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JennyDreadful
11/28/09

In reply to Cousin "It": We Now Pronounce You Cusband And Wife
[www.thirdcoastfestival.org]

A radio documentary on this subject recently was aired for Chicago Public Radio's 3rd coast festivals.

It interviews a man who was adopted and recently met some of his biological family and fell in love with his biological sister. It's pretty candid and respectful look at this topic.
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regazza_di_lupo
11/28/09

In reply to Cousin "It": We Now Pronounce You Cusband And Wife
I wouldn't do it. Ever. I wouldn't date my 6th cousin, who had a crush on me. It's just weird to me. If it's consenting and someone else wants to, fine, but I'm not gonna pretend it doesn't squick me. It does, can't lie there.
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hauntedleg
11/28/09

@regazza_di_lupo: Dating a 6th cousin would "squick" you? Wow. I mean, by that point they're not even related to you anymore, you simply share a common great-great-great-great-great grandparent. When you have to go 5 generations back to find a common ancestor, it just seems silly to be grossed out.
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regazza_di_lupo
11/28/09

@hauntedleg: it may seem silly to you, but we grew up together and people talked about the 'family' all the time- we were at family reunions together and his mother crowed about how happy she was to have us 'smart kids' in her family. that sort of thing just turned me off of the idea really quick. there are a LOT of things that squick me out when it comes to relationships- someone not reading, someone eating nothing but junk food, people who don't like animals... and also someone being related to me. even distantly. bleh.
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clevernamehere
11/29/09

@regazza_di_lupo: How do you even know your 6th cousin? 6th cousin is a set of shared great-great-great-great-great-grandparents
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regazza_di_lupo
11/29/09

@clevernamehere: there are some geneology nuts in our family, apparently. The guy's mom, my fifth cousin? I guess, has just always known a lot about the family, and so has my grandfather. I have no idea how we're related (other than the technicalities), I just know that we are, we hung out a lot as kids, and I thought it was sorta icky that someone in my 'family' had a bit of a crush on me. Family is a safe zone for me. I've had some bad experiences in my life and I want absolutely NOTHING sexual with anyone I'd consider family.
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SpainExPat
11/28/09

In reply to Cousin "It": We Now Pronounce You Cusband And Wife
I don't think anyone has said this already downthread, but apologies if I'm repeating.

The main reason that the incest taboo exists is from when women were the property of the patriarchal head of the family, and marrying off the women to neighboring families was a good way to maintain positive relations (pun!) between neighbors. If a woman were to begin a relationship with a man in her family, her financial value would decrease because then her father could not marry her off. And so began the incest taboo so that men could get the full benefit out of their female offspring.

Today does exist the genetics argument, but incest taboo has existed much longer than we've known about genetics. Nevertheless, knowing how the taboo came about, I'm less apt to take issue with kissin' cousins now.
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FrannyR
11/28/09

@SpainExPat: Ppl have been aware that diseases run in families for a long time. Even more so when ppl didn't travel much and everyone was related somehow anyway. They also saw it when they bred their animals. Even though they didn't understand why, farmers have always avoided inbreeding animals because it produced sickly or dead offspring
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mizzmarvel
11/28/09

@FrannyR: Agreed. Primarily, it's a genetics thing, even if people haven't always understood what genetics is, per se.
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Caitlin Kinahan
11/28/09

In reply to Cousin "It": We Now Pronounce You Cusband And Wife
My parents are originally from a really small mountain town in Pakistan and my paternal grandmother arranged the marriage. My mom was seventeen and my dad was 30 (don't get me started on that!). When I was about sixteen I did some thinking and realized my parents are 2nd cousins. It made me feel weird, especially when Dad tells cute stories about knowing Mom when she was a kid. Having said that, my brothers and I have turned out normal and I think I'd be way less creeped out by my parents' story if my mom was an adult and had chosen to marry my dad. We put the "fun" in "dysfunctional" kids!
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Kayleigh R. Carter
11/27/09

In reply to Cousin "It": We Now Pronounce You Cusband And Wife
To me, a big thing about it being gross is that family is supposed to be, "safe" sexually. Meaning, you don't have to worry about hugging or snuggling with your relatives because they will treat you like a person, not like a cute boy or girl.

Marrying your cousin sort of takes you out of that "safe" dynamic, and just makes everyone uncomfortable.

I probably feel this way because of our culture, I have no real biological reason for my distaste in it. It just makes me feel gross.
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MargaretMoony
11/27/09

In reply to Cousin "It": We Now Pronounce You Cusband And Wife
Why is incest so fascinating? Why? I mean, not a lot of people want to do it, but they sure want to read/write/etc about it.
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Tartan_Tart (formerly Scarletbegonia)
11/27/09

@MargaretMoony: It's definitely one of the most classic twists in gothic novels.
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ice princess
11/27/09

In reply to Cousin "It": We Now Pronounce You Cusband And Wife
Ok, confession time. My mom and dad are 2nd cousins (my paternal and maternal great grandmas are sisters). And my one of my dad's sisters is married to one of my mom's paternal 1st cousins. I have 5 sisters and we are all pretty normal, except for 2 with R.A and my chubby thumbs.
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Nihar
11/27/09

In reply to Cousin "It": We Now Pronounce You Cusband And Wife
As a geneticist, consanguineous relationships light up big, red sirens in my head. In the past three weeks, I've (personally) seen identified and identified three new genetic diseases that were discovered in consanguineous marriages (two were first cousins, one was 2nd cousins). While the risk of genetic defect is small, its a much larger risk as compared to non-consanguineous marriages.

People have mentioned that no marriage should be prevented because of hypothetical children, and I heartily agree with this rational. But if there is sex going on in this marriage, there is no way to 100% prevent pregnancy (without resorting to major surgery). After staring at xrays, pictures, and medical charts of these poor babies who have had torturous lives, I can say (definitively) that even if on of my first cousins was the love of my life, I wouldn't marry them.

Yes, we can test for genetic diseases, but not for the ones we haven't discovered yet.
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Her Grace
11/27/09

@Nihar Bhattacharyya: The rate for genetic problems in non consanguineous marriages is around 3-4%, and marrying a cousin adds up to another 2.8%. Frankly, that's generally less than any group suffering from the founder effect (like strict Amish communities). I just don't see how it's so bad.
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fictitious
11/27/09

@#c17142256 @#c17143261:

I know the numbers don't seem too awful, but my large extended family has overwhelmingly lost the genetic lottery due to consanguineous marriage (1st and 2nd degrees). We're a case study for a rare form of anemia and have higher-than-average occurrences of autism.

Since I have well over a 140 second cousins (have not met more than a handful), I joke that any future husband/babydaddy will have to compare family trees just to make sure!
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Dorilys
11/27/09

@Nihar Bhattacharyya: Yay! You posted very nearly what I was going to post. Cheers to being geneticists!
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outrageouschaos
11/28/09

@Her Grace: The rate for which genetic problems? ALL of them? I question the scientific credibility of a blanket statistic like that.
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Her Grace
11/28/09

@outrageouschaos: That was the information presented in the article. I kind of question it, too, without any methodology given, but as far as I can tell, yes, all genetic diseases.
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clevernamehere
11/29/09

@Her Grace: But where does the general population number come from?

I know in the US people tend to come from more diverse genetic backgrounds simply due to immigration, but in many other countries there hasn't been the same influx of people over the last 200 years. If two cousins marry in Karachi or Kerry is the rate still the same?
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Le Kangourou de Kataroo
11/27/09

In reply to Cousin "It": We Now Pronounce You Cusband And Wife
Once again, Liz Lemon already has something to say on this subject:
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Le Kangourou de Kataroo
11/27/09

@Le Kangourou de Kataroo: Let's try this again...

Dammit! Video at link:
[vids.myspace.com]
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Edited by Le Kangourou de Kataroo at 11/27/09 7:56 PM

AfroJezeBella
11/27/09

In reply to Cousin "It": We Now Pronounce You Cusband And Wife
Why would you tell your kids that you're cousins? Do they really need to know at a young age?
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spiraloflife
11/27/09

@AfroJezeBella: I mean, eventually they'd figure out that they don't have two distinct sets of relatives like other kids, right?
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clevernamehere
11/29/09

@spiraloflife: A six year old I know just had to be told that he had two grandmothers because while grandmother A is called grandma grandmother B is called Nonna. He sees both families all the time and has aunts, uncles, cousins on both sides.

Still, I don't know how a 13 year old wouldn't have noticed at least the lack of relatives.
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spamanda
11/27/09

In reply to Cousin "It": We Now Pronounce You Cusband And Wife
I can't believe I missed this!
My husband's sister married their first cousin. They were all raised together. My husband was a bit weirded out by it, but honestly his family is so interestingly dysfunctional that it didn't shock me.
They split up this past summer. That has made life interesting, since he's still part of our family but obviously they don't want to be around each other for holidays and things.
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cupcakebelly
11/27/09

@spamanda: I love that- interestingly dysfunctional. I'm going to borrow that phrase to describe my family.
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spamanda
11/27/09

@cupcakebelly: They're the kind that doesn't hurt anyone, but when I describe them to people, everyone says, "WTF?" lol
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MargaretMoony
11/27/09

@cupcakebelly: I also like that phrasing.
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PoisonPixie
11/27/09

In reply to Cousin "It": We Now Pronounce You Cusband And Wife
I think it's important to note why this still exists outside our culture. Most cultures that do this are taught to keep the money and land in the family, therefore they tend to marry a first cousin as their first wife (often this is arranged). Then, they may take a second wife as a "love wife" (not that they aren't having sex with them both, and will probably have kids with them both). Here, when there aren't arranged marriages, and polygamy is illegal...why are people still compelled to do this? I think that's a very interesting question, especially since it has been shown that their children might have problems. Personally, my cousins are like my siblings...so I couldn't imagine this for that reason.
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clevernamehere
11/29/09

@PoisonPixie: Lots of cultures have no problem with cousin marriage but do have a problem with polygomy. Beyond land, lots of people lack the ability to travel. In small villages, this means a lot of people are already related so unless you go hunting for a non-related partner odds are good that you will end up with a cousin.
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PoisonPixie
11/29/09

@clevernamehere: Very true. I was speaking about one country in particular...but didn't want to say the name.
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waverly
11/27/09

In reply to Cousin "It": We Now Pronounce You Cusband And Wife
Eh, whatever. People are people. Love is love. Holes are holes.
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FroderickFronkensteen
11/27/09

@waverly: People have holes, love goes in those holes, love creates other people in those holes, and people come out of people. It's a beautiful cycle, life.
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HereComesMyBaby
11/27/09

@FroderickFronkensteen: Hah! Well said.
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Pantra
11/27/09

In reply to Cousin "It": We Now Pronounce You Cusband And Wife
My family is scattered to the winds but some cousins try valiantly to foment ties via Facebook and such. One cousin was drunk online one night and confessed to me that he was very attracted to me the last time we met when I was 15 and he was 22. I'm still shivering with revulsion and I dread any future family reunions now. I don't care that we didn't grow up together. He should have kept that shit to himself.
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arirang
11/27/09

In reply to Cousin "It": We Now Pronounce You Cusband And Wife
OT: why is this story in the Home & Garden section of the NYT?
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waverly
11/27/09

@arirang: Because where else do you kiss your cousin but inside your home...and your garden?!
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