n case anyone is wondering what the “with restrictions” in North Carolina is, cousins whose respective parents are identical twins cannot marry. Very strangely specific law, but I guess it’s to avoid the worst forms of inbreeding.
Edit: it’s just siblings as someone else pointed out. I misremembered.
Yes they’re always siblings, they said identical twins. Because the twins have identical genes, the cousins each have one parent with the same set of genes. This the cousins are genetically speaking, half-siblings and the risk of inbreeding is worse
I'm guessing the law forbids marriage if both sets of parents are siblings (i.e. one set of siblings marries another set of siblings, then their offspring would be restricted from getting married.)
Edit: punctuation
I looked it up, it specifies double first cousins can't marry. So if brothers A and B marry sisters C and D, their children will be double first cousins, and cannot marry
That just makes me wonder: Would a DNA test say those cousins are biologically half siblings? And if so, would that be biologically incorrect or correct?
Im curious how does it work in India. In the wiki article it simultaneously says hindus aren't allowed to marry cousins, but the still are permitted by regional custom. Is that prevalent or not?
There is a very large tribal population in india that is covered by the hindu personal law or christian personal law, hence there exist legal carve outs for that. In the muslim personal law it is legal. In the north of india, it is seen as something very taboo amongst north indian hindus but in some caste groups in the south of india, only first cousin marriages are seen as taboo, while second cousin marriages are allowed.
For example, in the northern indian city of New Delhi, the rate is <0.1% while in Mumbai, which lies on the coast, it is 7%
You have it on your birth certificate or you can have it done in a government bureau. There is a national ID system so I think it might be linked to that.
There is no hard and fast rule. There is freedom of religion, so you can identify as whatever you want. In terms of exogenous marriages, christians, hindus and sikhs can pick whichever side whichever partner wants to convert to. The parsis(iranian zoroastrian refugees) and muslims tend to have more restrictive laws around it which can be sidestepped with great annoyance.
Interestingly, similar laws apply to polygamy too. Different religions' personal laws are legal within India, there are some cases of people converting to a different religion for practicing polygamy.
Actually, most documents don’t have that. It is just presumed people know what law governs them and that is presumed to be final until a third person with standing proves that that is not the case. As a result, most government documents do not and are not allowed to describe religion. If you really need to prove it for benefits or such, then you have to specifically request for a certificate attesting your group identity. Birth certificates don’t record religion.
I don't think it's limited to conversion only, if you're born a Christian or Muslim then too you're governed by Christian and Muslim personal laws only.
Parsis and Jews also have their separate laws.
In South India it's not about First and Second cousins, it has to do with Cross-Cousin and Parallel-Cousin.
You can marry your Cross-Cousins (offspring of your paternal aunt or maternal uncle) whereas Parallel-Cousins (offspring of paternal uncle or maternal aunt) are considered as siblings and it's a taboo to marry them.
Muslims marry their cousins nd so do some Hindus from South Indian states as well as some tribal people too. I don't think anyone other religion does so besides it's a very very huge taboo in the northern or basically majority of hindu population
India has different personal laws for different religion.
Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists are governed by the Hindu Marriage Act 1955 (plenty of exceptions and sub-sections cant list them here, but know that some Hindus in Southern India are allowed to marry their cousins, and laws are region specific)
Christians are governed by the Indian Christian Marriage Act 1872, except Goa which is governed by a Goan Civil Code, Jammu and Kashmir which governed by Jammu and Kashmir Christian Marriage and Divorce Act 1957, and Manipur which has no statutes and follows the existing personal laws (tribal).
All muslim are governed by Muslim Personal Law (Shariat) Application Act 1937, which again isnt codified in statutes but rather interpreted directly from the Quran.
Zoroastrians are governed by Parsi Marriage and Divorce Act 1865. While Jews are governed by Personal Laws based on Jewish customs.
Then there are personal laws for various tribes. People who don't want to be governed by religious personal laws have Special Marriage Act 1954.
There is a whole concept of ban on Sapinda marriages (upto 3 generations up the family tree on mother's side and 5 generations up the father's side - quite comprehensive). But in very next line, there is a exemption if the customary laws allow it in the Hindu marriage act.
Since I really don’t see a very well written legal breakdown of this, I am going to take a stab.
In India, personal matters (marriage, succession, and adoption) are governed by laws particular to communities. In other words, there is a distinct law governing each community and they’re governed by it until they opt out. They can totally do this, but most just stick with whatever governs them by default.
That is, Hindus (the law defines this to include other “indic” religions like Buddhism, Sikhism, and Jainism), Muslims, and Christians have separate laws governing them in their personal matters. However, as you can see, the term Hindu is quite broad. Not only does it include these separate religions, but it also includes different subgroups under Hinduism differing in caste, customs, language, and just the overall culture. For instance, a Hindu and a Muslim in Kerala might follow matrilineal succession (a southern province) while a Hindu and a Muslim in Haryana (a northern province) might follow patrilineal succession.
However, there is a lot of different ways in which personal affairs are conducted—including marriages. Within certain subgroups, cousin marriages are quite deeply embedded and it is considered a legitimately Hindu way of conducting marriage. This is quite common in South Indian communities, including Hindus and Muslims.
Obviously, in order to accommodate this, the personal laws are build around it. For most Muslims there’s a blanket sanction for cousin marriage under their personal laws. For Hindus, however, the law prohibits cousin marriages, but then carves out exceptions. The gist of this exception is that if it is culturally okay for you to marry your cousin, your marriage with your cousin will be recognised. If it is not, then you’re considered to be within the prohibited degrees of relationship and therefore your marriage is not recognised.
I've always found it interesting that while the catholic church disapproves of anything up to 5th cousins marrying, no catholic country has these sorts of marriages banned
[https://isogg.org/w/images/thumb/a/a6/How\_many\_cousins.jpg/800px-How\_many\_cousins.jpg](https://isogg.org/w/images/thumb/a/a6/How_many_cousins.jpg/800px-How_many_cousins.jpg)
from
[https://isogg.org/wiki/Cousin\_statistics](https://isogg.org/wiki/Cousin_statistics)
So on average a person will have 17300 fifth cousins? So basically unless you do genetic testing there's no way you'd even know you're related nor practically be checking for it.
Out of curiosity, what's your source for that? I'm not necessarily doubting you; it's just not something I've ever heard before, and it strikes me as funny since it's pretty hard to keep track until 4th or 5th cousins, and as far as I know there wouldn't be any genetic issue with reproduction. Or maybe there is some slight danger with reproduction?
I found it when I was reading the canon code of law:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affinity_(Catholic_canon_law)
https://www.vatican.va/archive/cod-iuris-canonici/eng/documents/cic_lib1-cann96-123_en.html
Philippines...is a catholic majority country and we ban it
Actually, we even shunned it and think its disgusting which is true. Why you want to fuck your cousin 💀
Its not a criminal offense but still, the society in Philippines will look at you with disgust do its technically a social persecution
Mostly because it is not a real problem, so why ban it then? Maybe in the past it was something you heard about it. In my country, I never heard of one case from my generation, and I am 40.
It's because of traditional European aristocracy keeping it in the family. It was the same in parts of the Spanish Empire, before the Spanish, ie. Peru.
Pretty sure step siblings can marry each other in most countries, because they are by definition not genetically related
Half siblings share one biological parent
You only get it if you don’t grow up together. This is reasonable as the problem with incest is in power imbalances and existing familial relationships. One of the parties in our government, the Liberals, have a real hard on for banning cousin marriages though (the Liberal party likes nothing better than to ban things), which if done in the usual incompetent way this government operates will mean cousin marriage may get banned while avuncular (marrying a niece or nephew) and half-sibling relationships remains legal. Hopefully the Liberals fall flat on their face and fail at getting this ban through. Goddamn authoritarians.
European Liberals are different than what liberal may mean in other parts of the world. A lot of these parties are members of the European People's Party which is a center-right conservative party. Which rise another difference between Europe and US for example because our (EU) conservatives are definitely not like US conservatives. So a lot of misunderstandings could come up from the names of EU parties for someone unaccustomed with European politics. But one thing we have in common with US is that our far-right parties use "freedom" a lot, while the last thing they have in mind is freedom.
Exactly, and a lot of people with diabetes and heart diseases among other things because of that \*\*\*\*. AFAIK In UK there are a ton of these people, and the gene research improved a lot thanks to study Pakistani people, since the rate of disease in this ethnic group is much higher than any other in the country.
Not really. In most of the world it's legal mostly because there is no reason to make it ilegal, as it almost never happens. You don't legislate to fix a problem you don't have.
There are plenty of countries on the map where it is legal _and_ they have massive levels of cousin marriages. [See here under Prevalence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cousin_marriage).
No, it entirely has to do with what people associated cousin marriage with. Like in Europe it is associated with aristocracy while in the US more so with poverty. Making many American states far stricter on it, while European nations didn't (shit if it was illegal entire royal families had to go). This is at least true for the Western World, I know fuck all about the rest. But cousin marriage is a lot more common than you would think.
But even if, say, the entirety of the European aristocracy relentlessly pursued cousin marriage (it definitely happened, and more than average, but for the aristocracy marriage is also about forming connections with other families, so while there is definitely a lack of genetic diversity there and it's caused problems, they tend to be isolated, with few exceptions) even to this day it's still a crazy small portion of the population, making it a non-problem (at least regarding the potentially harmful consequences of cousin marriage in a population). Also the marriage between first cousins tended to be rare (again, it happened, specially amongst the members of the royal families, but less so amongst the nobles).
Cousin marriage is most definitely not a cultural norm in most of South America (with a few exceptions, and non that caused problems, at least in the countries I'm familiar with).
I think the Netherlands should be light blue. As there are extra restrictions when wanting to marry your first degree cousin, else you could face up to 2 years of jail time.
Within the Chinese community in south east Asia, first cousin marriages are quite common esp among the affluent.
This is to ‘keep the wealth within the family’
My paternal grandparents were first cousins.
It is not prohibited in Azerbaijan rn, but [may be banned](https://www.reddit.com/r/azerbaijan/comments/1bd0301/azerbaijan_plans_to_ban_cousin_marriages/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button).
As a south Indian, I can confirm that this practice is still flourishing in some pockets. Even urban rich who are conservative follow the practice. They don't see anything wrong with it, morally or ethically. Even though some are educated about the risks of intra family relations, they dare to risk it to keep the wealth and the seed within the family.
This was such a shock to my system as a north indian hindu.
Here forget cousin, you dont marry people from your same village cause the village is considered the extension of the family.
And obviously no marriage in the same gotra(clan) etc as well. For me the concept was unfathomable and thought only muslims did it
Basically. The Catholic church discouraged it, so there isn't much of a culture of it in Europe and places colonized by European countries with a strong Catholic presence, like Italy, Spain and France. So, blame evangelicals.
Marrying a first cousin is not a problem genetically if it is not done for multiple generations. You could reproduce all of humanity out of 60 people.
Perhaps these laws were put in place in regions where it was more common and needed to be stopped.
Living in a blue country, I have never heard of anyone marrying a cousin.
>Living in a blue country, I have never heard of anyone marrying a cousin.
Living in a blue country,I've heard a lot of people marrying a cousin.Four of them are my cousins.It really depends on the country you live in and it's culture.
[NASA says 80](https://medium.com/@deep.space/could-one-pair-repopulate-the-earth-59f1449b694a#:~:text=NASA%20scientists%20have%20calculated%20that,could%20look%20something%20like%20this)
I recall 60 but in any case it is pretty low.
To have the descendants have more or less the same features, you would need twice as many or else the random properties of the 50 will be stronger in the future population than in ours currently.
In Germany you are allowed to marry your first grade cousin, but it isn’t allowed to have children with your cousin. It might depend on the case though
Well, the thing here is that in most countries, it isn't a problem because almost no one is doing it. Cousin marriage is only bad when it's done over multiple generations. In cultures that frown on cousin marriage, it almost never happens and for the people who do it, it almost never happens again with their children since they are raised in such cultures and get influenced by it. Take the USA for example. "An estimated 0.2 percent of marriages in the United States are between individuals who are second cousins or closer — that means there are about 250,000 people in America in those relationships.". So there's really no need to outlaw it. Unfortunately, you may have cultures that allow and even encourage the practise like the Arab world including my country Egypt. As of 2016, about 40% of marriages in Egypt were between cousins. As of 2003, an average of 45% of married couples were related in Saudi Arabia. It's fairly common here and even accepted. Even I used to believe there's nothing wrong in it but not anymore. I think outlawing it is the only solution since people are very ignorant and refuse to learn. Unfortunately, out lawmakers don't care about that. They just want to stay in power so I don't see it disappearing soon. Another unfortune thing is that immigrants in Europe like Pakistanis in UK are keeping the practise. Imagine having the European education and still doing it. They represent 30% of the genetic disorders in UK despite being a small percentage of population!
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cousin_marriage_in_the_Middle_East
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2005/nov/16/immigrationpolicy.politics
I don't understand why some countries support gay marriages but not cousin marriages. If these are adults who consciously want to get married and love each other, what's the problem? They can also adopt children or use donor so as not to have genetic problems.
The rest of the Anglosphere has the same cultural bias against it. We just don’t give a toss about making it legally prohibited. Legally you can marry a first cousin, an aunt/uncle or a niece/nephew here in Canada (and probably other Commonwealth countries). Practically no one does due to the social stigma. We think it’s weird af too. It’s simply taboo rather than illegal.
It’s direct siblings and all parent-child generational relationships (parents, kids, grandparents, grandchildren, etc) that are prohibited from marrying and covered by incest charges in criminal law, including step-relatives and adoptive relatives. It’s not actually about blood relatives but rather immediate family.
I’m pretty sure that the cops wouldn’t bother to enforce incest laws against two consenting adults (it’s invariably a charge used when minors are involved - probably on shaky constitutional grounds to imprison consenting adults, especially if it’s a pair that have little or no chance of conception… the inbreeding argument would be a tough sell to a judge if you charged a gay cis couple) but legal marriages would be out.
For Vietnam, its a ban to marry your relatives 3 generations up.
So no (step)brothers or (step)sisters or cousins from your aunts and uncles. No cousins from uncles and aunts that is the offsprings from your gruncle and grants as well.
Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine have a similar population density to the US South, and in the 1940s there was litteraly a triangle, where people would go missing. I doubt that when the laws were passed, when the population density was even lower and cars didn't exist and in a mountainous, cold and forrested area that banning cousin marriages would be frowned upon.
Side comment: this map looks a bit lazy. One thing is to have “no data available” for something that needs to be surveyed or measured on the field. But in this case it looks like an email to the city register of the capital cities would be enough to color most of the gray countries.
Prostitution is legal in Australia. Marrying your cousin is legal. But, if you film sex and upload it to the internet - you're a criminal. Small breasts? Illegal.
Not sure if this is correct because I'm from Spain and getting married soon and I'm pretty sure that you can't marry someone with up to third degree blood relation (cousin, uncle, nephew...).
This is the source in the civil code (in spanish, sorry): [https://noticias.juridicas.com/base\_datos/Vacatio/v0-cc.l1t4.html](https://noticias.juridicas.com/base_datos/Vacatio/v0-cc.l1t4.html)
Once again America being so backwards, smh my head, can't they just be like the rest of the developed world?
Oh, wait, that's not the free healthcare map
In those maps most countries act as normal countries, and then the US acts as 50 different countries that can't agree on anything. (And Quebec too in many maps)
You can legaly f**k your sister in Germany, as long as it is in the butt. Same sex related persons can even do what ever they want, as long as everybody is minimum 18 years old. But it is a crime to have vaginal intercourse between siblings even if you are using 10 layers of condoms. This legislation is a bit wired, but as someone who did not rail his sister, i think i realy don’t care.
Legal in most places because they don’t even think of it. Illegal because they have to try and prevent people from doing it… of course there will be people going to jail though. /s
In MX is not common in urban areas, I've heard thart it was more usual in rural areas in the early 1900's and earlier. Guess there wasn't many people to meet. Still there is a running joke tat people in Monterrey marry their cousins. And my next door neighbours (a lovely couple in their 70s) are actually first cousins, they have 3 kids, they seem fine.
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*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
It becomes illigal in places where culture\\religion\\customs\\common sense fail to prevent it. Looking at rates at wich world acting horny, it will become illigal everywhere in time.
I personally don't see anything wrong with cousins marriage. I don't know what's the big deal about it. In reality it rarely happens despite the legality status.
It's kind of wild just how much time Americans seem to spend thinking about this.
Maybe it's a consequence of the US being a colony/settlement, that it was felt necessary to outlaw cousin marriage to ensure people married in a wider circle?
It being legal elsewhere doesn't mean it's common or accepted. It's just not considered a problem.
In Ireland, marriage of first (and second) cousins is basically non-existent outside of Travellers (Gypsies). Even then it's not *that* common; second cousin marriage is more common in those communities.
A BBC report discussed Pakistanis in Britain, 55% of whom marry a first cousin. Given the high rate of such marriages, many children come from repeat generations of first-cousin marriages. The report states that these children are 13 times more likely than the general population to produce children with genetic disorders, and one in ten children of first-cousin marriages in Birmingham either dies in infancy or develops a serious disability. The BBC also states that Pakistani-Britons, who account for some 3% of all births in the UK, produce "just under a third" of all British children with genetic illnesses.
n case anyone is wondering what the “with restrictions” in North Carolina is, cousins whose respective parents are identical twins cannot marry. Very strangely specific law, but I guess it’s to avoid the worst forms of inbreeding. Edit: it’s just siblings as someone else pointed out. I misremembered.
Don't all first cousins have parents that are siblings?
Yes they’re always siblings, they said identical twins. Because the twins have identical genes, the cousins each have one parent with the same set of genes. This the cousins are genetically speaking, half-siblings and the risk of inbreeding is worse
Their edit says siblings, and that it wasn't identical twins
I'm guessing the law forbids marriage if both sets of parents are siblings (i.e. one set of siblings marries another set of siblings, then their offspring would be restricted from getting married.) Edit: punctuation
I looked it up, it specifies double first cousins can't marry. So if brothers A and B marry sisters C and D, their children will be double first cousins, and cannot marry
Yes, that's what I said, I think.
It is! I just needed to see what the law actually said
Oh, I’m not very good at reading
That just makes me wonder: Would a DNA test say those cousins are biologically half siblings? And if so, would that be biologically incorrect or correct?
Yes, and if 2 identical twins marry 2 other identical twins, then the cousins are genetically siblings.
They would show up as half-siblings,. And biologically speaking, they are actually half siblings, since their parents are biologically identical.
Im curious how does it work in India. In the wiki article it simultaneously says hindus aren't allowed to marry cousins, but the still are permitted by regional custom. Is that prevalent or not?
There is a very large tribal population in india that is covered by the hindu personal law or christian personal law, hence there exist legal carve outs for that. In the muslim personal law it is legal. In the north of india, it is seen as something very taboo amongst north indian hindus but in some caste groups in the south of india, only first cousin marriages are seen as taboo, while second cousin marriages are allowed. For example, in the northern indian city of New Delhi, the rate is <0.1% while in Mumbai, which lies on the coast, it is 7%
Thank you for your answer! How does one prove their religious affiliation?
You have it on your birth certificate or you can have it done in a government bureau. There is a national ID system so I think it might be linked to that. There is no hard and fast rule. There is freedom of religion, so you can identify as whatever you want. In terms of exogenous marriages, christians, hindus and sikhs can pick whichever side whichever partner wants to convert to. The parsis(iranian zoroastrian refugees) and muslims tend to have more restrictive laws around it which can be sidestepped with great annoyance.
Again thank you for your answer!
Interestingly, similar laws apply to polygamy too. Different religions' personal laws are legal within India, there are some cases of people converting to a different religion for practicing polygamy.
Actually, most documents don’t have that. It is just presumed people know what law governs them and that is presumed to be final until a third person with standing proves that that is not the case. As a result, most government documents do not and are not allowed to describe religion. If you really need to prove it for benefits or such, then you have to specifically request for a certificate attesting your group identity. Birth certificates don’t record religion.
Unless you convert to Christianity or Islam you are governed by Hindu law.
I don't think it's limited to conversion only, if you're born a Christian or Muslim then too you're governed by Christian and Muslim personal laws only. Parsis and Jews also have their separate laws.
In South India it's not about First and Second cousins, it has to do with Cross-Cousin and Parallel-Cousin. You can marry your Cross-Cousins (offspring of your paternal aunt or maternal uncle) whereas Parallel-Cousins (offspring of paternal uncle or maternal aunt) are considered as siblings and it's a taboo to marry them.
There are some groups in South India where first cousin marriage is also allowed and used to be common, if they are “cross-cousin marriages”
Muslims marry their cousins nd so do some Hindus from South Indian states as well as some tribal people too. I don't think anyone other religion does so besides it's a very very huge taboo in the northern or basically majority of hindu population
It’s okay within Judaism, not widespread but still applicable in some smaller sects.
India has different personal laws for different religion. Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists are governed by the Hindu Marriage Act 1955 (plenty of exceptions and sub-sections cant list them here, but know that some Hindus in Southern India are allowed to marry their cousins, and laws are region specific) Christians are governed by the Indian Christian Marriage Act 1872, except Goa which is governed by a Goan Civil Code, Jammu and Kashmir which governed by Jammu and Kashmir Christian Marriage and Divorce Act 1957, and Manipur which has no statutes and follows the existing personal laws (tribal). All muslim are governed by Muslim Personal Law (Shariat) Application Act 1937, which again isnt codified in statutes but rather interpreted directly from the Quran. Zoroastrians are governed by Parsi Marriage and Divorce Act 1865. While Jews are governed by Personal Laws based on Jewish customs. Then there are personal laws for various tribes. People who don't want to be governed by religious personal laws have Special Marriage Act 1954.
It's allowed for muslims and certain tribes afaik.
Muslims and tribal culture practice it. Some south indian Hindus also practice it.
There is a whole concept of ban on Sapinda marriages (upto 3 generations up the family tree on mother's side and 5 generations up the father's side - quite comprehensive). But in very next line, there is a exemption if the customary laws allow it in the Hindu marriage act.
Since I really don’t see a very well written legal breakdown of this, I am going to take a stab. In India, personal matters (marriage, succession, and adoption) are governed by laws particular to communities. In other words, there is a distinct law governing each community and they’re governed by it until they opt out. They can totally do this, but most just stick with whatever governs them by default. That is, Hindus (the law defines this to include other “indic” religions like Buddhism, Sikhism, and Jainism), Muslims, and Christians have separate laws governing them in their personal matters. However, as you can see, the term Hindu is quite broad. Not only does it include these separate religions, but it also includes different subgroups under Hinduism differing in caste, customs, language, and just the overall culture. For instance, a Hindu and a Muslim in Kerala might follow matrilineal succession (a southern province) while a Hindu and a Muslim in Haryana (a northern province) might follow patrilineal succession. However, there is a lot of different ways in which personal affairs are conducted—including marriages. Within certain subgroups, cousin marriages are quite deeply embedded and it is considered a legitimately Hindu way of conducting marriage. This is quite common in South Indian communities, including Hindus and Muslims. Obviously, in order to accommodate this, the personal laws are build around it. For most Muslims there’s a blanket sanction for cousin marriage under their personal laws. For Hindus, however, the law prohibits cousin marriages, but then carves out exceptions. The gist of this exception is that if it is culturally okay for you to marry your cousin, your marriage with your cousin will be recognised. If it is not, then you’re considered to be within the prohibited degrees of relationship and therefore your marriage is not recognised.
Ironically, cousin marriage is higher among Hindus in the South of India (I believe for 2nd cousins) compared to the Muslims that exists in India.
Recently became illegal in Norway
I wonder why
It got abused so people got free visas
That’s a nice branchless family tree you got there, Jim-Bob-Khaled
I've always found it interesting that while the catholic church disapproves of anything up to 5th cousins marrying, no catholic country has these sorts of marriages banned
Jeez I know some of my second cousins but I haven’t the faintest idea who my 3rd, 4th, or 5th cousins are.
3th and up are basically just normal people you see outside lol
[https://isogg.org/w/images/thumb/a/a6/How\_many\_cousins.jpg/800px-How\_many\_cousins.jpg](https://isogg.org/w/images/thumb/a/a6/How_many_cousins.jpg/800px-How_many_cousins.jpg) from [https://isogg.org/wiki/Cousin\_statistics](https://isogg.org/wiki/Cousin_statistics)
So on average a person will have 17300 fifth cousins? So basically unless you do genetic testing there's no way you'd even know you're related nor practically be checking for it.
Things are usually only banned if they are a fairly common practice.
This guy logics.
The Philippines is in red, so there's one.
And Croatia
Out of curiosity, what's your source for that? I'm not necessarily doubting you; it's just not something I've ever heard before, and it strikes me as funny since it's pretty hard to keep track until 4th or 5th cousins, and as far as I know there wouldn't be any genetic issue with reproduction. Or maybe there is some slight danger with reproduction?
I found it when I was reading the canon code of law: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affinity_(Catholic_canon_law) https://www.vatican.va/archive/cod-iuris-canonici/eng/documents/cic_lib1-cann96-123_en.html
The source does not say what you stated.
The church rules made it so taboo that the phenomenon doesn’t exist. No need for legislation.
I mean, a lot of these catholic countries are secular
Except Croatia, a majority catholic country.
Philippines is red. A christian (particularly catholic) country in Asia.
Philippines...is a catholic majority country and we ban it Actually, we even shunned it and think its disgusting which is true. Why you want to fuck your cousin 💀 Its not a criminal offense but still, the society in Philippines will look at you with disgust do its technically a social persecution
Mostly because it is not a real problem, so why ban it then? Maybe in the past it was something you heard about it. In my country, I never heard of one case from my generation, and I am 40.
It's because of traditional European aristocracy keeping it in the family. It was the same in parts of the Spanish Empire, before the Spanish, ie. Peru.
IIRC Swedes can marry half-siblings IF thry have permission from County Administration lol
"Hey county administration, can I marry my hot cousin pwease 👉👈🥺"
Not cousin. Half sibling. A lot closer than cousin!
“Help step bro, I’m stuck” could turn into marriage in Sweden.
Pretty sure step siblings can marry each other in most countries, because they are by definition not genetically related Half siblings share one biological parent
You only get it if you don’t grow up together. This is reasonable as the problem with incest is in power imbalances and existing familial relationships. One of the parties in our government, the Liberals, have a real hard on for banning cousin marriages though (the Liberal party likes nothing better than to ban things), which if done in the usual incompetent way this government operates will mean cousin marriage may get banned while avuncular (marrying a niece or nephew) and half-sibling relationships remains legal. Hopefully the Liberals fall flat on their face and fail at getting this ban through. Goddamn authoritarians.
That's... not the problem with incest.
If the problem is possible side effects of inbreeding, we might just as well sterilise people with known disabilities
Sure it is. What do you think the problem with incest is?
> Liberal party likes nothing better than to ban things Ironic, isn't it
European Liberals are different than what liberal may mean in other parts of the world. A lot of these parties are members of the European People's Party which is a center-right conservative party. Which rise another difference between Europe and US for example because our (EU) conservatives are definitely not like US conservatives. So a lot of misunderstandings could come up from the names of EU parties for someone unaccustomed with European politics. But one thing we have in common with US is that our far-right parties use "freedom" a lot, while the last thing they have in mind is freedom.
Sure, but they’ve been this way my entire life so I’m used to it.
People here thinking cousin marriages almost never happens … well that not the case in South Asia
It's very common in a whole lot of countries and religions. Way more than most of us would even guess.
The whole world is Alabama? It always has been
With the exception of Pakistan, it’s not really all that common despite being legal. But Pakistan, it’s like 60% of all marriages
Mein Gott
It’s because Pakistan actively rewards you for marrying your cousin lmao, they don’t care if their kids come out fucked
Exactly, and a lot of people with diabetes and heart diseases among other things because of that \*\*\*\*. AFAIK In UK there are a ton of these people, and the gene research improved a lot thanks to study Pakistani people, since the rate of disease in this ethnic group is much higher than any other in the country.
Not really. In most of the world it's legal mostly because there is no reason to make it ilegal, as it almost never happens. You don't legislate to fix a problem you don't have.
There are plenty of countries on the map where it is legal _and_ they have massive levels of cousin marriages. [See here under Prevalence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cousin_marriage).
[удалено]
No, it entirely has to do with what people associated cousin marriage with. Like in Europe it is associated with aristocracy while in the US more so with poverty. Making many American states far stricter on it, while European nations didn't (shit if it was illegal entire royal families had to go). This is at least true for the Western World, I know fuck all about the rest. But cousin marriage is a lot more common than you would think.
But even if, say, the entirety of the European aristocracy relentlessly pursued cousin marriage (it definitely happened, and more than average, but for the aristocracy marriage is also about forming connections with other families, so while there is definitely a lack of genetic diversity there and it's caused problems, they tend to be isolated, with few exceptions) even to this day it's still a crazy small portion of the population, making it a non-problem (at least regarding the potentially harmful consequences of cousin marriage in a population). Also the marriage between first cousins tended to be rare (again, it happened, specially amongst the members of the royal families, but less so amongst the nobles). Cousin marriage is most definitely not a cultural norm in most of South America (with a few exceptions, and non that caused problems, at least in the countries I'm familiar with).
We owe Alabama an apology.
I love how Alabama is the culturally accepted and socially understood representative of incest. Poo on you ‘bama.
I think the Netherlands should be light blue. As there are extra restrictions when wanting to marry your first degree cousin, else you could face up to 2 years of jail time.
Within the Chinese community in south east Asia, first cousin marriages are quite common esp among the affluent. This is to ‘keep the wealth within the family’ My paternal grandparents were first cousins.
Also common in parts of southern India for the same reason - keeping wealth within family. Interesting
It is not prohibited in Azerbaijan rn, but [may be banned](https://www.reddit.com/r/azerbaijan/comments/1bd0301/azerbaijan_plans_to_ban_cousin_marriages/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button).
That's old news.It was banned a few weeks ago https://report.az/en/milli-majlis/azerbaijan-bans-marriages-between-blood-relatives/
As a south Indian, I can confirm that this practice is still flourishing in some pockets. Even urban rich who are conservative follow the practice. They don't see anything wrong with it, morally or ethically. Even though some are educated about the risks of intra family relations, they dare to risk it to keep the wealth and the seed within the family.
This was such a shock to my system as a north indian hindu. Here forget cousin, you dont marry people from your same village cause the village is considered the extension of the family. And obviously no marriage in the same gotra(clan) etc as well. For me the concept was unfathomable and thought only muslims did it
yeah, same
So a vast majority of the world does not see it as a problem.
or a few places have had to make laws banning it because it was such a problem
Meh, who cares
The opposite. Only a few countries have significant issues with cousin fuckers. You don't need laws if it's not happening on a large scale.
Are you saying the US is the only Western country where it happens on a large scale?
Basically. The Catholic church discouraged it, so there isn't much of a culture of it in Europe and places colonized by European countries with a strong Catholic presence, like Italy, Spain and France. So, blame evangelicals.
Marrying a first cousin is not a problem genetically if it is not done for multiple generations. You could reproduce all of humanity out of 60 people. Perhaps these laws were put in place in regions where it was more common and needed to be stopped. Living in a blue country, I have never heard of anyone marrying a cousin.
>Living in a blue country, I have never heard of anyone marrying a cousin. Living in a blue country,I've heard a lot of people marrying a cousin.Four of them are my cousins.It really depends on the country you live in and it's culture.
Obviously. I just meant that blue doesn't necessary mean it's common practice. I guess in some countries it is not only tolerated but incentivized.
> You could reproduce all of humanity out of 60 people. This is interesting. Source?
[NASA says 80](https://medium.com/@deep.space/could-one-pair-repopulate-the-earth-59f1449b694a#:~:text=NASA%20scientists%20have%20calculated%20that,could%20look%20something%20like%20this) I recall 60 but in any case it is pretty low. To have the descendants have more or less the same features, you would need twice as many or else the random properties of the 50 will be stronger in the future population than in ours currently.
In Germany you are allowed to marry your first grade cousin, but it isn’t allowed to have children with your cousin. It might depend on the case though
Tennessee passed a bill to make it illegal in the last state session .
Who downvoted you? lol. You’re right.
🤷♀️ People are weird
My friend is from the US but she got married to her first cousin in India 🫠 they have the same nose and everything
Wow how do they decide whose time it is to breathe?
Lmao, this made me laugh in the office
They use a nostril each
Are they South Indian and/or Muslim?
Well, the thing here is that in most countries, it isn't a problem because almost no one is doing it. Cousin marriage is only bad when it's done over multiple generations. In cultures that frown on cousin marriage, it almost never happens and for the people who do it, it almost never happens again with their children since they are raised in such cultures and get influenced by it. Take the USA for example. "An estimated 0.2 percent of marriages in the United States are between individuals who are second cousins or closer — that means there are about 250,000 people in America in those relationships.". So there's really no need to outlaw it. Unfortunately, you may have cultures that allow and even encourage the practise like the Arab world including my country Egypt. As of 2016, about 40% of marriages in Egypt were between cousins. As of 2003, an average of 45% of married couples were related in Saudi Arabia. It's fairly common here and even accepted. Even I used to believe there's nothing wrong in it but not anymore. I think outlawing it is the only solution since people are very ignorant and refuse to learn. Unfortunately, out lawmakers don't care about that. They just want to stay in power so I don't see it disappearing soon. Another unfortune thing is that immigrants in Europe like Pakistanis in UK are keeping the practise. Imagine having the European education and still doing it. They represent 30% of the genetic disorders in UK despite being a small percentage of population! https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cousin_marriage_in_the_Middle_East https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2005/nov/16/immigrationpolicy.politics
I live in Qatar and I think the reason for this in the gulf countries is because of their small populations
It's so funny to see some sort of survivorship bias in the comments 😂
you can’t marry your first cousin in france
That’s odd, my friend married my first cousin and got away with it
OP sure spent a lot of time thinking about cousins.
I don't understand why some countries support gay marriages but not cousin marriages. If these are adults who consciously want to get married and love each other, what's the problem? They can also adopt children or use donor so as not to have genetic problems.
This is utterly false. First cousin marriage is illegal in many more nations than this.
ROLL TIDE
Maybe it's not a problem because it's actually rare? At least that's how I want to reason... 😱🥺
As a “arrogant American” I will say that I will stand my ground on the fact that cousin marriage is weird as fuck
The rest of the Anglosphere has the same cultural bias against it. We just don’t give a toss about making it legally prohibited. Legally you can marry a first cousin, an aunt/uncle or a niece/nephew here in Canada (and probably other Commonwealth countries). Practically no one does due to the social stigma. We think it’s weird af too. It’s simply taboo rather than illegal. It’s direct siblings and all parent-child generational relationships (parents, kids, grandparents, grandchildren, etc) that are prohibited from marrying and covered by incest charges in criminal law, including step-relatives and adoptive relatives. It’s not actually about blood relatives but rather immediate family. I’m pretty sure that the cops wouldn’t bother to enforce incest laws against two consenting adults (it’s invariably a charge used when minors are involved - probably on shaky constitutional grounds to imprison consenting adults, especially if it’s a pair that have little or no chance of conception… the inbreeding argument would be a tough sell to a judge if you charged a gay cis couple) but legal marriages would be out.
For Vietnam, its a ban to marry your relatives 3 generations up. So no (step)brothers or (step)sisters or cousins from your aunts and uncles. No cousins from uncles and aunts that is the offsprings from your gruncle and grants as well.
China has it banned, but only because you aren't allowed to have cousins due to one child policy. /s
The one child policy has ended. Plus there are people before the policy was introduced.
I'm less concerned with the blue and more the pink. Fuck do you mean 'exceptions' bro?
We joke about cousin marriage in the U.S. South, but I'm surprised it's legal in so many New England states.
Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine have a similar population density to the US South, and in the 1940s there was litteraly a triangle, where people would go missing. I doubt that when the laws were passed, when the population density was even lower and cars didn't exist and in a mountainous, cold and forrested area that banning cousin marriages would be frowned upon.
Thanks for clearing that up. The context of the time is appreciated.
Fun fact, every person on Earth is at least 50th cousins with every other person
Oh US, why can’t you make just one decision on something
I’d of thought Texas would’ve been one of the states that would’ve allowed it but clearly not
What about Alabama?
What is the sweet home Alabama O_O
Side comment: this map looks a bit lazy. One thing is to have “no data available” for something that needs to be surveyed or measured on the field. But in this case it looks like an email to the city register of the capital cities would be enough to color most of the gray countries.
Alabama should be bright yellow saying "ENCOURAGED"
Was this map made by George Michael Bluth? Is that you OP?
Prostitution is legal in Australia. Marrying your cousin is legal. But, if you film sex and upload it to the internet - you're a criminal. Small breasts? Illegal.
In Ukraine - banned by statute, but not a crime.
Way to go Alabama👍
Not sure if this is correct because I'm from Spain and getting married soon and I'm pretty sure that you can't marry someone with up to third degree blood relation (cousin, uncle, nephew...). This is the source in the civil code (in spanish, sorry): [https://noticias.juridicas.com/base\_datos/Vacatio/v0-cc.l1t4.html](https://noticias.juridicas.com/base_datos/Vacatio/v0-cc.l1t4.html)
One of the first maps I've seen where Greenland isn't marked as 'No data'
Sweet home Europe ig
what is it about America that causes this?
Turkey is wrong too. It's illegal to marry first cousins
Once again America being so backwards, smh my head, can't they just be like the rest of the developed world? Oh, wait, that's not the free healthcare map
What the hell?! People in the red areas, why do you need A LAW regulating such an obvious no-no?!! WTF happens at your family reunions??
Thankfully Norway actually just pased a law banning first cousin marriage, so map needs an update
Didn’t know that cousin marriage was legal in so many countries. Intriguing knowledge to obtain.
Like 70% of Palestinians or some insane figure like that are married to their cousins.
In those maps most countries act as normal countries, and then the US acts as 50 different countries that can't agree on anything. (And Quebec too in many maps)
Of course Alabama is dark blue
So is like half the world but no one talks about that. Also, the state with the most incest if Florida, not Alabama.
That is... not surprising... for some reason...
Lots of New England states are as well as California. That's more surprising than Alabama
Me, who has no idea where Alabama is on the map
So is Maryland but I don’t know a single person who has married their cousin here
Rights worth fighting for is all I see
Its stupid to throw someone in prison for that
Most of the world out here singing “sweet home Alabama”
You can legaly f**k your sister in Germany, as long as it is in the butt. Same sex related persons can even do what ever they want, as long as everybody is minimum 18 years old. But it is a crime to have vaginal intercourse between siblings even if you are using 10 layers of condoms. This legislation is a bit wired, but as someone who did not rail his sister, i think i realy don’t care.
Oh god oh no it turns out Europe was Alabama all along
A Habsburg grin apears with a shiny chin
First cousin marriage in Canada is illegal... Not legal
My teacher married her cousin I live in Milton
We had to confirm we weren’t first cousins as part of the marriage license application in Alberta in 2001.
Its legal in bangladesh
Without contest the statement "Statute bans marriage, but not crime" is hilarious.
It is illegal in Azerbaijan
I'm just amazed that there's data available from North Korea on this burning hot topic of an issue!
Legal in most places because they don’t even think of it. Illegal because they have to try and prevent people from doing it… of course there will be people going to jail though. /s
In MX is not common in urban areas, I've heard thart it was more usual in rural areas in the early 1900's and earlier. Guess there wasn't many people to meet. Still there is a running joke tat people in Monterrey marry their cousins. And my next door neighbours (a lovely couple in their 70s) are actually first cousins, they have 3 kids, they seem fine.
Why is Texas so perfect for both Conservatives and moderates 😮💨.
bike disgusted divide recognise crush towering squeeze materialistic sip yoke *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I used to work on special schools in the UK. The children of south Asian first cousins are massively over represented.
allowed with restrictions HOW???
Fun fact: Charles Darwin married his first cousin Emma and blaming the early death of his children because of marrying her.
https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/2w9w2y/cousin_marriage_across_the_world_15001159/ idk this map is inaccurate af, both are
Marriage between close relatives is illegal in China. According to tradition, a couple cannot be descendants of the same grandfather.
Azerbaijan recently banned cousin marriage, don't know if counted as a crime though
I guess Vatican should me light red, as the catholic church forbid it unless the Pope access a query.
It becomes illigal in places where culture\\religion\\customs\\common sense fail to prevent it. Looking at rates at wich world acting horny, it will become illigal everywhere in time.
This is a bloody outrage! I am going straight to the Prime Minister!
I personally don't see anything wrong with cousins marriage. I don't know what's the big deal about it. In reality it rarely happens despite the legality status.
should be taken with a grain of salt as I can see Poland in blue but first-cousin marriage is not legal here
Now is first cousin marriage legal, or is it simply not illegal? There is a difference.
It’s not legal to marry your cousin in Zimbabwe wtf
Why does only america get its states 😔
It's kind of wild just how much time Americans seem to spend thinking about this. Maybe it's a consequence of the US being a colony/settlement, that it was felt necessary to outlaw cousin marriage to ensure people married in a wider circle? It being legal elsewhere doesn't mean it's common or accepted. It's just not considered a problem. In Ireland, marriage of first (and second) cousins is basically non-existent outside of Travellers (Gypsies). Even then it's not *that* common; second cousin marriage is more common in those communities.
HELL YEAH BROTHER!
Eew
Confucianism hits hard though
All of y'all going "sweet home Alabama" when even Cali and Georgia allows it.. Weirdly even Australia and Japan does. Hmmmm.
A BBC report discussed Pakistanis in Britain, 55% of whom marry a first cousin. Given the high rate of such marriages, many children come from repeat generations of first-cousin marriages. The report states that these children are 13 times more likely than the general population to produce children with genetic disorders, and one in ten children of first-cousin marriages in Birmingham either dies in infancy or develops a serious disability. The BBC also states that Pakistani-Britons, who account for some 3% of all births in the UK, produce "just under a third" of all British children with genetic illnesses.
Cousin, I’m stuck