but as long as all parties are consenting adults and they're informed about the genetic risks, I don't think it's any of my business.

d) I read a lot of Victorian novels, and / or am a member of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black. I think that sort of thing is normal.

e) Other (explain in comments).

(Am not engaged to any of my cousins. Just curious about what the prevailing attitudes are.)

Comments

[ignipes.livejournal.com]

I think it's a little weird. Even though I haven't seen most of my cousins in years, they're still family. It's nothing to do with being close to them; I don't even know when their birthdays are or where they go to college. But still: family. Family is different, even if you never see them and don't even like them. (We really are very Italian, despite the surname. Ah, well.)

If I found out that some random guy I knew was my fourth cousin, it would still be weird, but maybe not unbearably weird.

Er. I guess that's an (e), but really, I think it's a (c), because other families are obviously quite different from mine. (Thank goodness.) I don't think it's really disgusting or immoral in and of itself.

Incidentally, in Colorado, you have to sign something stating that you and your intended are not first cousins before you can get a marriage liscense. I wonder how the laws differ in other states?

[a-t-rain.livejournal.com]

Apparently, cousin marriages are legal in 26 states. There's a map at the bottom of this page (http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/righttomarry.htm) showing which ones, but it's a little blurry.

States that allow it seem to be concentrated in the Southwest and along the Eastern seaboard, for some reason.

[ignipes.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I guess it is legal in Colorado. Now I'm very curious about this thing that every couple I know had to sign. Not that it would be unusual for a state government to require people to do something totally useless and unnecessary. (I only know about it because they all joked about how funny it was they had to swear they weren't cousins.)

That's an odd distribution of states.

[mafdet.livejournal.com]

Given that my male first cousins on BOTH sides of my family are hyper-religious, cat-disliking Republicans, I have to say "ew" on a personal level. :P

Other than that - I'd say a mixture of "b" and "c." It all depends on age, circumstance, and relationship. If the people involved come from a basically healthy family and are aware of the genetic risks, and are mature and sensible, fine. Though what really weirds me out about first cousins marrying is this - you can't really divorce your cousin. Think about it. Even if it gets to the point where you two hate one another and desperately want a divorce, you're still going to be each other's family. In a more intimate way even than never getting rid of your ex because there are kids. With remote cousins (third, fourth, etc.) this really isn't an issue.

If Sirius were to marry one of the Black sisters, I'd worry much more about potential hereditary mental instability in that family than anything. What seems to be a kind of family impulsivity and hot temper wouldn't make a Black marriage much happier, either. I wouldn't want to be Sirius and Bellatrix' next-door neighbors.

I'm an avid reader of historical novels, and I've noticed lots of cousin marriages in this genre. Partly it's because it was more common back in the day, and also because authors don't want to abandon favorite characters, especially in series, so you always get Ye Olde Plotte Devyce of Sebastian and Anastasia finding Twoo Wub and the author conveniently not having to introduce new love interests.

[a-t-rain.livejournal.com]

Given that my male first cousins on BOTH sides of my family are hyper-religious, cat-disliking Republicans, I have to say "ew" on a personal level.

Oh, I'm not asking about whether you, personally, would marry your cousin (I'm assuming most of us wouldn't, for a wide variety of reasons) -- just how people felt about the concept in general.

I wouldn't want to be Sirius and Bellatrix' next-door neighbors.

No indeed. But being a fly on the wall would be rather fun, as long as you could soar out of range of the flying curses...

[ani-bester.livejournal.com]

Hmm I think I gotta go with the Victorian answer.
Though, honestly first counsins by blood would be very strange and I would not reccomend that they have kids, but as far as sex goes *shrugs* Consenting adults and all.

The problem (to me) is just with the genetic line, soooo beyond that I don't care.

. . . on a personal level though, ewwwwwwwww

[kikei.livejournal.com]

(d). yep, I'm an oddity. I'm not a member of the House of Black, but I come from a community where everyone marries their cousins? Of course, there are always the issues of genetic risks and stuff, but seriously. Half the people I know are married to their first cousins... I attended a wedding a couple of years back of people who were first cousins, and their parents were also cousins so everyone's waiting for the big explosion when they have kids. Because we've got a large community, but everyone marries each other, it's a miracle if you're NOT related at all, funnily enough. My parents don't have any obvious relation... we only discovered recently that yeah, there's a very distant relation between them, some odd aunt or uncle that they forgot existed. Oh well, it's like, five times removed so it's not of much consequence. so, for me? it's pretty normal.

(so says the girl who has also had hinting from the parents of her own cousins on the issue, and ran like a mile because said cousins are prats. I'm not too much to care about how we're related, but I just don't like their company. Either of them)

Kind of explains my preoccupation with Sirius/Andromeda, doesn't it?


-Kiks

[dolabellae.livejournal.com]

It wasn't until stumbling upon discussions of the subject in the HP fandom that I realised cousin-marriage was illegal in parts of the US, still less that the idea could provoke such strong feelings. I think this is partly because of the 'reading lots of Victorian/historical novels/ancient history' aspect - at times in Rome, it was legal to marry your niece, and then there was brother/sister marriage in Ptolemaic Egypt, not that you go 'oh, that's fine then,' but it kind of makes cousin-marriage pale in comparison... - and also because all my cousins were girls, so the question never really had to be considered. (Though, due to reading matter, I always felt rather sorry I didn't have an attractive male cousin...)I think that puts me in the d) camp, doesn't it? with the proviso that if you wanted to have children, checking up possible genetic problems would be the right and responsible thing to do.

[a-t-rain.livejournal.com]

It wasn't until stumbling upon discussions of the subject in the HP fandom that I realised cousin-marriage was illegal in parts of the US, still less that the idea could provoke such strong feelings.

It surprised me that people had such strong feelings about the subject, too -- hence the poll.

(Though, due to reading matter, I always felt rather sorry I didn't have an attractive male cousin...)

Heh. I was always a bit jealous of Mary Lennox in The Secret Garden, growing up.

[catkind.livejournal.com]

Somewhere between c) and e). I don't see a problem with their getting married, but I'd be uncomfortable with them getting married with a view to having kids. My instinct is that it's not fair to inflict the risk on your offspring, though I have to admit I haven't done the research to know how big that risk is exactly. Mind you, I'm going to talk myself into a nasty corner here, lots of people with more serious genetic defaults do have kids and I'd probably be being some kind of a bigot to disapprove of it.

[a-t-rain.livejournal.com]

My instinct is that it's not fair to inflict the risk on your offspring, though I have to admit I haven't done the research to know how big that risk is exactly.

Well, I did the research because I was curious -- apparently the normal risk for serious birth defects, with unrelated parents, is about 4%, and for children whose parents are first cousins it's about 6%. So it probably makes less of a difference than most people think.

[dolorous-ett.livejournal.com]

C, I suppose, with a twist of D because I think that now people move around so much, the genepool is probably able to sustain a bit that sort of thing. Given that most people's reaction when faced with a cousin making kissy-kissy faces is to run a mile, I don't think the human race is in any real danger if the odd couple here and there do get it together.

I admit I don't have a personal stake in this - I have no uncles and one childless aunt.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

d/e) It doesn’t phase me at all; I get the impression that it squicks people a lot less in the UK than in the USA – here the idea is humorous rather than icky. I never realised that cousin marriage was actually illegal anywhere in the West pre-OotP. My high school was actually attended by members of the Exclusive Brethren, many of whom were the products of several generations of cousin marriages, and though they did tend to look rather alike, the fact that they didn’t cut their hair or watch television was thought a lot more peculiar than that their parents might be first cousins. Marrying your cousin when you belong to a Norfolk village in C18 might be a bad idea, but not in urban Britain in C20, so long as you haven’t got any obvious genetic issues. I wouldn’t breed with one side of my family because of potential CF carrying, but I wouldn’t be worried about the other.

[yma2.livejournal.com]

(c) is my answer. There are worst things.

[ishafel.livejournal.com]

b, definitely; I'm as close to most of my first cousins as I am to my brother. And I can't really imagine marrying most of my childhood best friends' brothers, either--there's something about having known them when we were kids that makes it squicky for me to consider them that way. But if you met someone and fell in love not knowing you were cousins, that would be okay. It's not the genetics, in other words, it's that I think of certain people in a completely nonsexual way (and hope they think of me that way too)

[lareinenoire.livejournal.com]

Hmm...personally, I think 'not so much' as far as first cousins go. Once you get into seconds, thirds, fourths, etc, I honestly have no opinion. In a non-personal sense, I've read far too much history and far too many Victorian novels/Renaissance plays/etc to be squicked by weird marriages. I just shake my head and say 'watch out for haemophilia.'

[a-t-rain.livejournal.com]

In a non-personal sense, I've read far too much history and far too many Victorian novels/Renaissance plays/etc to be squicked by weird marriages.

Yeah, indeed. I think Ford and Tourneur, between them, have totally warped my view of what constitutes normal human behavior :)

[a-t-rain.livejournal.com]

Thanks for all the answers, folks! I'd say I'm about a (c), by the way; I've got no particular desire to try it out myself, but then I only have one single male cousin in my age range and he happens to be the spitting image of my grandfather, which would make things very weird. Other people? Hey, it's their business.

What brought this on, as some of you may have guessed, was the episode of Jerry Springer we watched in class last week. I was honestly shocked that it seemed to be such a big deal, both for the studio audience (which was chanting "INCEST WHORE! INCEST WHORE!" the whole time) and for all thirteen of the students. I think every last one of them would have answered (a), and most of them seemed to think Jerry's summing-up ("You can't marry your cousin because it's illegal, wrong, and SICK!") was a sound and well-supported argument.

After sounding out various acquaintances, I have a feeling that in America at least, this is a class thing (the students are primarily working-class, Southern, and country; most of the people who said they weren't bothered by it were upper-middle-class) -- though why this should make any difference, I don't know. The geographical distribution of the laws is also interesting -- it mostly seems to split along red America / blue America lines, with a handful of exceptions -- though again, I have no idea why this should be the case, and it's not what I would have predicted.

[chocolatepot.livejournal.com]

Half D and half C. :) After a while I'm just like, oh well, of course Lady Catherine wants Mr Darcy to marry her daughter. And the genetic risk has proven to be much less than it was thought before.

The only way it's disgusting to think about is if one's cousin is like one's brother. If one meets a cousin at a large family reunion and falls in love ... well, that's all right by me.

[the-prof.livejournal.com]

Things like this are a bit of a pet peeve of mine, on the basis of "Why is it anyone else's business?" Why should *I* get to decide whether two men or two women or two first cousins are allowed to get married when it won't have any effect on me whatsoever? *I* don't want to marry another woman or one of my cousins, but I don't care if anyone else does. I understand maintaining a certain moral code, such as not doing things that will kill/harm other people, but beyond that, I don't see why we have the ability to determine what's right for other people, or even why I should care, *especially* when the arguments again such things are typically based more on biased conjecture than on actual facts. And because God says so. Well, call me an athiest heathen, but when it comes to making laws in this country, I don't think God's Opinion is any more important than my nextdoor neighbor's, unless He's running for office. *deep breath* So I guess that's makes it a C for me, heh.

As to the social lines you noticed...I wonder if the class issue isn't based to some degree in education and just general world knowledge. The upper middle classes tend to travel more, or know people who travel more, and tend to put more stress on higher education. That's not across the board, obviously, but I think it's a definite trend. Travel and college are two things that are very good for removing one from a homogenous environment. Both confront a person with the fact that something strange isn't "over there" anymore, but "right here, all around." I wonder if, after a couple years of college, your students won't be so willing to accept Springer's announcement that it's sick, or if they won't at least find it easier to live and let live, if they'll feel so threatened (which seems to be the case) by things that are "weird."

[a-t-rain.livejournal.com]

Yeah, you're probably right that age / education / exposure to different cultures are the important factors here.

And because God says so...

The religion thing is interesting, because Springer certainly seemed to be convinced there was a ban on cousin-marriage in the Bible, but I can't find it. Best I can do is Leviticus 18, which tells you not to sleep with your mother, stepmother, sister, half-sister, granddaughter, aunt, daughter-in-law, sister-in-law, or stepgranddaughter. (Was stepgrandfather / stepgranddaughter sex really so common that they felt the need for an explicit prohibition against it? The mind boggles...) There are also handy warnings against marrying two sisters at the same time, or sleeping with a mother and her daughter, although I have a hard time imagining why anybody would want to do either of these things.

I'm thinking the ancient Hebrew equivalent of Jerry Springer must have been rather lively :)

[dolorous-ett.livejournal.com]

If you get an old-fashioned Church of England prayerbook, there's usually a list of prohibited relations in the back. In the absence of such a document, here's a link. http://www.stmarys-slough.org.uk/1/wedd-kindred.htm

Can't find anything that really looks like cousin on here - though interestingly, nephews or neices seem to be off limits. (not that I have any aspirations in that direction either, I hasten to add!)

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

There’s no ban on cousin-marriage in the bible. It was legalised in Britain between first cousins in 1563 with the first publication of the Table of Kindred and Affinity. Before then, pre-reformation Roman Catholic prohibitions were followed, generally to the 4th degree (by canon law, different from the Roman civil reckoning), although they varied a bit between countries and time. Of course, there were always papal dispensations, notably within the European monarchies. Yes, I wrote an essay on this once – how can you tell?

What’s a bit odd, is that during the Interregnum under the otherwise “puritans”, marriages between uncles and nieces were allowed.

[a-t-rain.livejournal.com]

Well, I suppose that would make sense, if there's no Biblical prohibition against uncles and nieces marrying. More than a bit creepy, though.

Thanks for the information! This has all been very educational.

[a-t-rain.livejournal.com]

If you get an old-fashioned Church of England prayerbook, there's usually a list of prohibited relations in the back. In the absence of such a document, here's a link. http://www.stmarys-slough.org.uk/1/wedd-kindred.htm

That actually looks almost identical to the passage from Leviticus, with a few additions (notably, the prohibition against marrying nephews and nieces), and the genders reversed in the second half.

[dolorous-ett.livejournal.com]

Don't blame me - I wasn't the one who wrote it!

Fascinating discussion by the way.

[persephone-kore.livejournal.com]

Actually, my first thought on the social lines was something else entirely. Marrying relatives is actually part of a (sometimes fairly nasty) stereotype of "working-class, Southern, country" people as rednecks/hicks with... oh, go look up Jeff Foxworthy, that's what he's riffing -- and while it's certainly been a historical habit of royalty, it comes in for a fair bit of scorn in that context. It's possible that the students in question have that as their first association (whether their education has included the others or not) and that there was an element of expecting to be insulted in their reaction.

Or I could be guessing completely wrong. But it crossed my mind as another possibility.

[a-t-rain.livejournal.com]

Well, this particular group of students is entirely black, so they probably aren't too used to having redneck stereotypes associated with them :) But it could definitely explain why Americans in general are so hung-up about cousin-marriage. (For what it's worth, the ever-informative Cecil Adams (http://www.straightdope.com/columns/041001.html) seems to think so.)

[persephone-kore.livejournal.com]

Ah, missed that part. But yeah, I can see that being involved.

[(Anonymous)]

I must admit I've long been amused by Foxworthy's riff that "You might be a redneck if your family tree doesn't branch." My paternal grandparents were second cousins (married 1936) and would actually fit much better into Garrison Keillor's Lake Wobegon than into Redneck-ville because they grew up in a Great Plains farming community named for their mutual ancestors. (As a kid, I thought it was cool to have my rather uncommon last name on road mileage signs.)

Nowadays, since people are able to travel (and meet non-relatives) so much more readily, I think it's become increasingly uncommon, and therefore leading to the "ewww, it's weird" factor. Actually, marrying cousins could be convenient; Grandma B, like Eleanor Roosevelt, didn't have to go through the fuss of changing her name!

Lorelei Lynn

[moriaravenswood.livejournal.com]

Wow... that episode must have been pretty sickening to watch. And not because of the 'kissing cousins' aspect. I guess if you go on Jerry Springer, you're kind of asking for it, but... ew. That IS sick.

Okay, back on topic: I'd say C or D, depending on the context. It strikes me as a bit weird, but if that's what makes them happy it's fine with me. My only question would have been the genetic one, but a 2% increase in risk isn't really that impressive.

I will comment, though, that it was only a few years ago that I realized first-cousin marriages were legal in the modern world. I get the distinct feeling that my own family, at least on Mom's side, would be thoroughly disgusted if we had a first cousin marriage, but I don't know what I'm basing that on. It might just be that all of my male first cousins are at least fifteen years older than me.

[a-t-rain.livejournal.com]

Wow... that episode must have been pretty sickening to watch. And not because of the 'kissing cousins' aspect. I guess if you go on Jerry Springer, you're kind of asking for it, but... ew. That IS sick.

Truly. I guess (or hope, anyway) that it's all staged, but the whole Roman-carnival atmosphere ... ick. I've honestly got no idea why my colleague chose to use this particular show in her class, but it's definitely the first and last episode of Springer that I'm ever planning to watch.