Many of Muhammad`s immediate successors also took a cousin as one of their wives. Umar married his cousin Atikah bint Zayd ibn Amr ibn Nifayl,[192][193] while Ali married Fatima,[194] the daughter of his paternal cousin Muhammad and thus his first cousin. [195] Marriage between cousins was legal in ancient Rome from the Second Punic War (218-201 BC) until it was banned in the West by the Christian emperor Theodosius I in 381, and in the East after the death of Justinian (565),[88][89] but the proportion of such marriages is unclear. Anthropologist Jack Goody said that cousin marriage was a typical pattern in Rome, based on the marriage of four children of Emperor Constantine to their first cousins, and the writings of Plutarch and Livy that emphasize the prohibition of cousin marriage at the beginning of the Republic. [90] Professors Brent Shaw and Richard Saller, however, counter in their more comprehensive treatment that marriages between cousins were never habitual or preferential in the Western Empire: for example, in a set of six stemmata (genealogies) of Roman aristocrats in the two centuries following Octavian, out of 33 marriages, none had been between first cousins or second cousins. Such marriages carried no social stigma at the end of the Republic and the beginning of the Empire. They cite the example of Cicero, who attacked Mark Antony not for the marriage of the cousin, but for Antony`s divorce. I am originally from the South. My great-grandparents and the generation before them married their first cousins, but after them, all married between castes or married cousins from 3rd to 4th grade or a distant relative. But close family marriage has stopped in my caste for some time.
I think that with modernization, globalization and the movement of people to metropolises, these trends have diminished a lot, while they still prevail. I do not believe that such a practice can survive in the modern world. According to another view, William Saletan of Slate magazine accuses the authors of this study of suffering from the “innate liberal vanity that science solves all moral questions.” Saletan readily acknowledges that the ban on marriage between cousins cannot be justified on genetic grounds, but rhetorically asks whether it would be acceptable to legalize uncle-niece marriage or “pure incest” between siblings, and then let genetic testing deal with the resulting problems. [9] An article by Sarah Kershaw in the New York Times documents the fear that many married cousins are treated with derision and contempt. “While many people have a story about a secret cousin who had a crush or kissed, most Americans find the idea of cousins getting married and having children disturbing or even disgusting,” the article states. There is the example of a mother, Mrs. Spring, whose daughter Kimberly Spring-Winters, 29, married her cousin Shane Winters, 37. She explained that when she told people about her daughter`s wedding, they were shocked and she was afraid to mention it. They live in a small town in Pennsylvania and she fears her grandchildren will be treated as outcasts and ridiculed because of their parental status. Another pair of cousins said their children`s maternal grandparents never met their two grandchildren because the grandparents broke off contact by disapproving of the couple`s marriage. This couple did not publish their names. [2] Marriages between cousins remain legal in Germany.
In fact, a quarter of all marriages among Turks in Germany are marriages with a relative of the family, according to a survey by the Essen Center for Turkish Studies. [118] Recent data for Brazil from 2001 show a marriage rate between cousins of 1.1%, up from 4.8% in 1957. [112] The geographical distribution is heterogeneous: in some regions the rate is typically European, but in others it is much higher. Newton Freire-Maia [pt] found paternal marriage to be the most common type. [113] In his 1957 study, the rate ranged from 1.8% in the South to 8.4% in the Northeast, where it increased towards the interior of the coast,[114] and was higher in rural areas than in urban areas. Inbreeding has decreased over time and especially since the 19th century. For example, in São Paulo in the middle of the 19th century. In the nineteenth century, the rate of marriages between cousins seemed to be 16%,[115] but a century later it was only 1.9%.
[112] The Middle East has particularly high rates of cousin marriages among regions of the world. In one study, Iraq was estimated at a rate of 33% for cousins who marry. A cousin marriage is a marriage in which the spouses are cousins (that is, people with common grandparents or people who share other ancestors at a relatively young age). The practice was common in the past and is still common in some societies today, although in some jurisdictions such marriages are prohibited. [1] Worldwide, more than 10% of marriages take place between first cousins or second cousins. [2] Marriage between cousins is an important topic in anthropology and covenant theory. [3] For example, the marriage of Louis XIV of France and Maria Theresa of Spain was a first-degree marriage on both sides. [78] It all began in the 19th century. In the nineteenth century, women fell out of favor when women became socially mobile.
Only Austria, Hungary and Spain banned marriage between cousins throughout the 19th century, with government exemptions available in the latter two countries. [79] Marriage to first cousins in England in 1875 was estimated by George Darwin at 3.5% for the middle class and 4.5% for the nobility, although this percentage fell to less than 1% in the 20th century. [80] Queen Victoria and Prince Albert are notable examples. [81] [82] Since the 13th century, the Catholic Church has measured consanguinity according to the so-called civil law method. In this method, the degree of relationship between the straight-line parents (i.e. a man and his grandfather) is simply equal to the number of generations between them. However, the degree of relationship between collateral (non-linear) relatives is equal to the number of links in the family tree from one person to the common ancestor and then back to the other person. Thus, brothers in the second degree are related and cousins of the first degree in the fourth degree.
[184] All Arab countries in the Persian Gulf currently require prior genetic testing for potential married couples. Qatar was the last Persian Gulf country to introduce mandatory testing in 2009, primarily to warn related couples planning a marriage of the genetic risks they might face. The current rate of cousin marriages is 54%, an increase of 12 to 18 percent over the previous generation. [127] A September 2009 report by the Dubai-based Centre for Arab Genomic Studies (CAGS) found that Arabs have one of the highest rates of genetic disorders in the world, nearly two-thirds of which are related to inbreeding. Ahmad Teebi`s research suggests that inbreeding is declining in Lebanon, Jordan, Morocco and among Palestinians, while it is increasing in the United Arab Emirates. [128] A bill to lift the ban on marriage to first cousins in Minnesota was introduced by Phyllis Kahn in 2003, but died in committee. Republican Minority Leader Marty Seifert criticized the bill in response, saying it would “turn us into a cold Arkansas.” [148] According to The Wake of the University of Minnesota, Kahn knew the law was unlikely to pass, but introduced it anyway to draw attention to the problem. She came up with the idea after learning that marriage between cousins is an acceptable form of marriage among certain cultural groups with a strong presence in Minnesota, namely the Hmong and Somali. [149] Anthropologist Martin Ottenheimer argues that marriage bans were introduced to maintain social order, maintain religious morality, and ensure the creation of appropriate offspring. [97] Writers such as Noah Webster (1758-1843) and ministers such as Philip Milledoler (1775-1852) and Joshua McIlvaine helped lay the foundations for these positions long before 1860.
This has led to a gradual shift in concern from the following compounds, such as those between a man and his deceased wife`s sister, to blood-related compounds. In the 1870s, Lewis Henry Morgan (1818-1881) wrote about “the advantages of marriage between unrelated persons” and the need to avoid “the evils of consanguineous marriage,” the avoidance of which would “increase the vitality of the tribe.” .