Fanny and Edmund Got Married

[steepholm]

I'm curious about attitudes to first-cousin marriage.

First, to get the medical side out of the way, I can see good genetic reasons for not marrying one's first cousin, reasons which may indeed be powerful enough to justify measures banning or restricting the practice. I don't feel qualified to judge that, and for the present purpose I'm not interested in it either. It's clearly less than optimal, like having parents over fifty, but whether it's a sufficiently bad idea to pass laws about it I just don't know.

What I'm interested in here is the visceral ickiness some people clearly feel at the idea of first-cousin marriage - the feeling that it breaks some powerful incest taboo, perhaps just a notch down from marrying one's sibling, child or parent.

I wasn't brought up to feel like that at all, and I'm curious as to why not - or, conversely, why other people do. Since these things are cultural, where are the cultural dividing lines, in terms of geography, generation, or belief systems? My impression is that the taboo feeling is stronger in the States, but I also think that in the UK it's stronger with the younger generation than with my own or older. There are also ethnic groups within the UK where first-cousin marriage is common, notably within the Pakistani community where I believe it runs at over 50%, and of course that has meant that the subject has inevitably become embroiled in rows about race, religion, etc. Has that altered the broader terms of the debate?

In short - as I see it, when I was growing up first-cousin marriage was considered unusual but in no way taboo, at least in my little bit of the world. I think it was even seen as romantic. Now, the feeling that it's taboo is much more widespread.

How does this tally with your experience of your own and other people's opinions? Have things changed?

Comments

[jemck.livejournal.com]

in my in-no-sense-comprehensive experience, it's been Americans I've found reacting with squick/isn't that illegal? while British folk seem to shrug and if they have an opinion, reckon it's that it's inadvisable for genetic health but not morally wrong per se.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

I may find an opportunity to canvass my students, to see if this reaction extends to younger people, or whether (as I suspect) a more "American" attitude is making headway here.

[houseboatonstyx.livejournal.com]

What I've noticed seems to be more generational: each generation finds new things to feel moral panic about. DADDY LONG-LEGS, Emily and Jarback Priest, etc. A sophisticated man grooming a young girl for eventual marriage, used to be a romantic trope.

And the definitions keep getting stretched. Iirc, Woody Allen wooed a woman, and then later wooed her daughter (quite old enough) -- with nothing actually improper except the on-paper status.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

I know! One might also mention (just to prove that Jane Austen boxed the compass of sexual depravity) Mr Knightley and Emma Woodhouse. And, close to my heart, Tom Lynn and Polly Whitaker in Fire and Hemlcck. More grooming than at Aintree on race day...

[ethelmay.livejournal.com]

Daddy-Long-Legs I'll give you, but Dean Priest seems to me to be definitely messed up, even in L.M.M.'s view.

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

That's been my experience too. It was only when I started joining in online discussions that I discovered the trans-Atlantic difference in opinion/legality on this issue. Until then, I'd never thought there was anything strange about it, though it was considered unwise due to the increased risk of recessive genes manifesting themselves and causing problems.