Two of my classmates had identical names. Their fathers were brothers; their mothers were sisters; they were born within hours of each other. And some asshole allowed both sets of parents to give them identical firstnames. And then, they got to attend the same school, so they got to be in the same class. At least they looked different, that helped.
I know several other cases of siblings married to siblings. Other than affecting the splitting of holidays and the drawing of family trees, it doesn’t seem to cause much trouble. At least, so long as nobody is stupid enough to repeat firstnames…
My father married his twin brother’s wife’s younger sister, AKA my late mother, AKA Earth’s greatest woman. Mom and Dad were very happy for nearly 50 years.
I’m down with going for it. I’ve known like relationships that have gone well and some that have gone very badly; but I can say that about every kind of relationship you can dream up. The only one I can recall sort of unique was an older brother (by 13 years) who married his SILs mom. They got points for originality.
In my genealogical research, I found this a lot. Two brothers marrying the sisters from the farm next door. Both Mrs. FtG and myself have this in our family trees as recently as the late 1800s.
With people moving around more, living in urban areas, it has merely become less common, that’s all.
In my extended family we have a few instances of this. Two brothers marrying two sisters, etc. No problems.
I suppose a lot depends on your family dynamics as a whole. If you come from a family where family is very important and overall very supportive of one another or is it dysfunction junction?
If he was already close to the SIL, I’d say it might be worth going for it. The potential drama involved with dating a family member is greater, but if he knew the SIL well and felt there was a decent chance of a relationship, maybe its worth the risk.
But it doesn’t sound like that’s the case, and there’s plenty of people that are “pretty hot and seem like a nice person”, most of which probably aren’t already related to the OP (and probably live closer than a few hours away, as well). Seems a better plan to just ask some of them out, instead of risking the extra drama and awkward future family get-togeathers for a girl the OP barely knows.
Wouldn’t any way of meeting a potential partner entail some extra risk of drama? If it’s someone you work with, then you risk extra drama at work. If it’s someone from your gardening club, then you risk extra drama when you go gardening. If it’s someone from church, then you risk extra drama when you go to church. If a mutual friend introduced you, then you risk extra drama whenever that mutual friend is involved. There’s no such thing as a relationship that eliminates the drama risk.
Now, the risk might be somewhat higher for a match like this, because you can’t change who you’re related to, but it still needs to be compared to the fairly high baseline.
Worked for my grandfather as well, and both marriages lasted until death did they part. And nobody repeated first names either when naming the children. (Seriously? That is bizarre.)
Different cultures have different naming conventions. In some parts of Europe, during certain times, almost every male member of the family would have the same, exact name. That’s one of the reasons that diminutives/nicknames are so common in Anglo-American culture—there were only so many “real” names to go around.
In ancient Rome, all women were named after their fathers: A man named “Claudius,” every single one of his daughters were officially named “Claudia.” As a matter of informal usage, they had to come up with nicknames.
In my ethnic background, it is taboo to give a child a given name the same as any known relative, living or dead, within a certain number of generations, regardless of whether they have the same family name or not. Even outside that number of generations, it’s rare to name a child after a relative. It’s just not done.
Gotta agree with tuesdayweld here. She lives a couple of hours away, if it ends badly, you’re going to be able to walk away & never deal with it again because of your brother & SiL. Just NO.
My dad and his brother married sisters. In addition, two of my mother’s brothers married sisters. All lasted until death did they part. I have three double first cousins (cousins on both sides).