Who was that? Anyway, that type of incest does not lead to inbreeding. Prohibition against marrying a sister-in-law may have been to reduce the incentive for jealousy-caused fratricide.
Both Queen Mary I and Queen Elizabeth I could be considered “bastards” since Mary’s mother had earlier been the wife of Henry VIII’s brother Arthur, and Elizabeth’s mother was the sister of Henry’s earlier mistress, Mary Boleyn.
See post 16, above:
That’s assuming that the bar was based on modern knowledge. Instead, it was an ecclesiastical rule, based on the church’s interpretation of biblical teachings, possibly including social stability principles, as @Gordon_G suggests.
Henry got rid of it as part of his reformation / break from Rome / horniness, not based on scientific reasons.
I was browsing Wikipedia and came across this tidbit:
The U.S. is the only western country with cousin marriage restrictions, no European country prohibits marriage between first cousins.[58]
The cite goes to a NYT article that says there is no genetic reason to discourage first cousin marriage.
True. But if cousins marry cousins who marry cousins and so on, things could and did get bad.
But they are right- today, there are no reasons to forbid cousin marriage. We are past the Habsburgs now.
And mostly past the “isolated village in some Appalachian holler” stage. Besides, for that crew the damage is already mostly done.
Hey! My in-laws represent that remark!
(Seriously, they do. In every way)
There is/was an Australian family with a genetic flaw that only becomes evident at 30+, associated with disinhibition (like acquired brain injury or several “happy” syndromes and diseases) and early death like tertiary syphilis. Dunno what the status is now. They kept on having children in the “disinhibited” phase, and early death did not eliminate the genetic flaw.
But it certainly isn’t universal here either. 26 out of 50 states allow 1st cousin marriage either completely or with some restrictions. Most Americans wouldn’t guess that’s the answer.
In two states incest between adults is legal regardless of how closely related. They just can’t get married. You wouldn’t guess the states if you are going by the stereotypes. It’s New Jersey and Rhode Island.
1st cousin marriages only become a serious problem when they are repeated. This has happened when some people prefer to arrange marriages within their family group.
The Bill in the UK Parliament was introduced using the 10-minute rule process, which allows a backbench MP to make the case for a new bill in a speech of up to 10 minutes in the Commons. However, such bills are unlikely to become law without government support because of the limited parliamentary time available for them, and the government has made it clear that it won’t.