There is not enough moonshine in the world to make any of my cousins look sexually attractive.
If I were to announce I was going to marry one of my cousins, the reactions would be mixed; some family members would be admitted to the hospital for dehydration from vomiting non-stop, others would sent to the morgue, due to death by laughing.
Our family was close enough that we spent the holidays and the occasional family picnics/birthdays/graduations together with cousins/aunt/uncles…but on the ride home from these get-togethers, it was pretty much general consensus that these cousins might already be the product of incest somewhere along the line.
So, there is no possible hypothetical in the world that would require a red-headed banjo player at any wedding reception.
I have two cousins who got married, and their mothers were identical twins. There was some fierce fallout, but they were adults, it was legal, so what could we do?
They lead a boring normal life together, and have three boring normal children and seven normal grandchildren.
It would have to be one of my male cousins, and we’d not be allowed to marry in this state. There’d be a lot of gossip at first, but that would die down pretty quickly. Some of the more homophobic relatives would object, but they already object to us as singles.
Maternal: finding out this hypothetical cousin is gay would overshadow his choice of partner, by a lot. (If I have to be straight for the question, then we can change it to the fact that I’m not Christian would be a bigger deal than the fact that I’m related.)
Paternal: they’d disapprove and try to talk us out of it, but would eventually deal with it.
When strangers remarked on how much we look alike, my relatives, would say. “they’re cousins ya know.” Its happened before in my family, will probably happen again, it doesn’t seem like a big deal.
I believe it’s been said on the dope that first cousin is far enough away that there shouldn’t be more likelihood of incest-related birth defects than usual. It’s multiple generations of such incest that causes problems.
And this is something so far from my imagination that I can’t say what in the world would happen. And usually I have no problem with hypotheticals.
The best I can do is what me and my parents would do if we found out about someone else in the family. We’d talk about them in private but treat them outwardly normally. That’s how we are.
Sure, I could marry my hypothetical hot cousin. Actually I have a 2nd cousin I’d happily marry. Both sub-families (is that a word?) would probably be delighted actually, but I have a strange family.
Cousin marriage is legal here like it is in most of the world, although I do think it’s a pretty bad idea generally. There are loads of problems in the UK with a certain subset of the islamic immigrants who are basically all marrying their cousins and having genetic diseases, much like the weirdo mormons in the US.
I was raised pretty close with the side that has female cousins. That’d be my mom’s sister and we lived maybe 15 minutes away when I was a kid so we saw each other all the time. So I’m sure it would have been plenty creepy, gag-inducing and made for unhappy Thanksgiving dinners had we decided to shack up.
I’m pretty certain first cousin marriage is illegal in IL.
truthSeeker2, y’all are Indians, right? I’ve heard that Hindus (but not Muslims) have a fairly strong incest taboo. How far apart can the cousins be and it be cool? Second cousins? Third cousins? Even further?
Now that several people have weighed in, its only fair for me to do so as well.
Since I don’t know anyone from my biological father’s side, I’ll ignore that. On my mother’s side, the reaction would completely depend on which aunt my cousin resulted from. If he was from the Queen Bitch Aunt, it would cause a Cold War of epic proportions between my mother and that aunt. If he was born of my Okay Aunt, I think there’d be some fretting and pearl-clutching and unfunny jokes, but eventually everyone would come around.
A more distant cousin, I doubt anyone would care. Actually, I briefly dated a guy in high school who was a cousin-by marriage (I think his great-uncle married my great-aunt, or something like that) and everyone encouraged us to get together. Second cousins, my grandfather was from a family of eighteen children and my grandmother was one of eight children, so I probably have a 80-100 second cousins. Just from my great-grandfather alone (the father, by two wives, of the aforementioned 18 children) it wouldn’t surprise me if the number of descendants numbers about 1,000 people by now. I doubt many others live in NYC with me, but if they did, I could easily encounter and date one without realizing we were even third cousins.
Talking about Hindus only, In south India, one can marry children of ones father’s sisters and mother’s brothers (cross cousin). But marrying children of father’s brothers and mother’s sisters(parallel cousin) is not acceptable. Cross cousin marriages are common in south India.
In north India, cousin marriages is not acceptable first as well as second. I dont know about third cousin.
In addition, one cant marry in same gotra(clan). In many north Indian villages, the girl and the boy have to be from different villages as same village people are usually from same gotra. In cities, for arranged marriages, different *gotra *is sought, but exceptions are usually made for love marriages. But in villages, Families of same *gotra *couples are socially discriminated against many times.
My only girl cousin is ten years younger than me and, even though she is an adult now, it is difficult for me to emotionally relate to her other than if she was a little girl, so this is not going to happen - way too squicky.
I’m reminded of Downton Abbey where Mary had to marry her cousin (who died on the Titanic) and now married to her third cousin, Matthew, in order to keep the money in the Crawley family.
I’m not squigged out by the Roosevelts’ marriage or even Einstein marrying his cousin, but the Darwins, with the dramatic irony there. Emma and Charles were first cousins and the bonus of them marrying was keeping the money in the same family.
I have 42 first cousins. There are a couple that I might find marriageable, but no attraction. Family would disapprove, but they’d get over it, I suppose.
Both of my parents are only children, so I have no first cousins (or aunts/uncles).
When I started researching my family history about five years ago, I discovered a skeleton or two. My dad’s paternal grandparents (my great-grandparents) were first cousins!
My great-grandmother had mental health issues all of her life. She was institutionalized at the state mental hospital four times, the first being reat age 18. My great-grandfather married her when she was 23 and they had two sons (one being my grandfather) and one daughter. The daughter was mentally retarded. My great-grandmother killed herself at age 56 (self-inflicated shotgun blast into her mouth, pulling the trigger with her toe…not kiddinrg).
I’ve never met any relatives from my great-grandmother’s family and neither has my dad. She was already shunned by them because of her mental problems; then she was disowned for marrying her cousin.
I think we can file than under- “Did NOT turn out so good”!
But I do have a few SMOKIN’ HOT 2nd cousins! Luckily, for the sake of my family, they are all female and I’m gay…so no danger there!
