Marriage between first cousins

[tesscaline]

Do you have a link to that quote?

It was buried in one of the articles about the German brother and sister who had 4 children despite repeated jail time for incest... Again, I interpreted it incorrectly, and I apologize.

The Dutch Civil Code is online here (hope this link keeps working).

If you want, I can quote the relevant articles plus translation; they're quite easy.

I got curious about past changes in the law. This recent article from a leading Dutch paper mentions a recent paper of Diane Paul and Hamish Spencer in an internet periodical "PLoS Biology", who argue there is no scientific basis for a ban on cousin-cousin marriages.

This article claims the current Dutch law has been introduced in 1970, in the first part of the complete reworking of the Dutch Civil Code. Before that, marriages were banned between relatives up to the 3rd degree - so parent/child, grandparent/grandchild or even great-grandparent/great-grandchild, siblings, and nephew/aunt or niece/uncle . But not cousin-cousin. There was the possibility for dispensation; a famous case was Anton Mussert, the leader of the Dutch Nazi party who married his aunt.

Finally, this article claims that a ban on cousin-cousin marriages in the Netherlands had been lifted in 1580. It also mentions that the previous Dutch Health Minister had considered a ban on cousin-cousin marriages - the number is increasing among Turkish and Moroccan immigrants - but had not done so after advice from the medical world.

ETA: sorry all links are in Dutch. I can translate relevant parts if you're interested.

Thank you for the links. No translation is necessary, I trust that you are being honest about their content.

 

[Miss_Kitt]

Er, um. Folks?

Coupla things, which are minor quibbles with the argumentation, not the base position of the poster(s) involved.

"Incest" is not limited to cases where offspring are produced. It's the act of fornication, not the production of children, that's the "sin" involved.

Too those who are shouting, "marriage does not equal children," that may be true now; but in the time when these laws were made, it usually did. Even now, even with the use of contraceptives, the more you're banging it, the more likely a failure will occur.

[/technical mode]

To me, the issue of incest is purely one of "informed consent". I believe it is morally wrong for a 40-year-old teacher to have sex with a 16-year-old student, because the amount of influence the teacher wields over that student is such that it is difficult (to impossible) for said student to consent freely. Parent/child or step-child falls into the same category. And, while of course maturity varies per individual, the line needs to be drawn somewhere, which is why 16 or 18 is the age of consent generally.

I believe that brother/sister pairing is inherently icky, but that might have more to do with my particular family than the world at large. Would you really want to spend your life with someone who remembers when you used to pick your nose? (Insert embarassing personal memory here.)

BTW, Newsweek has an article on this subject this week as well.

--MK

 

[pgwenthold]

Er, um. Folks?

Coupla things, which are minor quibbles with the argumentation, not the base position of the poster(s) involved.

"Incest" is not limited to cases where offspring are produced. It's the act of fornication, not the production of children, that's the "sin" involved.

Too those who are shouting, "marriage does not equal children," that may be true now; but in the time when these laws were made, it usually did. Even now, even with the use of contraceptives, the more you're banging it, the more likely a failure will occur.

So what?

Still a completely irrelevant argument.

[/technical mode]

To me, the issue of incest is purely one of "informed consent". I believe it is morally wrong for a 40-year-old teacher to have sex with a 16-year-old student, because the amount of influence the teacher wields over that student is such that it is difficult (to impossible) for said student to consent freely. Parent/child or step-child falls into the same category. And, while of course maturity varies per individual, the line needs to be drawn somewhere, which is why 16 or 18 is the age of consent generally.

I have no problems with the issue of consent. Now, what does this have to do with cousins getting married?

I believe that brother/sister pairing is inherently icky,

And members of the KKK think interracial marriages are "inherently icky" and morally wrong.

They are and should be ignored, too.

 

[KingMerv00]

Parent/child or step-child falls into the same category. And, while of course maturity varies per individual, the line needs to be drawn somewhere, which is why 16 or 18 is the age of consent generally.
--MK

What about adult incest?

 

[roger]

I believe that brother/sister pairing is inherently icky, but that might have more to do with my particular family than the world at large. Would you really want to spend your life with someone who remembers when you used to pick your nose? (Insert embarassing personal memory here.)

1. Why do you assume a brother/sister must have lived in the same house?

2. Is it icky for two kids that were next door neighbors and played together to get married (plenty of nose picking stories there)?

(yes, I did see the qualification about your 'particular family', so you probably did consider these alternatives).

 

[ddt]

And in Sweden brother/sister can even marry.

Half-brother and -sister; and only with special permission. Like in the Netherlands, siblings through adoption can marry with special permission.

Note that is not a complete list. The only countries in Europe where I know incest is illegal is Germany, Finland, and "Britain".

It's relevant here to note there are two different things. The word incest carries the suggestion of abuse of minors. As such, it is forbidden, I guess, in all countries. In the Netherlands, as part of the chapter on vice crimes, art. 249 par. 1 of the Penal Code mentions sexual abuse of an underage child, stepchild or foster child. Par. 2 of the same article mentions sexual abuse by civil servants, teachers, prison guards, health care workers and some others against their clients.

Just to raise some thoughts:

As others noted, incest actually just means having sexual relations with a close relative (parent/child/sibling). Apart from the morality of that, I'd like to raise the more legal questions:
1) would a prohibition on incest really be enforceable?
2) do you want the state to peek into your bedroom, so to say?

I note there's a difference here between incest laws and marriage laws. Marriage is a state-sanctioned contract between two parties, traditionally two parties of different gender, by which the state gives various perks to the parties, regulates who gets the inheritance and who has responsibility for the children.

Absence of a ban on incest means "we won't put you in jail for having a relation with your sibling", whereas a ban on marriage means "we won't give you perks for having a relation with your sibling".

It's interesting to note that in the Netherlands marriage has lost most of its meaning - most of the perks the state gives to married people also apply to people who are joined in a "registered partnership", or even to people who just live together without any contract. And that the ban on sibling marriage applies equally to hetero or gay marriage. I'll try to hunt down what the rationale for the latter was when introducing the amendment to the Civil Code.

 

[ponderingturtle]

Even the Amish do not marry their cousins, however they have an extremely small biological pool. Consequently, they are frequently studied for the passing of birth defects and genetic mutations.

So what? It is a bad plan for a community, but plenty of equally bad genetic and ones that are statistically much more likely are legal.

The issue here is one of do you want laws to be fair and treat similar situations in a similar manner or be based off of emotional reactions?

 

[ponderingturtle]

I've been reading this thread, trying to figure out why you are so passionate about this particular subject, and for the life of me, I can't seem to come up with anything that would justify the amount of venom I'm seeing in your posts (other than, perhaps, you are married to your own first cousin or want to be married to them, but you already denied a similar insinuation so I'm not really wanting to go with that one).

Not to mention how you keep ignoring the posts made about the biological risks associated with such incestuous relationships (those risks, for the record, are greater amongst a large population than they are amongst a small population).

Here is a specific case that is as bad as anything the relatives can get in terms of breeding.

Should two people with Achondroplasia be able to be married? This is the most common form of dwarfism and is a dominant gene, but one that one compatible with life. So this couple has a known 25% risk of lethal consequences for offspring and a 50% chance of birth defects.

Clearly any relationship between them should be legaly banned for the same reasons as cousins right?

 

[ponderingturtle]

Was that a legitimate question? I thought you were trolling. But yeah, I can answer that.

I never inquired about that because the article I mentioned in the OP does not mention the rate of genetic diseases for children of siblings.

And without that, I cannot form an opinion. Because if the risk is too high, then I'm against it on principle, because I can't justify seeing deformed babies, no one wants that. If it's not, even then I'd like to hear other opinions.

So you are against some people being allowed to breed then? As this seems to be the only current laws that anyone tries to use that as a justification it seems totally out of place.

Now there are people and couples that I don't think should choose to have children, but there seems to be little current trends for such a eugenic program in most of the world.

 

[ponderingturtle]

I'm not really sure I'm the person you want to talk to about that one, as I think both are a bad idea.

So should we force sterilization on women at 35? Only one of them is enforced by law. The point is that people legislate against this for the ick factor and ignore all the equally bad or much worse cases that don't trigger the ick factor as much. Especially if it can be framed as a right.

 

[ponderingturtle]

Cumulativity. The latter problems don't keep building up generation after generation.

Could you present evidence that this would happen to any serious extent. Is it happening in all the counties that cousin marriage is legal?

And could you actually say if we should legally ban sexual relationships if there is more than a certain risk in procreating.

 

[ponderingturtle]

"On January 1, 2009, Norway will become the sixth country in the world to legalize same-sex marriage."

If I were gay I do not think I would even want to engage in said holy union, however. Maybe to take the piss on dogmatic Christians

So you would choose to not get the thousand or so legal rights for you and your partner because of some connection to religion?

 

[ponderingturtle]

I rarely ever post but this thread is driving me nuts. As stated many times marriage does not equal children.

The thing is that the arguments people are using to justify this law are based on breeding. As there are not laws specifically about who you can breed with this is the closest we can get. Maybe the people in favor of banning such impregnation's should get the government more involved in everyone's reproduction, to make sure that the wrong people do not breed.

There had been large scale forced sterilization projects in the past after all.

 

[PitPat]

Thanks for starting this thread, it's a good reminder about the subtle distinctions between science, law, morality and sheer opinion.