Marriages between relatives are widespread in the Middle East

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Elok
No, s/he means that the phrase "or more distant relatives" is a pretty loose term. We're all distant relatives, if it comes to that. IIRC, no two people on earth are more than twenty-somethingth cousins or some such, and once you get past second or third the DNA in common isn't that significant in most cases provided they aren't related in more than one way. The phrase could be used as a meaningless scare for any data. So the term is poorly chosen. On those limited grounds, I agree.

I know what he meant; however, the wording of the study implies that everyone else is closer than 1st cousins, i.e. siblings or half-siblings though obviously that's not true.

[trev]

Moses did bring in some restrictions on marriage, these referring to the immediate family, brothers, sisters, half siblings, step parents, step children etc. Before that restrictions were less as Abraham married a half sister, Isaac married cousin/2nd cousin or like, same as Jacob.
I know people who have married an aunt for example, fortunately they married late and remained childless, so close marriages can still happen even if rare.

[lord of the mark]

"On the basis of the higher frequency of defective births resulting from unions among blood relatives, Rabbi Judah the Pious, in his Ethical will, prohibited marriages between first cousins and between uncles and nieces. Yet such marriages are sanctioned in the Bible and expressly encouraged in the Talmud (Yebamot 62b and Sanhedrin 76b), perhaps to propagate good genes. Since consanguineous marriages do not cause birth defects but merely increase their risk, most Rabbis do not ban such marriages (37-38). Some Rabbis, however, strongly caution against it (39-41)."

[Dis]

we seem to have a lot of incest threads here on poly.

Just admit your secret crushes on your cousins and get it over with. I've had a couple cousins I'd like to ****. I'm man enough to admit it.

*runs away*

[Ned]

Would a law against marrying your first cousin apply in the case of gay marriages?

[Elok]

Yes. They can't cross the Straight Person Ickiness Threshold (SPIT), or they lose their support. It's a point-based system, really. First cousins count as more points than second cousins, and writing creepy-ass poems like Allen Ginsberg count as more than either one. Crossing the SPIT line would be penalized by having to have sex with a toaster, plugged in and turned on.

[Spec]

Marriages between relatives are widespread in the Middle East

That explains a lot.

Spec.

[aneeshm]

Re: Marriages between relatives are widespread in the Middle East

Originally posted by Spec
That explains a lot.

Spec.

[Imran Siddiqui]

My uncle (my father's brother) married his first cousin. Their kids turned out well, all going through higher education in the UK and getting great jobs (though the youngest is still in King's College in London for medical studies).

[Jon Miller]

Darwin married his first cousin.. and their children were very successful.

I really don't see much wrong in marrying a persons first cousin.. unless they feel like family (I know that many of my first cousins I have only met like once in the last 20 years).

JM

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
My uncle (my father's brother) married his first cousin. Their kids turned out well, all going through higher education in the UK and getting great jobs (though the youngest is still in King's College in London for medical studies).

How do we explain you, though?

[The Mad Viking]

A couple of points.

The translation of "cousin" from Arabic may be a little specious. Cousin is perhaps better considered as "kinsman". People have a sense of belonging in large "clans" who trace a common lineage, and will often marry within the "clan" for political reasons. A certain number of marriages also take place outside the clan. These may be arranged with an allied, and several brides being "exchanged".

Mennonite colonies do the same thing in the Americas to this day.

Marrying your second cousin is not illegal in Canada, and I doubt it is illegal in the US, or if so, only a few states.

[Dis]

marrying first cousins is allowed in some U.S. states as well such as Maryland.

[VetLegion]

Originally posted by The Mad Viking
A couple of points.

The translation of "cousin" from Arabic may be a little specious. Cousin is perhaps better considered as "kinsman".

That's a good point. However, it seems that many indeed do marry first cousins as in "my son marries my brother's daughter".

The articles I quoted even give some figures about the frequency of that practice. However, the best I could come up for quotes were some blogs and online articles. It would be more convincing if there was an authoritative source on the issue.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by VetLegion


Few miles is quite enough in an agricultural society.

After a couple hundred years, everyone in the immediate area is related.