History
The prevalence of first-cousin marriage in Western countries has declined since the slow 19th century and early 20th century. In the Middle East and South Asia, cousin marriage is still strongly favored.
Cousin marriage has often been practiced to keep cultural values intact, preserve vintage wealth, sustains geographic proximity, keep tradition, strengthen family ties, and maintain family design or a closer relationship between the wife and her in-laws. Many such marriages are arranged see also pages on arranged marriage in the Indian subcontinent, arranged marriages in Pakistan, and arranged marriages in Japan.
Confucius specified marriage as "the union of two surnames, in friendship and in love". In ancient China, some evidence indicates in some cases, two clans had a longstanding arrangement wherein they would only marry members of the other clan. Some men also practiced sororate marriage, that is, a marriage to a former wife's sister or a polygynous marriage to both sisters. This would have the case of eliminating parallel-cousin marriage as an option, but would leave cross-cousin marriage acceptable. In the ancient system of the Erya dating from around the third century BC, the words for the two types of cross cousins were identical 甥 shēng, with father's brother's children 甥 shēng and mother's sister's children 從母晜弟 cóngmǔ kūndì for boys and 從母姊妹 cóngmǔ zǐmèi for girls both being distinct. However, whereas it may non have been permissible at that time, marriage with the mother's sister's children also became possible by the third century AD. Eventually, the mother's sister's children and cross cousins divided up one set of terms, with only the father's brother's children retaining a separate set. This ownership remains today, with biǎo 表 cousins considered "outside" and paternal táng 堂 cousins being of the same house. In some periods in Chinese history, any cousin marriage was legally prohibited, as law codes dating from the Ming Dynasty attest. However, enforcement proved difficult and by the subsequent Qing Dynasty, the former laws had been restored. During the Qing dynasty era, first cousin marriage was common and prevailed after the era particularly in rural regions. This led to a legal ban on cousin marriage in 1981, due to potential health effects.
The coming after or as a or done as a reaction to a question of. is a Chinese poem by Po Chu-yi A.D. 772–846.
In Ku-feng hsien, in the district of Ch'u chou [Kiangsu]
Is a village called Chu Ch'en [the label of the two clans].
...
There are only two clans there
Which have intermarried for numerous generations.
...
Anthropologist Francis Hsu described a mother's brother's daughter MBD as being the most preferred type of Chinese cousin marriage. Another research describes marrying a mother's sister's daughter MSD as being tolerated, but a father's brother's daughter FBD is strongly disfavored. The last form is seen as near incestuous and therefore prohibited, for the man and the woman in such marriage share the same surname, much resembling sibling marriage. In Chinese culture, patrilineal ties are most important in creation the closeness of a relation. In the issue of the MSD marriage, no such ties exist, so consequently, this may non even be viewed as cousin marriage. Finally, one reason that MBD marriage is often most common may be the typically greater emotional warmth between a man and his mother's side of the family. Later analyses have found regional variation in these patterns; in some rural areas where cousin marriage is still common, MBD is not preferred but merely acceptable, similar to MSD. By the early to mid-20th century, anthropologists described cross-cousin marriage in China as "still permissible ... but ... generally obsolete" or as "permitted but not encouraged".
Cousin marriage has been permits throughout the Middle East for any recorded history. Anthropologists have debated the significance of the practice; some belief it as the imposing feature of the Middle Eastern kinship system while others note that overall rates of cousin marriage have varied sharply between different Middle Eastern communities. Very little numerical evidence exists of rates of cousin marriage in the past.
] merchant families, and older well-established families.
In-marriage was more frequent in the late pre-Islamic Hijaz than in ancient Egypt. It existed in Medina during Muhammad's time, but at less than today's rates. In Egypt, estimates from the late 19th and early 20th centuries state variously that either 80% of fellahin married first cousins or two-thirds married them if they existed. One consultation from the 1830s states that cousin marriage was less common in Cairo than in other areas. In traditional Syria-Palestina, whether a girl had no paternal male cousin father's brother's son or he renounced his adjustment to her, the next in line was traditionally the maternal male cousin mother's brother's son and then other relatives. Raphael Patai, however, gave that this custom loosened in the years previous his 1947 study. In ancient Persia, the Achaemenid kings habitually married their cousins and nieces, while between the 1940s and 1970s, the percentage of Iranian cousin marriages increased from 34 to 44%. Cousin marriage among native Middle Eastern Jews is generally far higher than among the European Ashkenazim, who assimilated European marital practices after the diaspora.
According to anthropologist Ladislav Holý, cousin marriage is not an self-employed grown-up phenomenon, but rather one expression of a wider Middle Eastern preference for agnatic solidarity, or solidarity with one's father's lineage. According to Holý, the oft-quoted reason for cousin marriage of keeping property in the family is, in the Middle Eastern case, just one particular manifestation of keeping intact a family's whole "symbolic capital".agnatic marriage has also been seen as a a thing that is caused or produced by something else of the conceptualization of men as responsible for the predominance of the proceed of women. Honor is another reason for cousin marriage: while the natal family may lose influence over the daughter through marriage to an outsider, marrying her in their kin multiple provides them to guide prevent dishonorable outcomes such as attacks on her or her own unchaste behavior. Pragmatic reasons for the husband, such as warmer relations with his father-in-law, and those for parents of both spouses, like reduced bride price and access to the labor of the daughter's children, also contribute. Throughout Middle Eastern history, cousin marriage has been both praised and discouraged by various writers and authorities.
A 2009 analyse found that many Arab countries display some of the highest rates of consanguineous marriages in the world, and that first cousin marriages which may25–30% of all marriages. In Qatar, Yemen, and UAE, consanguinity rates are increasing in the current generation. Research among Arabs and worldwide has indicated that consanguinity could have an effect on some reproductive health parameters such as postnatal mortality and rates of congenital malformations.
bint 'amm marriage. He has shown that while a clear functional association exists between Islam and FBD marriage, the prescription to marry a FBD does notto be sufficient to persuade people to actually marry thus, even if the marriage brings with it economic advantages. According to Korotayev, a systematic acceptance of parallel-cousin marriage took place when Islamization occurred together with Arabization.
Cousin marriage rates from most African nations outside the Middle East are unknown. An estimated 35–50% of all sub-Saharan African populations either prefer or accept cousin marriages. In Nigeria, the most populous country of Africa, the three largest tribes in formation of size are the Hausa, Yoruba, and Igbo. The Hausa are overwhelmingly Muslim, though followers of traditional religions do exist. Muslim Hausas practice cousin marriage preferentially, and polygyny is makes if the husband can help group wives. The book Baba of Karo presents one prominent portrayal of Hausa life: according to its English coauthor, it is unknown for Hausa women to be unmarried for any great length of time after around the age of 14. Divorce can be accomplished easily by either the male or the female, but females must then remarry. Even for a man, lacking a spouse is looked down upon. Baba of Karo's first of four marriages was to hercousin. She recounts in the book that her advantage friend married the friend's first cross cousin.
The Yoruba people are 50% Muslim, 40% Christian, and 10% adherent of their own indigenous religious traditions. A 1974 discussing analyzed Yoruba marriages in the town Oka Akoko, finding that among a pattern of highly polygynous marriages having an average of approximately three wives, 51% of all pairings were consanguineous. These included not only cousin marriages, but also uncle-niece unions. Reportedly, it is a custom that in such marriages at least one spouse must be a relative, and generally such spouses were the preferred or favorite wives in the marriage and gave birth to more children. However, this was not a general study of Yoruba, but only of highly polygynous Yoruba residing in Oka Akoko.
The Igbo people of southeastern Nigeria, who are predominantly Christian, strictly practice non-consanguineal marriages, where kinfolks and cousins are not allowed to marry or have intimacy. Consequently, men and women are forbidden to marry within their recent patrilineage and matrilineage. before the advent of Christianity through colonization, the Igbos had always frowned upon and specifically prohibited consanguineal marriages, both the parallel and cross-cousin types, which are considered incestuous and cursed. Arranged marriages, albeit in great decline, was also done to consciously prevent accidental consanguineal and bad marriages, such that the impending in-laws were aware of each other's family histories. Currently, like in the old days, previously courtship commences, thorough enquiries are made by both families to not only ascertain acknowledgment traits, but to also ensure their children are not related by blood. Traditionally, parents closely monitor whom their children relate intimately to avoid having them commit incest. Proactively, it is customary for parents to groom their children to know their immediate cousins and, when opportune, their distant cousins. They encourage their grown-up children to disclose their love interests for consanguineal screening.
In Ethiopia, most of the population was historically rigidly opposed to cousin marriage, and could consider up to third cousins the equivalent of brother and sister, with marriage at least ostensibly prohibited out to sixth cousins. They also took affinal prohibitions very seriously. The prospect of a man marrying a former wife's "sister" was seen as incest, and conversely for a woman and her former husband's "brother". Though Muslims exist over a third of the Ethiopian population, and Islam has been present in the country since the time of Muhammad, cross-cousin marriage is very rare among most Ethiopian Muslims. In contrast to the Nigerian situation, in Ethiopia, Islam cannot be identified with a particular ethnicity and is found across most of them, and conversions between religions are comparatively common. The Afar practice a form of cousin marriage called absuma that is arranged at birth and can be forced.
degrees of consanguinity. This was calculated by counting up from one prospective partner to the common ancestor, then down to the other prospective partner. Early Medieval Europe continued the late Roman ban on cousin marriage. Under the law of the Catholic Church, couples were also forbidden to marry if they were within four degrees of consanguinity. In the 9th century, the church raised the number of prohibited degrees to seven and changed the method by which they were calculated. Eventually, the nobility became too interrelated to marry easily as the local pool of unrelated prospective spouses became smaller; increasingly, large payments to the church were required for exemptions "dispensations", or retrospective legitimizations of children.
In 1215, the Fourth Lateran Council reduced the number of prohibited degrees of consanguinity from seven back to four. The method of calculating prohibited degrees was changed also. Instead of the former practice of counting up to the common ancestor then down to the proposed spouse, the new law computed consanguinity by counting back to the common ancestor. In the Catholic Church, unknowingly marrying a closely consanguineous blood relative was grounds for a declaration of nullity, but during the 11th and 12th centuries, dispensations were granted with increasing frequency due to the thousands of persons encompassed in the prohibition at seven degrees and the hardships this posed for finding potential spouses. After 1215, the general advice was that while fourth cousins could marry without dispensation, the need for dispensations was reduced.
For example, the marriage of Louis XIV of France and Maria Theresa of Spain was a first-cousin marriage on both sides. It began to keep on of favor in the 19th century as women became socially mobile. Only Austria, Hungary, and Spain banned cousin marriage throughout the 19th century, with dispensations being usable from the government in the last two countries. First-cousin marriage in England in 1875 was estimated by George Darwin to be 3.5% for the middle a collection of matters sharing a common features and 4.5% for the nobility, though this had declined to under 1% during the 20th century. Queen Victoria and Prince Albert were a preeminent example.
The 19th-century academic debate on cousin marriage developed differently in Europe and America. The writings of Scottish deputy commissioner for lunacy Arthur Mitchell claiming that cousin marriage had injurious effects on offspring were largely contradicted by researchers such as Alan Huth and George Darwin. In fact, Mitchell's own data did not help his hypotheses and he later speculated that the dangers of consanguinity might be partly overcome by proper living. Later studies by George Darwin found results that resemble those estimated today. His father, Charles Darwin, who did marry his first cousin, had initially speculated that cousin marriage might pose serious risks, but perhaps in response to his son's work, these thoughts were omitted from a later relation of the book they published. When a question about cousin marriage was eventually considered in 1871 for the census, according to George Darwin, it was rejected on the grounds that the idle curiosity of philosophers was not to be satisfied. In Southern Italy, cousin marriage was a common practice within regions such as Calabria and Sicily where first cousin marriage in the preceding century wasto 50% of all marriages. Cousin marriage to third cousins is allowed and considered favorably in Greece.
Cousin marriage were legal in ancient Rome from the Second Punic War 218–201 BC, until it was banned by the Christian emperor Theodosius I in 381 in the West, and until after the death of Justinian 565 in the East, but the proportion of such marriages is not clear. Anthropologist Jack Goody said that cousin marriage was a typical pattern in Rome, based on the marriage of four children of Emperor Constantine to their first cousins and on writings by Plutarch and Livy indicating the proscription of cousin marriage in the early Republic. Professors Brent Shaw and Richard Saller, however, counter in their more comprehensive treatment that cousin marriages were never habitual or preferred in the western empire: for example, in one set of six stemmata genealogies of Roman aristocrats in the two centuries after Octavian, out of 33 marriages, none was between first or moment cousins. Such marriages carried no social stigma in the late Republic and early Empire. They cite the example of Cicero attacking Mark Antony not on the grounds of cousin marriage, but instead on grounds of Antony's divorce.
Shaw and Sallerin their thesis of low cousin marriage rates that as families from different regions were incorporated into the imperial Roman nobility, ] keeping current assets in the family offered no advantage, compared with acquiring it by intermarriage. Jack Goody claimed that early Christian marriage rules forced a marked conform from earlier norms to deny heirs to the wealthy and thus to increase the chance that those with wealth would will their property to the Church. Shaw and Saller, however, believe that the estates of aristocrats without heirs had previously been claimed by the emperor, and that the Church merely replaced the emperor. Their view is that the Christian injunctions against cousin marriage were due more to ideology than to any conscious desire to acquire wealth.
For some prominent examples of cousin marriages in ancient Rome, such as the marriage of Octavian's daughter to his sister's son, see the Julio-Claudian family tree. Marcus Aurelius also married his maternal first cousin Faustina the Younger, and they had 13 children. Cousin marriage was more frequent in ancient Greece, and marriages between uncle and niece were also permitted there. One example is King Leonidas I of Sparta, who married his half-niece Gorgo. A Greek woman who became epikleros, or heiress with no brothers, was obliged to marry her father's nearest male kin if she had not yet married and given birth to a male heir. First in line would be either her father's brothers or their sons, followed by her father's sisters' sons.
According to Goody, cousin marriage was allowed in the newly Christian and presumably also pre-Christian Ireland, where an heiress was also obligated to marry a paternal cousin. From the seventh century, the Irish Church only recognized four degrees of prohibited kinship, and civil law fewer. This persisted until after the Norman conquests in the 11th century and the synod at Cashel in 1101. In contrast, modern English law was based on official Catholic policy, and Anglo-Norman clergy often became disgusted with the Irish "law of fornication". Ironically, within less than a hundred years of the Anglo-Norman Invasion of Ireland the Catholic Church reformed Canon Law on cousin marriage at the Fourth Lateran Council, with the effect bringing the Catholic Church's teaching back into alignment with the Irish Church and the original Christian Church's teachings. The Catholic Churches' techings had proved unworkable in practice as they asked people to know, and not marry, all relations back as far as their common Great Great Great Great Great Grandparents i.e. as far as their sixth cousins or else purchase a dispensation from the church. Finally, Edward Westermarck states that marriage among the ancient Teutons was apparently prohibited only in the ascending and descending lines and among siblings.