Should Marriage Between First Cousins Be Legal?

Should Marriage Between First Cousins Be Legal?

THE RELIGION GUY’S ANSWER:

Beliefs about this depend on what faith you follow, and where you live.

Let’s first explain a fuss in Britain that makes this so timely. On September 22, England’s Genomics Education Program in the government’s National Health Service (NHS) posted an online article providing “guidance” on marriages between first cousins.

That was logical because a pending bill in Parliament to make such unions illegal won support from 77% of Britons in a May YouGov poll, although passage is unlikely with no endorsement from the Labor Party government. Alarms raised in a February radio report and online article from the BBC, among other resources, have also energized public debate.

The NHS article admitted inbreeding can cause medical problems. But it stated that cousin marriage has “various potential benefits,” which  include “stronger extended family support systems and economic advantages (resources, property and inheritance can be consolidated rather than diluted across households).” It also warned that outlawing such marriages would “stigmatize certain communities and cultural traditions.” This is a very real concern because agitation against such  marriages, once very rare in Britain though legal, effectively targets Muslim immigrants, especially Pakistanis.

Problematic Links

Critics objected that the NHS was encouraging a practice that produces genetic diseases, isolates immigrants from the wider society within family enclaves, and fosters oppression of women. In the ensuing uproar, legal scholar Patrick Nash, co-founder of the Pharos Foundation think tank, declared that “cousin marriage is incest, plain and simple, and needs to be banned with the utmost urgency.” He complained that the NHS ignored the “proven links to honor violence, gender discrimination, multifarious forms of clan corruption, and the immense cost to the taxpayer.” Within days, the NHS was forced to remove the article, explaining that it was not a policy statement but only an attempt to summarize the public discussion.

The BBC report said that Pakistanis, with 3% of Britain’s births, accounted for just under one-third of children with genetic diseases. It cited the latest findings from unusual field research in the city of Bradford, where the population is 30% Muslim, that has monitored 13,000 children starting from infancy over the past 18 years. The study found that 37% of Pakistanis are married to first cousins, compared with 3% for other residents, though first cousin marriages have lately fallen to 27%.

Medical experts say first cousin marriage can increase infant mortality and double the odds of children with genetic anomalies like cystic fibrosis or sickle cell anemia. The Bradford findings broaden the debate by showing 11% probability of children from cousin marriage having speech and language difficulties (vs. 7% when parents are not related by blood), and that only 54% of cousin offspring achieve acceptable over-all development scores in England’s mandatory assessment tests (vs. 64% with non-related parentage). The Bradford survey also found that children of cousin marriage need a third more doctor appointments than others.

Scriptural Permission

Incest taboos against sexual relations and marriage involving close family relationships have been part of ingrained human morality throughout recorded history, and a concern of major religions for thousands of years. But just what relationships are incestuous? First cousin marriage is not forbidden under the consanguinity limits specified in the Bible of Jews and Christians (Leviticus 18:6-18) or the mahram (“prohibited”) principles in Islam’s Quran (4:23).

Pope Gregory the Great (reigned 590-604) added to Scripture and forbade marriages between first cousins, and Eastern Orthodoxy developed the same rule. Catholicism’s ecumenical Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 consolidated this restriction. The 1917 edition of the Code of Canon Law extended prohibition to second cousins but the revised Code now in force (#1091) bans only first cousin marriage.  Since this is not divine law specified in the Bible but only church law, Catholic bishops are able to issue dispensations from the rule, case by case. Protestants, who strictly follow Bible teaching, do not usually forbid first cousin marriage, though in practice it is rare.

With Muslim countries, the ingrained cultural pattern is distinctive. A 2009 article in the academic journal Reproductive Health reported cousin marriages range from a high of 67% in Saudi Arabia to lower but sizable numbers in Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Qatar, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen.

Early Islam

The founding history of Islam reinforces the practice. There is explicit scriptural endorsement (Quran 33:50) of the Prophet Muhammad’s marriage to the fifth of his 11 wives, Zaynab bint Jahsh, the daughter of his aunt Umaimah. (Quran 33:37 indicates controversy arose instead because she was an ex-wife of his adopted son Zayd.) Two of the first four Rightly Guided Caliphs who succeeded Muhammad as leader married their cousins. Because marriage is a possibility, modesty tradition with cousins of the opposite sex forbids physical contact such as hugging or shaking hands, and group socializing is advocated rather than occasions where the cousins meet alone.

A bit of British history: King Henry VIII married Anne Boleyn, and later had to loosen the law in order to licitly marry her first cousin, Catherine Howard, as his fifth wife. (Henry had both of these unfortunate queens beheaded.) Queen Victoria married her talented first cousin from Bavaria, Prince Albert. Famed evolution theorist Charles Darwin was born of a first-cousin marriage, and a study by his son George estimated that nearly 5% of 19^th Century marriage arrangements among British aristocrats involved first cousins.

During the current debate in European nations with Protestant backgrounds, Norway outlawed first cousin marriage last year, a ban in Sweden goes into effect in 2026, and The Netherlands is discussing such legislation. The United States presents a mixed picture. According to legalmatch.com, first cousin unions are currently allowed by 20 states that encompass a majority of the population, including California, Texas, Florida, and New York. In Delaware, a new bill from a Muslim member of the state Assembly would remove the prohibition on first-cousin marriage, while last year Tennessee imposed such a legal ban.