In the column about cousins marrying, Cecil states:
I believe that the flak over this marriage had more to do with the fact that his bride was 13 years old than it had to do with the two of them being cousins.
HeyHomie -
First off, let me agree with you completely.
Second, rather than start a new thread, can I hijack slightly to ask if cousin marriages are honored in non-cousin states? Or for that matter, 13-year old marriages?
Could you get one of those annulled by moving to another state and claiming it was illegal ipso facto?
Under the full faith and credit clause of the US Constitution, a marriage valid and legal in one state must be recognized by other states - unless by so doing it would be against the public policy of that state. The latter was used by an appellate court (re homosexual marriage) and not SCOTUS, so it is questionable whether that would be a valid exception. I don’t know if this ever came up, but that’s the general rule.
I think it’s not quite true that only females pass
hemophelia to their children. Since it involves
recessive genes on the X chromosome, it goes
from mother to son regardless of father, but
a daughter needs to get it from both parents–
one bad X chromosome from her mother, and
one from her father (who got it from her paternal
grandmother).
So a bad gene from your mother is sufficient
for hemophelia if you’re a boy, necessary but
not sufficient if you’re a girl. Am I right?
Part of ]b]Lewis**'s problem was that he was becoming successful. Many girls were married at a very young age back then. Loretta Lynn got married at about that age too, IIRC. But not to her cousin.
Cecil’s article addressed a question of what genetic problems might arise from such close couplings. Maybe now some folks will let go of the myth of “slack-jawed” whatever so near and dear to their hearts. Good.
Peace,
mangeorge
I think part of this is due to the family bonds. You marry a first cousin, and split up–but that person is still your cousin as long as both of you are living. This is “bad blood” in more ways than one: Divorced cousins will get bad vibes fro the other kinfolk long after the split.
Yes. But.
Until the 20th century, a boy born with hemophilia had an almost zero chance of surviving to adulthood. So it was pretty much impossible to have a father who carried the hemophilia gene, because for a man to be a carrier of the hemophilia gene means that he has hemophilia. This was why you never heard about girls born with hemophilia in the royal lines.
Most websites confirm that Jerry Lee Lewis married his second cousin. This one, for example:
http://www.classicbands.com/jerrylee.html
Marrying your first cousin was still pretty much a social taboo in much of the rural South in the 1950’s. I was surprised to learn that it is even lawful in some states:
It was less shocking for a fourteen year old to marry. (I had three friends who married at 14 and 15.)
Well, that, and most female embryos with two hemophilia genes self-abort.
Wasn’t Jerry Lee Lewis also still married to someone else when he married his cousin?
Many people incorrectly refer to first cousins once removed as second cousins or insist that they are the same thing (they are not). Without a genealogical chart of the Lewis family, it’s hard to say which is more likely to be correct. In simple terms, a first cousin is the child of an aunt or uncle; a first cousin once removed is the child of a first cousin; a second cousin is the grandchild of a great aunt or uncle.
Interesting analysis of the potential sociopolitical implications of cousin marriage (particularly tribalism—think Hatfields and McCoys).
If Albert and Betty are siblings, and their respective children are Charlie and Diane, and their respective grandchildren are Edward and Felicia:
Albert - Betty
. . | . . . . |
Charlie . . Diane
. . | . . . . . |
Edward . . . Felicia
(Sorry about the dots, ignore them, it’s the only way to get the diagram to work)
Then:
Charlie and Diane are first cousins.
Edward and Felicia are second cousins.
Felicia and Charlie are first cousins once removed; similarly, Diane and Edward are first cousins once removed.
Ok, but now I don’t know what that says about the odds of things for first cousins once removed.
What % of genes do they get from each shared ancestor? How much increase is there of getting the duplicated recessive gene?
? = ?
____________|____________
| |
Albert = ? ? = Betty
| |
Charlie = ? ? = Diane
| |
Edward Felicia
Is that true? I hadn’t heard it before, and I didn’t find it upon cursory examination of the OMIM entry for hemophilia. In fact that entry states that
which is what I would have guessed.
What about in England? That’s where all the trouble started, after all.
Actually, I suspect trouble started somewhere in Africa with Lucy.
Or in Eden, if that’s your fancy.
There’s also the matter that Cecil’s column was based on the risk from cousin marriage in a society where it’s not common. But if it’s a routine or even expected thing in a society, then the “cousins” in question are likely to have a higher degree of consanguinuity than the 1/8 typical for cousins. Surely, there’s some degree of consanguinuity at which risks cannot be ignored; Cecil specifically mentions that sibling or parent/child couplings (1/2 consanguinuity, in either case) are genetically contraindicated. So what are the risks like for a society where cousin marriage is as accepted as any other marriage? Or for a society where it’s encouraged, or even mandatory, for many generations?
Well, the ancient Egyptian Pharoahs married their sisters, and where are they today? …