I recently found out that an aunt on my father's side of the family, who I am not very familiar with, is married to her cousin. They've been married for a good 15 years or so. She had been in a previous marriage and had four children with that husband. I don't know when or how she decided to marry her cousin, but in order to do it they had to move to Idaho and she had to prove that she could no longer give birth. I am not sure how I feel about this little tidbit of information. I saw my aunt a lot when I was very little but it's been a while, and I don't remember her well. Part of me is a little weirded out by the whole idea of it, but mostly I don't really mind.
Do you think it's incest to marry a cousin, even if the relationship is 100% consensual and the woman cannot give birth? Do you think it's totally disgusting? Should it be illegal?
I just want to hear what other people think about this issue.
It must be a shock, yet this does occur in the world. If the cousina are blood related, it is kind of unbelievable to accept in America. Yet, they are happy together and you aren't close to them. Let them be, no matter how ackward, they are family. Just wondering why Idaho?
Idaho was probably the closest state where such a union was legal...
It is a little strange. If the marriage is consumated and they're blood related, it's definately incest whether they have children or not.
Of course, it could just be a financialy motivated marriage. Or she wanted a father for the kids or something.
James wants cookies. And hopefully, he'll get them soon.
Yeah, Idaho was the closest state.
I know it wasn't for money...I don't believe either of them has much of it... and by the time they married each other, her kids were all adults.
___________________________
"Let the world change you, and you will change the world."
Not that I'm judging your aunt, or anything. But that's gross. I cannot imagine marrying ANY of my cousins (well, ok, I only know one of my guy cousins, and he's 4 years younger than me... a couple of my cousins on my dad's side are older than me, by a number of years...). And it'd just be weird for my aunts and uncles to be my in-laws as well. So yeah, most of my opinion is based on trying to imagine myself marrying a cousin. It's not working.
~C
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I have no problem with cousin-cousin relations. They've been acceptable in many cultures, including European and American culture, throughout history. We Americans and Europeans really only started being revolted by the concept in the past fifty years or so.
But then, the fact that something was acceptable in the past doesn't actually make it acceptable. I was just providing a historical context. In this case, however, I do feel that it's acceptable. Genetically speaking, procreating with one's cousin is not much worse than with a complete stranger, in that the odds of genetic diseases surfacing aren't much greater. Of course, as you said, this particular couple won't be having children.
In any case, and this is the ultimate point, it's not anybody else's fucking business. They're not hurting anybody else, so I see no reason to label it as "wrong." If you think it's gross, that's just personal preference, so I guess I can't criticize you for that.
But overall, I like this blog post for sparking this kind of discussion. It's a fairly icky issue for some people, but it's worth talking about.
No, procreating with your first cousin does increase the chance that a genetic disorder will pop up. Inbreeding is defined as: the mating of closely related individuals, as cousins, sire-daughter, brother-sister, or self-fertilized plants, which tends to increase the number of individuals that are homozygous for a trait and therefore increases the appearance of recessive traits. (dictionary.com) Cousins share a set of grandparents, and thus are more likely to have the same trait passed down to them, even if both are only carriers for any given genetic disorder. If both are carriers, there's a 25% chance that the children will have whatever disorder it is. Inbreeding also tends to affect moods and whatnot in children, but I'm not sure how, so I won't go into that. That's the REASON we've grown to be against it. It increases genetic diseases, and many states still won't allow you to marry a first cousin.
That being said, they're not having children, so there's no reason for them to not marry. I'd see marrying my cousin akin to marrying a brother that hasn't lived with me my whole life. However, other people don't feel this way, and that's fine. They're very powerful people to be doing this despite what many will think of them, if they were to find out.
~C
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Congratulations, we both know what incest is. Give yourself a pat on the back.
In the meantime, look up the study done by Robin L. Bennett, which shows that the increased risk of genetic defects from procreation between cousins is between 1.7 and 2.8 percent, which is roughly the same risk increase seen in women who have children over the age of 40.
Also, you'll notice that I never said there's no increased risk of genetic defects when cousins procreate. My exact words were "aren't much greater."
So unless we want to forbid women over 40 from having children (those who still can, anyway), there's certainly no reason to forbid cousins from having children.
I don't see a problem with cousins marrying as per it is legal.
The only problem I have with inter-family relationships is when the offspring is subject to more birth defects and mental problems because of closely related people reproducing.
Cousins? Sure.
Father and daughter? No.
Sisters/brothers of spouses? (The wife's sister marry's the wife's husbands brother.) Sure!
Brother and sister? No.
If you were raised in the same house, no....that's just not right. I can't explain why, as I really have no basis for it, but I don't think it is.