Do you think first cousins should be allowed to marry? ****************************************************** 03-11-07, 10:55 AM Sherasi Well, genetics was the cited reason NOT to allow close family marriages.
I thought my first cousins were HOT when I was a kid (they are my age) ... and they are still quite cute! Big GrinBig GrinBig Grin
03-11-07, 12:33 PM babthrower Sure, if their genes are o.k. It's only when a recessive heritable bad trait is present that close relatives shouldn't interbreed. Same is true of animals. Hip dysplasia in dogs is an example of a condition caused by inbreeding.
In the old days, people did notice that in intermarriages, occasionally a bad trait would appear, and so it was a kind of easy generalization to make: play it safe.
I think everyone should be genetically tested before they have children. Unless they are the rare ones who are willing to take on the heartbreak, lifelong commitment, and hard work of caring for someone who is disabled. Personally I wouldn't have the courage.
03-12-07, 01:08 AM Leppi professor, can you tell me what that article says, my computer won't let me open it...
03-12-07, 08:39 AM Sherasi Here is part of the article:
quote: Cecil replies:
Among the many things Americans just know, without ever having thought about it, is that if first cousins marry, their children will be drooling half-wits. The handful who wonder if there's any logic to this belief probably think: Royal inbreeding. Prince Charles. Case closed.
As recent events have shown, however, a lot of things we Yanks just know aren't so. The supposed evils of cousin marriage may not be the first one that comes to mind, but it's definitely on the list. In his impressive dissection of the issue, Forbidden Relatives: The American Myth of Cousin Marriage (1996), anthropologist Martin Ottenheimer points out the following little-known facts--little-known, that is, here in the U.S.:
The U.S. is virtually alone among developed nations in outlawing marriage among first cousins. European countries have no such prohibition. In some cultures, particularly Islamic ones, first-cousin marriage is encouraged. Even in the U.S. laws forbidding the practice are far from universal. First-cousin marriage is currently illegal or restricted in 31 states. (Some states allow it if there's no chance of procreation--interesting in light of conservative opposition to gay marriage on the grounds that the institution's function is to produce children.) It's legal in the rest--and no, Kentucky and West Virginia aren't among the permissive ones. Try California and New York.
First-cousin marriage isn't a surefire recipe for congenital defects. True, marriage among close kin can increase the chance of pathological recessive genes meeting up in some unlucky individual, with dire consequences. The problem isn't cousin marriage per se, however, but rather how many such genes are floating around in the family pool. If the pool's pretty clean, the likelihood of genetic defects resulting from cousin marriage is low. A recent review (Bennett et al, Journal of Genetic Counseling, 2002) says that, on average, offspring of first-cousin unions have a 2 to 3 percent greater risk of birth defects than the general population, and a little over 4 percent greater risk of early death. While those margins aren't trivial, genetic testing and counseling can minimize the danger. An argument can be made that marriages of first cousins descended from strong stock can produce exceptional children. Charles Darwin, for example, married his first cousin Emma, which wasn't at all unusual in their prominent and successful family--their common grandparents were cousins too. Three of Charles and Emma's ten kids died in childhood, it's true, but that was standard for Victorian England; the others went on to productive and in some cases distinguished careers.
All kidding aside, the formerly high incidence of congenital defects, specifically hemophilia, among European royal families isn't the classic demonstration of the perils of inbreeding that everybody thinks it is. The short explanation is that hemophilia is an X-chromosome-related characteristic, transmitted only through the female line. The children of royal female carriers would have been at risk no matter whom their mothers had married.
03-12-07, 10:39 AM Elexina I think that close relatives marrying is a little weird, but who am I to judge someone else based on who they love? My concern would be for the children. If both parties are consenting (and capable of giving consent), and there has been some agreement as to how they will handle children (i.e. defects are unlikely because of their genes or they have taken steps to ensure children will no result from their union), I don’t think it’s our place to say it can’t be. It might weird us out, but that doesn’t mean two people who love each other shouldn’t be together.
03-12-07, 11:27 AM juanruiz The students in my Spanish civ class habitually raise their eyebrows when I talk about cousin marriages in the Spanish royal families: Ferdinand and Isabella, Charles I and Isabella of Portugal, Philip II and Mary Tudor. If it's of any consolation, they all required papal dispensations.
03-12-07, 12:30 PM FredPuli It's legal in Britain but no longer fashionable (except in the Muslim part of the community ).The fashionable thing is a same -sex civil union Big Grin
03-12-07, 02:59 PM dance girl
quote: Originally posted by juanruiz: If it's of any consolation, they all required papal dispensations.
Yes, and we all know what bastions of morality the heads of the Catholic church have been throughout history.
I'm not sure what I think about first cousins marrying. I think it's probably a very personal thing.
My cousins live in Scotland, and I was raised in England, and so only saw them during the summer.
On one such trip, when I was 13, my male cousin who was the same age as me, made a pass at me when we were alone together.
So I beat him up. That seemed to make it clear to him that I wasn't interested
Now we are both in our 40s, and it has never been mentioned since that day.
I have a 17 year old daughter, and she has a male cousin of the same age. My only concern about them marrying would be that my daughter would end up with my crazy sister for a mother in law.
03-12-07, 03:05 PM juanruiz
quote: Yes, and we all know what bastions of morality the heads of the Catholic church have been throughout history.
Actually, I was being facetious.
03-12-07, 03:14 PM dance girl No! You? I'd never have thought you were capable of that Big Grin
03-12-07, 03:21 PM juanruiz
quote: I'd never have thought you were capable of that
At my age, it's one of the few things I'm still good at Frown .
03-13-07, 12:58 AM Leppi I was wondering, the states in the US that marriage among first cousins are illegal, if someone moves there from another state, are they allowed to register thier marriage there?
Personally my opinion is, if they had genetic testing done, then why not? (personally everyone should genetic testing and not just first cousins.)
03-15-07, 04:11 PM SeattleRon I'm going to put this as kindly as I can. I think it's disgusting to think of your family that way. We're not animals. I would never approve of family marrying family, or even having relations further more with family. Those kinds of thoughts can destroy your family, and take apart your friendships with people. We're people not dogs, not animals. Not to bring up an old saying, but there are plenty of fish in the sea.
I'm plenty open to many lifestyle choices, but if this is ok, why not marry your own mother, or your father, or some kind of animal,like your pet dog or something. Marrying or having sexual relations within your own bloodline is wrong.
NOw I know whats coming up next, one of you is going to say, well then marrying outside of your own race is wrong too. Thats difrent. You start a family as a white person with an asian, or a black person, that is ok... That is absolutely ok, because it's not your family.
To have sex with your cousin is call incest, and as I said earlier, we're not dogs, we're not animals.
I would approve of gay sex anytime before I approved of starting to look at the Family Tree for potential sexual partners.
And to answer to the next question,"SeattleRon, she never said anything about sex." Well sex is a part of marriage..I've said my piece, and I think I said it very respectfully.
03-15-07, 05:40 PM babthrower I think one of the main reasons the thought of incest is horrible to us is because of the strong likelihood that coersion is used. Members of a single family have a hierarchy, usually (traditionally) the grandfather would be at the top, then the oldest son, and so forth, then the grandmother and then the mother, and so on, with the oldest male sibling head of all children. This hierarchy is full of problems when the main issues are about work and so forth. Bring sex into the mix and the family can be torn apart, even involving violence and crime: "The near in blood, the nearer bloody".
Imagine a situation in which a grandfather is claiming sexual rights to a toddler. How would the toddler's parents feel?
So it made sense to prohibit even the possibility of sex within the immediate family. Some believe cousins are all right if beyond the 'third degree'; others say, second cousins. A few believe that first cousins marrying should be all right; but it's getting a bit iffy.
Now we expect the state to protect the young from abuse. I very much doubt this works as well as the older system of taboos.
03-15-07, 10:21 PM SeattleRon If this is acceptable, then it should be acceptable for me as a 25 year old grown man to have sex with a 14,15, or 16 year old girl. If family is fair play, then I say hey, "If there's grass on the field, play ball."
Right?
03-15-07, 10:36 PM DorianGreyed Not right, Ron. In one case (cousins), you are speaking of two adults making a decision. In the other, you are speaking of an adult and a child whose brain has not yet completely formed, especially in the area that makes sound decisions. This is one of the reasons people the age you mention generally cannot enter into binding contracts.
03-15-07, 10:41 PM jusork Sex with people under 18 or so is considered morally wrong when the adolescent is influenced, coerced, or forced to have sex. It's manipulation and that's what's wrong about it. I think the problem is that one can't know if the adolescent has really been influenced or not, but since it's usually the case, people just see it wrong for all cases. If there were a case where an adolescent consented without any influence from the adult, morally I think it should be considered okay.
03-16-07, 08:06 AM Elexina
quote: Originally posted by SeattleRon: Well sex is a part of marriage...
Not necessarily. Sex is implied, but not necessarily always a part of marriage. There are many sorts of arrangements and marriages. But that is beside the point, really.
The question is consent. And while an adult can consent to marry his cousin or his sister or mother, a dog or other animal cannot consent, and an underage person legally cannot consent, so it is not the same thing.
It is not "fair play."
03-16-07, 08:33 AM frankvan First cousins
quote: Originally posted by jusork: ................ If there were a case where an adolescent consented without any influence from the adult, morally I think it should be considered okay.
Then I think you need to re-read Dorian's AND Elexina's posts.
03-16-07, 10:02 AM babthrower Absolutely right on.
Teens have sex drives before they are at all capable of making even the most basic choices. Given free choice, most would:
- drop out of school - 'try' drugs and alcohol - sleep till 2:00 pm - eat nothing but burgers, fries and double milkshakes and supersize cokes - 'borrow' cars and race them late at night without troubling to learn to drive first - trade sex for video games, noise-generators (music players), a car to drive, fashionable clothes, plastic surgery -- whatever consumer goodie they can't afford.
They would trade sex because they dropped out of school and their spoiled-brat parents made them feel they are too good for a 'McJob'. Working at a low-paid job is beneath them, but trading sex is 'cool'.
In fact, that's what many poorly-parented, permissively-raised, teens do.
So the legislators, representing the majority of adults, say the teens have not the right to drop out of school, do drugs and alcohol, drive cars without passing a driver's test, have sex under a certain minimum age, etc.
It has been observed for many years that by the time the teen reaches age 18 to 21 they begin to foresee the consequences of impulsive acts. This age is only an approximation, of course, and different countries have different 'ages of majority'.
Before that age, they are pretty much 'the slaves of their juices'.
That is why a pedophile doesn't get very far when he/she claims that the sex he/she had with a fourteen-year-old boy or girl was 'consensual'. Or why, if some kid uses his/her college money to buy a second-hand car, the parents can make the seller return the money and take back the lemon. A minor can not make a binding contract.
But certain acts are forbidden no matter what age is involved. Incest is one of them.
My own personal view is that marriage between first cousins should be legal if they are of legal age and pass a DNA screening for known heritable defects, or if they have both been surgically neutered.
But no state in the world agrees with me. So different levels of tolerance exist, all the way from non-consensual marriage of children, to no marriage within the third degree of kinship.
Of course the Roman Catholic church gives dispensations, for a price. The Papal consent and blessing assures that no congenital defect can be passed on. And God always goes along with the Pope's decision, divinely intervening to correct any faulty DNA.
03-16-07, 07:03 PM jusork
quote: Originally posted by frankvan:
quote: Originally posted by jusork: ................ If there were a case where an adolescent consented without any influence from the adult, morally I think it should be considered okay.
Then I think you need to re-read Dorian's AND Elexina's posts.
Adolescents can't be expected to make sound decisions, but what if an adolescent, say 16 or 17 years old, did make the right decision and the couple lived happily ever after? The problem is that one can't know the true nature of the relationship, and it's because nobody can know that it's illegal.
03-16-07, 08:28 PM SeattleRon I've never been disgusted with anything anybody here has said before until this. You do know that your cousin is the child of your father's brother or sister right? Thats like doing it with your dad or your mom. It's unacceptable. I would sooner accept underage sex than I would doing your mother or a relative.
03-16-07, 08:29 PM babthrower
quote: Adolescents can't be expected to make sound decisions, but what if an adolescent, say 16 or 17 years old, did make the right decision and the couple lived happily ever after? The problem is that one can't know the true nature of the relationship, and it's because nobody can know that it's illegal.
Shaggy old people like myself know that it is seldom that any of us can be expected to make sound decisions. Add to that that times are much different now than in the past.
Really.
Marriages were often arranged. If you were poor enough that it didn't matter whom you married, so your marriage was not arranged, chances are you'd never travelled more than a few miles from your home; so you had very little choice as to whom you would marry. Will Shakespeare, a poor young village boy, married a much older woman.
Economics were different. In the 19th century, most young working people were in domestic or farm service, and most of the rest were factory workers. They spent 3 to 6 years in school, if that, and barely could read and write. They worked very, very long hours,(domestic servants were on call 24-7) and their free time was not their own; they only had a half-day off a week, and had to go to church on Sunday; missing church was cause for firing. They needed their employer's permission to marry, and if they married without it, they would both be fired, and given a 'bad reference': this meant they would be unemployable in their trade, and would have to take a step down in the employment market. A young married woman had poor chances of finding a job, because of the likelihood that she would become pregnant, so only one of the couple would be working.
If you were a child of a small independent farmer, you would be expected to help with farm work from about age six. It was not unusual for children of fourteen to be taken out of school because their parents needed them to do farm work at home -- girls and boys alike. Illigitimacy was a family disgrace. A common end to a teen-aged girl's pregnancy was suicide by drowning. The supposed father (rightly or wrongly supposed) had to leaave the community. He and his family were also disgraced. The parents exacted labor and conformity by the demand of obedience to parents, which was supported by church and state. Parents could physically punish children very severely for disobedience, although crippling injury and killing were against the law.
Young married couples often lived in a rented room and did their cooking and laundry and bathing in a common area with other tenants - serially, I mean, not all together. Red Face Only when they had a baby, and the wife was forced to quit her job (yes, really, pregnancy was cause for firing) would they move to an apartment.
So young people had low expectations.
But 'happily ever after' doesn't quite describe their lot; and they knew enough not to expect it. As a result, many didn't marry.
Anyone who abandoned their spouse and children was treated like a criminal. Divorce was utterly condemned, except for the rich, who could afford to support two families. So when you married, you made the best of it. An abandoned woman had to support her children by doing laundry or housework, and her children at home had to look after themselves while she worked. She usually could not afford enough to feed and shelter them adequately, and as for clothes, they wore what they could cull from other people's garbage.
Birth control was illegal so only the rich had access to technical means.
This oppressive system controlled population growth, and optimized the rights of the employer, and was sanctified by church and state; and to this day is seen as 'a good thing' in some parts of the world.
We on the other hand have a completely different system. Parents are more permissive; they permit their children to have unsupervised time with members of the opposite sex at a very early age; and when this results in teen pregnancy, often the parents will adopt the child so that the teen parents can resume a 'normal' teen life.
Children are seen as having basically one duty: to get an education. Their work for the family is limited at worst to some household chores. Rarely, a child is required to help in the family business, unpaid, on weekends.
Parents and teachers must use reason alone to try to get teens to co-operate. But since teens do not quite understand responsibility, as soon as they grow physically large enough to challenge the authority figures, many of them do exactly as they like. Parents who fail to meet the requirement of the teens find themselves faced with verbal and physical abuse, tantrums, rebellion, refusal to attend school, running away (briefly) and a host of other punishing behaviors.
Which brings me at last to my point.
Let's say two young rebels, a girl and boy of sixteen, leave home and set up housekeeping. Neither has a job, since they didn't stay in school; and besides, the jobs they could do are taken by immigrants who will work for money which no teen would consider acceptable. So they find themselves in quarters not nearly as comfortable as were the homes from which they came, living on parental handouts or social assistance.
At first the freedom to stay up late and have sex whenever they want and play loud music and not have to go to high school is enough; but neither is at all accustomed to much in the way of limits; so what happens when one of them tries to impose limits on the other? Or expect the other to do 'chores' in the apartment?
The 'expector' assumes the role of the opposite-sex parent, at least in the eyes of he/she of whom something is expected. So the 'victim' responds as he/she did at home: - "how dare you tell me what to do? I'm not a child!" - "I have the right to spend time with my friends. It's far better than this #$%@*%." - slamming doors; swearing; trying to restrain the other when he/she wants to leave - hitting and slapping the frustrating 'other'.
And then, the inevitable: inability to delay gratification results in pregnancy because they ran out of condoms, or got high or drunk, or decided it would be fun to have a kid. So now to the mix we add a tiny, totally dependent (24-7-365) little being, whose needs are almost constant; in addition it cries a lot for attention.
So here is the question: For teens permissively raised, how are their chances for 'happily ever after'?
(Teens not permissively raised would not leave home without an education etc. etc., because their parents do foresee the results of bringing an infant into a home that is incapable of providing for the child's basic needs, and would bloody well prevent it from happening. And by the time these teens were adults, they would have the necessary foresight themselves.)
I have answered this from the teen perspective because adults will marry their cousins or not based upon their own assessment of the consequences that they can foresee. Usually.
But that's not the plot that gave us Romeo and Juliet.
03-16-07, 09:14 PM DorianGreyed It seems that Ron prefers Oedipus Rex. I suppose blinding oneself is better than suicide.
03-16-07, 11:38 PM SeattleRon DG, I"m kinda stupid. I don't know what Oedipus rex means.
03-17-07, 05:48 AM FredPuli
quote: Originally posted by SeattleRon: I don't know what Oedipus rex means.
No, me neither, but it sounds disgusting !It's probably a sexual practice, illegal even in private. But I thought that about 'Aer Lingus' ( which turned out to be an Irish airline) Big Grin
And, what's more, I bet 99% of people who refer to an Oedipus complex have never seen or read the play.
03-17-07, 10:56 AM babthrower Oedipus Rex is an extinct lizard, I think. I guess it went extinct because it went blind. Big lizards were in a lot of trouble in those days anyway. Frown Anyway, Ron, I guess it wouldn't hurt to get your eyes checked, because DG obviously thinks you have a problem. It's sort of like if he'd called you Mr.Magoo. But I always thought Mr.Magoo was kinda cute.
03-17-07, 05:13 PM FredPuli Talking of genetics: Charles Darwin married his first cousin. They had ten children. Her diaries have just been released on to the internet, so the couple's life together has been the news here. The Cambridge Evening News notes that Darwin himself wondered whether the three of his ten children who were weak were so as a result of their being the product of first cousins.
(Now back to Mr Magoo . Wasn't Jim Backus good as the voice of Magoo? )
03-17-07, 08:40 PM honilov Marrying first cousins is incest. If incest is not legally wrong, it should be wrong by commonsense.
03-17-07, 11:42 PM SeattleRon With all due respect. To have sex with someone in your bloodline sickens me.'
I think the whole thing is gross, and disgusting.... And if you agree, then you are sick too.....
03-18-07, 01:46 AM Leppi
quote: Originally posted by honilov: Marrying first cousins is incest. If incest is not legally wrong, it should be wrong by commonsense.
American Heritage New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition - Cite This Source
quote:
incest- Sexual relations between relatives who are forbidden by law to marry; for example, between father and daughter or mother and son.
noun sexual intercourse between persons too closely related to marry (as between a parent and a child)
I guess my opinion is different, but I believe incest refers to father, mother, sister, brother, son, daughter. If any of my kids wanted to marry their first cousins, as long as they get genetic testing done first, I don't see what the problem is.... There is nothing disgusting or repulsive about it to me...
03-18-07, 02:51 AM DorianGreyed Ron, most people of European descent are related. I have seen estimate that as high as 60% of those with British ancestry are descended from one of the English kings, that most Western Europeans are descended from Charlemagne, and that about half of the US presidents are descended from one of the Edwards and are thus cousins. Do the math. Go back 50 generations (a little before Charlemagne, I think, and see how many ancestors one person today has from that time. Then multiply by how many just in the US are of any European ancestry. The compare that number to the population of Europe at that time. Cousin Ron, you're going to be surprised. Of course, that means that you have probably already done the disgusting deed.
2 to the 50th power = over 1 quadrillion (I think)
1 quadrillion is 1,000,000,000,000,000 is one thousand trillion, or 10 to the 15th power)
There are only about 6 billion people on Earth today. Very obviously, there are more ancestors 50 generations ago that there were people. The only possible explanation is that most of us have common ancestors. A lot of common ancestors. We really are cousins.
It's your turn to have Thanksgiving, Ron. We'll be there at 2. (No oyster dressing for Cousin Fuse; it makes his throat swell.)
This message has been edited. Last edited by: DorianGreyed, 03-19-07 02:55 AM
03-18-07, 07:35 AM FredPuli Our papers today are reporting the case of a British man who has just married his mother-in-law. How about that? Roll Eyes Smile
03-18-07, 07:42 AM frankvan
quote: I think the whole thing is gross, and disgusting.... And if you agree, then you are sick too.....
Huh??How's that again?? Confused
03-18-07, 12:54 PM SeattleRon I don't know, I guess the whole thing kinda freaks me out. I don't know how I would even aproach my dad and be like, hey Dad I'm doing your sister. Or even any other member family member. Like I said before, there are too many fish in the sea. Why go to bed with someone in your family. It will disgust me forever.
03-18-07, 03:49 PM dance girl
quote: Originally posted by SeattleRon: I don't know how I would even aproach my dad and be like, hey Dad I'm doing your sister.
Ron, here's the thing; don't talk about "doing" anyone. It's kind of crude.
03-18-07, 04:33 PM honilov
quote: I guess my opinion is different, but I believe incest refers to father, mother, sister, brother, son, daughter. If any of my kids wanted to marry their first cousins, as long as they get genetic testing done first, I don't see what the problem is.... There is nothing disgusting or repulsive about it to me...
Leppi, that's your prerogative. It's just that my opinion is different. To me, marrying first cousins is still incest. There are too many hunks that's not related to me, for me to want a cousin hunk.
03-18-07, 10:24 PM SeattleRon this whole subject is crude. This is something that should be on Springer. I'm sorry Leppi, but I have to go against you with this. Marrying any family member or thinking of a family member that way is just plain wrong. You wanna live that way move to Tenessee.
This message has been edited. Last edited by: DorianGreyed,
Originally posted by SeattleRon: You wanna live that way move to Tenessee.
It's legal where I live right now I close frind of mine used to always set up her first cousin (also her best friend) with all different friends of hers. He used to set up all of his friends with her. After three years of setting each other up with the others friends, they got married. Now thier kids are all perfectly normal and I don't see any retardedness in them.
Also I spent last night looking in many dictionaries, and they all described insest as relationships with relatives to close to marry. Many gave examples such as mother brother sister father, but none gave first cousin as an example.
Also ron, I decided to do a quick survey today in one of my classes, and about half the girls ( I go to an all girls school) have grandparents or greatgrandparents who are first cousins. Going back not so far, it is actually quite common. But I don't think marrying your sister or brother is. ********************************************************** Leppi, that marrying your first cousin is common doesn't make it right. What makes it acceptable in some circumstances is that it's not wrong.
03-19-07, 07:27 AM Leppi I honestly have to say, I can understand first cousins not marrying for genetic reasons. But besides for that, I honestly don't understand why people think of it as so disgusting and repulsive. and I understand how people call it incest, but it's NOT like your cousin is your mother father sister brother daughter.... right?
Belatedly edited at poster's request to correct missing word.
This message has been edited. Last edited by: DorianGreyed, 03-23-07 01:31 PM
03-19-07, 08:04 AM Elexina
quote: Originally posted by SeattleRon: You wanna live that way move to Tenessee.
Ooh, that's a bit of a stereotype, isn't it?
Ron, just because you believe it's wrong doesn't make it wrong for everyone. Some people believe it's wrong to take cold medicine. That doesn't make it wrong for the whole world to treat their sniffles.
03-23-07, 02:35 PM SeattleRon I understand what you're saying Elexina. I am in no way trying to enforce my beliefs on anybody, but if you went out in public, and met people and said something like,"Hey how you doing this is my Wife, but she's also my cousin." People would look at you like a freak. Then what happens if you have kids. How bad is that kid going to have it at school. If you thought inter-racial children had it bad, or kids adopted by gays had it bad...Imagine the torture that child is going to go through once the whole school finds out that "They keep it in the family."
To be bold and honest with you, there was someone back in junior high who my friends and I found out was the spawn of a cousin marriage. Once we found out we made ass fun of him and bullied him all day long. It got bad, we called him two thumbs, we asked him if he had sex with his mother and if his dad ever did him. We were awful to this guy. Just terrible. We told everyone in the school that his parents were cousins. Everybody made fun of this guy. His name was ****** ****. He had enough. after a while of torture, he put a gun in his mouth. Left a 3 page note. It was not good.
Edited to protect privacy.
This message has been edited. Last edited by: DorianGreyed, 03-23-07 02:40 PM
03-26-07, 08:08 AM Elexina Ron, I certainly understand your concerns for the children of such a union. Let me start off by saying that I don’t necessarily condone these sorts of relationships. Also, children are not the inevitable result of any coupling. Two people who are closely related must consider the consequences of their relationship before embarking on it and perhaps the responsible action is to refrain from having children.
I am not sure that anyone would introduce themselves in the manner you suggest. “This is my wife, she is also my cousin” is unnecessary. A person’s marriage is a private thing and I doubt that people in this situation would bring it up like that. And if they do have kids, it is again no one’s business who their parents are. I never noticed inter-racial kids “having it bad,” and I was lucky enough to go to a school where people were actually tolerant of their classmate’s differences so kids with gay parents did not “have it bad” either. However, we never spent too much time dwelling on who a person’s parents were. I didn’t know if a black friend was interracial, or perhaps just lighter skinned. I didn’t care, and it wasn’t any of my business.
It’s a shame that kids feel they have to pick on their classmates about their differences. I’m not sure why that is accepted and handed down through the generations.
I am also very saddened by the way you and your friends treated your classmate in junior high. That is disgraceful. I really just don’t have the words to address the last part of your post.
03-26-07, 09:43 AM DorianGreyed Elexina brings up an excellent point. Ron, it doesn't sound as if it was that kid's parents who caused his suicide; it was how some of his schoolmates treated him.
03-26-07, 10:41 AM dance girl Ron, what happened to your classmate, and his subsequent suicide, is something that you and your friends have to live with. It was a horrible thing to do to somebody. However, I don't want to add to the negativity.
We have all done things, that in hindsight we are ashamed of. I sincerely hope you regret what happened. Hopefully we learn by these mistakes.
Nothing can change what happened, but your attitude towards people can change.
While I can accept that you disagree with the marriage of close relatives, I'm sure you wouldn't, as an adult, go so far as to ridicule someone.
You see, kids attitudes are, in part, shaped by what they hear at home. If prejudice and bigotry are acceptable at home, they often just become part of the way a child behaves with respect to others.
So, as an adult you now have the opportunity to have an influence on the way a child sees the world, whether it be through the children of friends, relatives or perhaps one day, kids of your own!
03-26-07, 02:23 PM kittypal I agree dg...also it's not the child's fault he or she was born to two first cousins.
I also think it is a bit weird...I suppose it depends on how close you are to yuor first cousins...Mine are all closer to my parents age and I view them more as uncles and aunts and would never think of them in any way but family.
03-27-07, 08:14 AM aminator2002 Simply monstrous. 03-27-07, 03:35 PM SeattleRon I was a cruel teenager. I understand now that it's not the childs fault for being born. Believe me I don't condone any type of hate like that anymore. I was a teenager, an immature little brat. I would never do that to someone today.
03-27-07, 04:28 PM Sherasi Ron, I was one of those tortured kids you so embraced violence towards. Okay I wasn't born of parents who were related to one another, but I was still kick, beaten, spit on, called names continuously and simply tortured... all because I was the "new kid" and not one of the crowd.
To this day it affects the way I live. I spent several years in a deep clinical depression contemplating ways to commit suicide painlessly. I missed nearly every Monday and every Friday for months at school until my parents got a letter from the school district.
I went from a straight A student in the Academic section to the "special help" section in a matter of a month or two. I gained weight and ate bags of Doritos at a single sitting.
Now, I worry to death how my kids are going to grow up because they ARE different.. because they are "retarded". I lived in silent terror that they will become the whipping boys of bullies. They have been lucky so far, but that can change in a heart beat. And they would never understand why.
So, how would you and your friends have treated my sons? Would you have hounded THEM until they killed themselves?
All this because I had the gall to be different.
03-27-07, 05:02 PM SeattleRon I never made fun of the mentally ill or disabled Sher. as bad as it is, I did have my limits. I was a jerk to a lot of people who I thought were difrent from me. I feel horrible about it. It's a memory that I really don't want to re-live. I know it was all wrong, and like I said I was a jerkoff back then. I don't know if you remember a post that I put up a couple years ago, about my arab friend who works at a store. Some guy called him derrogatory names like raghead and worse stuff, so I took the guy down the very second he walked outside of the store.
Sher, I am not like that anymore and I feel terrible about how I acted when I was a teenager. Believe me, I would never ever in a million years act that way against anybody ever.
03-27-07, 06:27 PM MrsS While I applaud your newfound sense of decency and humanity, I can't say that "taking someone down" to indicate disapproval is a whole lot of improvement... That off my chest, I want everyone to return to the thread topic, which is whether or not cousins should marry.
03-27-07, 07:45 PM SeattleRon You got it MrS.S
03-27-07, 11:16 PM Professor
quote: Originally posted by DG on page 2: Ron, most people of European descent are related. I have seen estimate that as high as 60% of those with British ancestry are descended from one of the English kings, that most Western Europeans are descended from Charlemagne, and that about half of the US presidents are descended from one of the Edwards and are thus cousins. Do the math. Go back 50 generations (a little before Charlemagne, I think, and see how many ancestors one person today has from that time.
2 to the 50th power = over 1 quadrillion (I think) [ Right on. It's about 1.126 quadrillion --Prof. ]
There are only about 6 billion people on Earth today. Very obviously, there are more ancestors 50 generations ago that there were people. The only possible explanation is that most of us have common ancestors. A lot of common ancestors. We really are cousins.
The weekly syndicated column Ask Marilyn in Parade magazine dealt with this topic a few years ago (sorry no link), and Marilyn pointed out (as did DG) that there had to be frequent intermarriage of related ancestors to account for the present population.
First cousins share common grandparents (two out of four, that is). Second cousins share common great-grandparents (two out of eight), and so on.
You could say that siblings (who share both parents) are zero-th cousins. I think we'd all agree that marriage between siblings is morally repugnant and biologically dangerous, and is taboo in virtually all cultures.
Do you know all of your second cousins? Does anybody know all of their third and fourth cousins? The high school sweethearts who get married and raise a family might, in fact, be third cousins and not even know it!
10th cousins? Fugetaboutit! How could they possibly know?! They'd be total strangers.
So it's just a matter of degree: 0th cousins -- no good. 3rd and higher cousins -- OK. First and second cousins -- gray area.
quote: Originally posted by FredPuli on p.2: Wasn't Jim Backus good as the voice of Magoo?
Indeed. It's unfortunate he's best remembered as "Mr. Howell." I remember him co-starring in an early 1950s series called "I Married Joan." And don't forget that he played James Dean's clueless father in Rebel Without A Cause.
Poor Mr. Magoo finally succumbed to political correctness, it no longer being funny to joke about a visually handicapped man, or to depict his Chinese house boy with a demeaning ethnic stereotype. But I enjoyed the cartoons anyway!
03-28-07, 10:34 AM Leppi
quote: Originally posted by Professor: Do you know all of your second cousins? Does anybody know all of their third and fourth cousins? The high school sweethearts who get married and raise a family might, in fact, be third cousins and not even know it!
Someone suggested to me that I ask this question again but phrase it differently. Do you think first cousins should be allowed to marry, and where you close with your first cousins growing up? For me, my first cousins all lived in different places far away and I would see that at most once every two or three years. On the other hand, a friend of mine who is totally against the idea, grew up with her first cousins next door, and to her they feel more like family.
03-28-07, 03:45 PM honilov
quote: Someone suggested to me that I ask this question again but phrase it differently. Do you think first cousins should be allowed to marry, and where you close with your first cousins growing up? For me, my first cousins all lived in different places far away and I would see that at most once every two or three years. On the other hand, a friend of mine who is totally against the idea, grew up with her first cousins next door, and to her they feel more like family.
Leppi, whether you live one mile or a million miles, a first cousin is still a first cousin. Distance doesn't matter at all. Marrying a first cousin is still incest, any which way it's sugar-coated.
03-29-07, 03:59 AM Leppi Honi, what I am trying to say, is that I don't think it is incest at all. And I am not trying to sugar coat it with distance. To me it would be repulsive to ever think of marrying my mother, but on the other hand I grew up with my mother. To marry a first cousin, what's the big deal, it's not someone I truley feel a close family tie with because I didn't grow up with them. So what I am asking by that above question, do we base incest (close family ties) and people that we also never met in our childhood, or does it not matter.
Ron, another example, there was a girl I was in her class with from 4rth grade until 11th grade. We were close friends and knew each other well. In tenth grade we had to do a report on family history, where to my surprise I discovered that she was my third cousin. Very often when you get to third cousins you have no idea who they are.
03-29-07, 08:47 AM MrsS
quote: So what I am asking by that above question, do we base incest (close family ties) and people that we also never met in our childhood, or does it not matter.
To most people, it doesn't matter if you grew up next door to each other or on different sides of the globe, the common feeling (in most cultures) is that closely related individuals should not marry (or become sexually intimate)- but I see where you're coming from, and for second cousins on out, I agree... To be attracted to someone you grew up thinking of as "Family" is, emotionally, a different matter than being attracted to someone you've never really known. Even with genetic counselling and testing, I think close relatives should refrain from reproducing, but other than that, I'm not terribly interested in what consenting adults choose to do with their lives.
This message has been edited. Last edited by: DorianGreyed,
Leppi, all I said was I disaprove of it. I think it's wrong. Those are my beliefs. Doesn't mean you can't go do what you want. I gave you my point of view. I went extremely beyond points here. When I said what I said, and certain people said, it's not the childrens fault that they are born. Thats certainly true. While I do believe there is nothing wrong with difrent races getting married and having Children. There is nothing you can ever say to me that can ever make me aprove of anybody from the same bloodline getting married,let alone having children. I could tell you this though. If my dads sisters son came to me and said he wanted to marry my dads brothers daughter, I would tell them, you do it and the family would disown you both, then I would walk away from them both. I would never speak to them... Ever again. I"m sorry, but you could never change my mind on that. If you wanna. go ahead Leppi, Nobody is going to stop you. You're not my family, so I"ll still talk to you. I disapprove, but just get ready for the consequences. Make sure you know what you're getting into...
Posts: 2705 | Location: USA | Registered: 06-07-02
Ron, you're a bit behind the news... Leppi is already a happily married woman and, you can get off your high horse warning her of your impending disapproval, the handsome (and fortunate) young man is not a cousin.
I'm not clear on what prompted her to pose this question, but it was not prompted by any of her own plans.
Posts: 2257 | Location: Western United States | Registered: 06-03-02
oh my god, i had no idea. I thought this whole thing was her wanting to know about it because she wanted to do it. oh man, I made a big mistake. My apologies.
Posts: 2705 | Location: USA | Registered: 06-07-02
